U.S. officials refuse to take responsibility BY WILLIAM O'ROURKE

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That, of course, is what the White House says about the Iraq war all together: that we're the good guys, bringing democracy to the oppressed people of Iraq. If we engage in atrocities, or war crimes, it is by accident, or it is an aberration. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld doesn't consider the pictured abuse ''torture,'' in any case. That we used one of Saddam Hussein's most infamous prisons at all, hadn't torn it down, shows a fatal lack of understanding of our supposed purpose in Iraq.

The treatment of prisoners in Iraq follows the Afghanistan model. The military kept John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban, in a metal box.

And combatants are still kept in cages in Guantanamo. Why would we expect better behavior in Iraq? Some state-side American prisons have been hell-holes that eventually became ignominious enough to be reformed or closed; suspects are beaten in city jails.

But it is the failure to take responsibility for anything that has become the Bush administration's hallmark. The military did its job.

The Army's report on the abuse was completed in February, but the top brass and the Bush administration didn't act until CBS broadcast the pictures. For the White House, that was a familiar response. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who ran the Iraq prisons, also claims no knowledge of the abuses taking place under her watch. Karpinski has done little to promote equality of the sexes in the military, except in showing the same eagerness to disavow responsibility.

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more: http://www.suntimes.com/output/orourke/cst-edt-rour09.html

almost everything that comes from the mouths of neocons: holistically all they say is a big lie, a big diversion, or a big cover up!