We didn't look and found nothing

A report comes at the end of the month raising the number of soldiers recommended for discipline as a result of Abu Ghraib will be raised from seven to more than two dozen. The report will also claim that it is the low level servicemen who are responsible for the actions and no one higher than the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade's commander will receive reprimand.

That's because the investigator decided not to look any higher.

Three weeks ago, Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek, the Army's inspector general, briefed Congress on his review of detainee operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mikolashek told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he is convinced that a small number of soldiers and low-level officers were responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. He made 52 recommendations for changes in detainee and interrogation operations.

(snip)

"We think it ended there," Mikolashek told the Senate committee. "That's where the problem was."

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee seemed to disagree with his assessment:

"I don't think you've done the job you're supposed to do," said Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat. "One of the systemic issues, I think, is the responsiveness of the chain of command at the highest levels to reports of abuse."

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, pressed Mikolashek on the use of dogs during interrogations.

"Unmuzzled dogs, is that in keeping with those policies or violations of those policies?" McCain asked.

"Sir, an unmuzzled dog, to be used in an interrogation, is in violation," Mikolashek responded.

"And yet those were approved by General Sanchez," McCain said.

Mikolashek responded, "Sir, we found no evidence of an unmuzzled dog to be approved by General Sanchez."

"We did," McCain said.

It does take a certain amount of moxie to report back to a committee with less information than they already had, doesn't it?