Where Does the Buck Stop in Prison Scandal?

Re “Abuse Investigation Includes 25 Deaths,” May 5: Americans, where is your outrage? Now we read that the president learned of these abuses of Iraqi prisoners in late December or early January, and he only now speaks of investigating? Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard B. Myers said that as of Tuesday they hadn’t read the full report?

The incompetent liars in our government are a disgrace to our country and our Constitution. No one at the top takes responsibility for the lack of oversight and the haphazard way that Iraq is being administered -- a result of a rush to war without a plan for the future. Whatever happened to “the buck stops here”?

Patricia Moore

Los Angeles

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Is this another example of the secrecy under which our administration continues to operate -- the sloughing off of a report on the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by Rumsfeld and Myers? It’s appalling that a six-month investigation has no follow-up by high-ranking officials until our free press (i.e., the New Yorker magazine and CBS’ “60 Minutes II”) broke the story last week.

When do the ends justify the means? And we scream the loudest when our American prisoners are not treated according to the laws of decency and honor.

Anita C. Singer

Laguna Woods

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Why do Iraqis think it’s OK to kill, burn and mutilate Americans, and celebrate while it’s happening, but get upset over a few pictures of live Iraqis supposedly getting mistreated? As long as their priorities are backward, Iraqis will never be able to step out of the shadow of their former dictator.

Raul Perez

Chino

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America’s international image was dealt a serious blow by the sickening photographs and videotapes of U.S. military police -- male and female -- gleefully engaging in salacious acts of abuse and humiliation on naked Iraqi detainees. The shocking matter appears to be indefensible, and yet some of your readers found a way (letters, May 4).

One reader saw the helpless victims as “hard-core insurgents” and their licentious mistreatment as legitimate “interrogations.” Another reader found the “humiliation” of the Iraqi prisoners no big deal because Arabs killed an Israeli soldier and tortured and beheaded a U.S. reporter. He cinched his argument be observing that “I had a college frat initiation that was a worse torture than the Iraqis received.” Makes one think.

William J. McGee

Tustin

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The humiliation, abuse and now murder of POWs being held by Americans is just tragic. We don’t do that type of thing. We’re supposed to set the example; to stand for something higher. The day that the American soldier is compared with terrorists and thugs is indeed a very sad day.

The question begs to be asked: What would cause these Americans to betray the principles and values we stand for?

Brian Lipson

Beverly Hills