Brigadier Gen­er­al David Irvine and Human Rights First’s David Danzig write about the case of Chief War­rant Offi­cer Ter­ry Welshofer, recent­ly con­vict­ed of neg­li­gent homi­cide and dere­lic­tion of duty for beat­ing an Iraqi gen­er­al and smoth­er­ing him in a sleep­ing bag. They dig into the sub­text of the light sen­tence – a let­ter of rep­ri­mand, two months’ con­fine­ment to post, and for­fei­ture of $6,000 in pay – which they refer to as “revenge upon the prosecution”:

The jury’s deci­sion also under­scores the pat­tern in the Army and at the Pen­ta­gon of enforc­ing account­abil­i­ty for pris­on­er tor­ture at the bot­tom of the ranks, with­out any seri­ous effort to enforce it at the top. If Welshofer was sin­gled out by pros­e­cu­tors for “try­ing to save sol­diers’ lives” under ambigu­ous or con­tra­dic­to­ry com­mand guid­ance — which his defense attor­neys ham­mered at over and over dur­ing the court mar­tial — why has­n’t the Army focused its pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al lasers on those gen­er­als who fum­bled the com­mand guid­ance, or upon those colonels who were respon­si­ble for see­ing that only approved inter­ro­ga­tion tech­niques were put to use?

One strik­ing fact to come out of the Welshofer tri­al was that he was oper­at­ing on his own, with lit­tle direct super­vi­sion by his com­pa­ny com­man­der, or the com­man­ders up the chain of com­mand. Were the jurors aware that of all the gen­er­als whose fin­ger­prints were on Abu Ghraib, only one was ever dis­ci­plined by receiv­ing a reduc­tion in rank to colonel? Was it lost upon the jurors that the reg­i­men­tal com­man­der, for whom Welshofer was his prized inter­ro­ga­tion “sub­ject-mat­ter expert,” was now serv­ing in a plum Pen­ta­gon post while Welshofer was fac­ing life in prison? This jux­ta­po­si­tion sure­ly must have seemed dis­cor­dant to the jury, espe­cial­ly know­ing that the Army Field Man­u­al — also known as the Army’s “oper­a­tions bible” — states: “The com­man­der is respon­si­ble for all his unit does or fails to do.”

It may also have seemed dis­cor­dant that an Army war­rant offi­cer alone was in the dock for alleged bru­tal­i­ty and tor­ture when “oth­er U.S. civil­ians” involved in Mow­housh’s cap­ture — pre­sum­ably mean­ing CIA per­son­nel and the Iraqi para­mil­i­taries in their employ — severe­ly beat an ene­my army flag offi­cer, who was clear­ly enti­tled to Gene­va Con­ven­tions pro­tec­tions, with­in an inch of his life.

If Welshofer was act­ing on orders, respon­si­bil­i­ty should flow up. If he act­ed with­out orders due to inad­e­quate super­vi­sion, respon­si­bil­i­ty should flow up.