On May 5, 2004, shortly after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, President Bush pledged a full investigation, stating "That's what we do in America. We fully investigate; we let everybody see the results of the investigation; and the people will be held to account."
One year later - and now that the election is over -- it appears that this statement was just one in a series of unmet Bush promises. There was never a full investigation - just a few sham hearings in the House and Senate and internal Administration inquiries that never went anywhere. The results were never made fully public. And the only ones held to account were low ranking soldiers, even though we all know that the lax controls and atmosphere of intolerance and abuse came from on high in the White House and the Defense Department.
As a result, as those of you who regularly read Raw Story, Buzzflash, Kos (via Apian), and my own blog know, on Friday, 50 House colleagues and I wrote to Attorney General Gonzales asking him to appoint a special counsel to investigate prisoner abuse and torture in Iraq, Guantanamo and Afghanistan.
While there is no guarantee that Gonzales will respond, I believe that the sheer weight of having 51 duly elected Members of Congress pose the request makes it very difficult to simply ignore it. Moreover, merely by making the request, it is my hope that additional information can come forward that will help us pursue justice in this matter. For example, I learned of many of the Ohio voting irregularities after I asked GAO to investigate. I have obtained invaluable research and tips concering the now infamous "Downing Street Memo" based on my reading of the comments to these diaries and my own blog.
This is the only Administration since Watergate that has refused to initiate a single independent inquiry into its own misconduct. I asked for special counsels to investigate the Haliburton, Enron, and Valerie Plane matters to know avail. But now that we have allegations that go to the very core of our international credibility - including the recent charges concerning desecrating the Koran -- it is more important than ever that we have an independent investigation. After all, how can any country take our pleas for democracy and accountability seriously, when we won't even conduct a complete, independent, and credible investigation of credible allegations of war crimes by U.S. officials?
President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales, are you listening? Are you finally prepared to "investigate" to "let everybody see the results" and to hold "the people to ... account?"