Just re-read the 2nd Hersh New Yorker article, and did a double take...

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact2

In late March, before the Abu Ghraib scandal became publicly known, Geoffrey Miller was transferred from Guantánamo and named head of prison operations in Iraq. “We have changed this—trust us,” Miller told reporters in early May. “There were errors made. We have corrected those. We will make sure that they do not happen again.”



Why the hell would anyone trust him?

Have you seen any info coming out of Guantanamo? That is why this guy has been named the "head person" in Iraq.

When it first came out, it seemed unbelievable to me. Now it looks like a truthful account:
<snip>
The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists, feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection. He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin. Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements - giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose around the American base.

He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the Extreme Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear, raining blows on them. Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules brought severe punishment. Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more drastic than required, claimed Jamal. A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates malnourished.

But Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to torment the most religiously devout detainees. Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to watch as the hookers touched their own naked bodies.

The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation.

<snip>
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=14042696_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-MY-HELL-IN-CAMP-X-RAY-name_page.html

note that the British prisoners said they didn't bother using the hookers with them, because the jailers knew it wouldn't have much meaning for someone who grew up in the West. It was all calculated.

...maybe he's actually saying that digital cameras will no longer be allowed in the Abu Ghraib prison facility. I don't think we've seen much in the way of pics or videos out of Gitmo yet, and that's where Miller was last assigned.

They're used to blackmail inmates by threatening to show them to all the prisoners' friends and neighbors.

whole-body MRI scans for hidden CDs and flash memory have been done on everyone in theater!

He's also reiterated his support for HIS policy, which was to involve MPs in "creating conditions favorable to interrogation" and interrogation itself. He thinks MPs just need to be better trained at it. Softening up will continue, but only with direct approval.

The man sent in to "save" the Iraq prison system is the one who created the mess to begin with. How can he rescue it? His "plan" was supposedly never directly approved by superiors, yet it proceeds as military policy. Am I missing something here?