Abu Ghraib: What Really Matters
Dotty Lynch is the Senior Political Editor for CBS News. E-mail your questions and comments to Political Points
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a telling admission to the Senate committee on Friday. Yes, he knew about the abuses and had told President Bush about the investigation on a checklist of eight to fifteen items last winter. But he hadn't mentioned the pictures and that's what pushed the President over the edge. The White House told reporters that the President chastised Rummy not for the abuses, but for failing to alert him to the pictures.
In the interview on 60 Minutes II, General Mark Kimmit told CBS News Anchor Dan Rather "It's reprehensible that anybody would be taking a picture of that situation." Rather asked the telling question "What about the situation itself?" Kimmit then said, almost as an afterthought, that we didn't know all the facts and of course it is terrible and is being investigated. But the situation itself seemed secondary to the images of it.
Is it the reality of the abuses – or the pictures of them - that is so troubling? The administration has gone out of its way to block the pictures of the flag-draped caskets returning from Iraq claiming they are a violation of the soldiers and families privacy. But, the politics behind this policy is blatant.
It has been a truism since Vietnam that what turned the public against the war weren't the print reports but the TV pictures of battles and body bags. The first TV war brought home the death and destruction and turned the public against the war.
Lesley Stahl, my colleague here at CBS, has the classic story about politicians' belief in the power of pictures. During the 1984 campaign, she did a story on the CBS Evening News which she thought was the toughest she had ever done on Ronald Reagan. She feared the administration would never answer her phone calls again . Suddenly the phone rang and she braced to get chewed out. "Great piece. We loved it," presidential advisor Dick Darman told her.
"You what?" Stahl said. "We loved it!" he repeated. " We're in the middle of a campaign and you gave us four-and-a-half minutes of great pictures of Ronald Reagan. And that's all the American people see. Nobody listens to what you say!"
That's the mentality - and maybe the reality - that came through loud and clear at the hearing on Friday. Until the pictures were broadcast -and until the Arab world reacted in horror - the Pentagon didn't act like it had a very serious problem. The abuses were "being investigated" but the pictures caused a PR problem and calls for Rumsfeld's head. "Pearl Harbor of a political and PR problem," said Rep. Tom Cole. Nothing like a PR problem to grab the attention of a modern executive.
One of Rumsfeld's solutions was designing a process which can cope with technological changes like digital cameras. Probably easier - and certainly more clinical and efficient - than dealing with brutality.
Rumsfeld said that "there are a lot more photographs and videos that exist and if these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse." And the speculation is that another round of pictures will cost Rumsfeld his job. Another false issue that Washington is fixating on.
The horror here is not Donald Rumsfeld's career or his apology or even the pictures. The horror is the brutality and abuse itself, what caused it and how widespread it is. These are the real questions that need answers and solutions.
By Dotty Lynch