Seymour Hersch's infuriating piece on General Taguba and his hamstrung investigation of the Abu Ghraib atrocities.

If there was a redeeming aspect to the affair, it was in thethoroughness and the passion of the Armys initial investigation. Theinquiry had begun in January, and was led by General Taguba, who wasstationed in Kuwait at the time. Taguba filed his report in March. Init he found:

Numerousincidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses wereinflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse.

Taguba was met at thedoor of the conference room by an old friend, Lieutenant General BantzJ. Craddock, who was Rumsfelds senior military assistant. Craddocksdaughter had been a babysitter for Tagubas two children when theofficers served together years earlier at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Butthat afternoon, Taguba recalled, Craddock just said, very coldly,Wait here. In a series of interviews early this year, the first hehas given, Taguba told me that he understood when he began the inquirythat it could damage his career; early on, a senior general in Iraq hadpointed out to him that the abused detainees were only Iraqis. Evenso, he was not prepared for the greeting he received when he wasfinally ushered in.

Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Tagubaof theTaguba report! Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting wasattended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfelds deputy; Stephen Cambone, theUnder-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers,chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General PeterSchoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and otherofficials. Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later,said, sadly, I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted toknow. I was ignorant of the setting.

In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib.Could you tell us what happened? Wolfowitz asked. Someone else asked,Is it abuse or torture? At that point, Taguba recalled, I describeda naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with aninterrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, Thats not abuse.Thats torture. There was quiet.

Rumsfeld was particularly concerned about how the classified report hadbecome public. General, he asked, who do you think leaked thereport?

(snip)

I learned from Taguba that the first wave of materials includeddescriptions of the sexual humiliation of a father with his son, whowere both detainees. Several of these images, including one of an Iraqiwoman detainee baring her breasts, have since surfaced; others havenot. (Tagubas report noted that photographs and videos were being heldby the C.I.D. because of ongoing criminal investigations and theirextremely sensitive nature.) Taguba said that he saw a video of amale American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee. Thevideo was not made public in any of the subsequent court proceedings,nor has there been any public government mention of it. Such imageswould have added an even more inflammatory element to the outcry overAbu Ghraib. Its bad enough that there were photographs of Arab menwearing womens panties, Taguba said.

Read the rest ASAP. For Andrew Sullivan's take, go here.

Update: What would Taguba have found if his investigation hadn't been handcuffed? Read Spencer Ackerman on the separate, harsher interrogation tactics permitted for Special Ops Forces. More from Dan Froomkin here (thanks again to Andrew for staying on this). Short of it: Bush knew, and did nothing.