by TChris

Can we trust the Pentagon to investigate itself? In addition to criminal investigations of specific abuse allegations, the military has opened six broader investigations into the treatment of prisoners. But by charging each investigation with a narrow and specific task, the Pentagon assures itself that no investigation is likely to follow the evidence very far up the chain of command.

None of the investigations has been assigned to look specifically at higher-ups at the Pentagon, or at leadership in Central Command, which has responsibility for Iraq. Even the investigation most eagerly anticipated by Congress, Maj. Gen. George Fay's look at military interrogators, is expected to stop well short of determining if any responsibility lies with top generals or Pentagon policy-makers, because Fay's probe is designed to focus on the role of military intelligence at the prison.

Only an independent investigation can reach to the top of the Pentagon.

"No one who is a uniformed officer is going to have the authority to get into [questioning] Rumsfeld" or his top deputies, said Scott Silliman, a military justice expert and law professor at Duke University. "The only way you're going to crack that nut is to have either the statutorily independent [Pentagon] inspector general take a look at it, or Congress."

Donald Rumsfeld undoubtedly hoped to preempt an independent investigation by appointing a panel, headed by former defense secretary James Schlesinger, to review the military's detention operations and decide whether further inquiries are warranted. But the panel, hand-picked by Rumsfeld, is hardly independent, as evidenced by remarks made by one of its members, former Republican Congresswoman Tillie Fowler, who insists that Rumsfeld will not be a focus of the panel's investigation.