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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (573420)	5/9/2004 5:12:54 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

poor poor rejek, all confused if someone mis-spells a word. How very predictable. Bad news for the demoscum... Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal Angers Troops May 9, 2:47 PM (ET) By ANWAR FARUQI CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar (AP) - When U.S. troops in Iraq sit down for a meal or hang out after a shift, conversations drift to the prison-abuse scandal that has shocked the world, with most expressing outrage, soldiers on leave in Qatar said Sunday. But the soldiers insisted that despite doubts among some of them about the legitimacy of the war, the scandal has not affected morale because of the strong bonds troops have with buddies in their units. "This was morally wrong. If you're given an illegal order, even by a superior, you shouldn't do it. You go to a higher authority. We're taught that," said Staff Sgt. Nancy Wellons-Stewart, who is based in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. "Those people should be punished." She blamed superiors for not putting a stop to the abuses. "I don't believe that just one person could have done this on their own. They did this as a group," said Wellons-Stewart, of Pittsburgh. Like other soldiers interviewed by The Associated Press, Wellons-Stewart is on a four-day, three-night "out" to the Gulf state of Qatar, where U.S. Central Command, which oversees the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, is based. Most soldiers said they were spending their leave shopping, chowing on fast food and taking military-organized cruises. Photographs of U.S. military police humiliating Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad have triggered an international furor, leading to repeated apologies from President Bush and top military officials. Seven prison guards have been criminally charged. The scandal has embarrassed the U.S. military, but most of the troops interviewed Sunday described it as misconduct by a group of soldiers gone bad, and they said it should not reflect on other Americans in uniform. "We're in Iraq to do a job. What happened in the prisons was the work of a select few. All Americans are not like that," said Spc. Delando D. Miles, 25. "The blame for what happened should go only to the people who did it." He said morale fluctuates often among the troops in Iraq, and that he sometimes believes the conflict is "pointless and worthless" and will never end. But he and others said they have not seen changes in morale as a result of the scandal. Some soldiers blamed their superiors for the problems at Abu Ghraib. "Where was the senior leadership? And how did this get so far?" asked Sgt. Glenda J. Bush, of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. "We do talk about this among ourselves," she said. "What we believe is that we wouldn't want to be treated like that, so others should not have been treated this way, either." Despite their outrage at the prison abuses and the subsequent comparisons of Iraq to the war in Vietnam, all the soldiers who spoke to AP said they were committed to their mission. Three weeks ago, Miles went home to Woodville, Miss., on a 15-day break from his Iraq tour. All he could think about were the buddies he left behind. "I kept wishing there was a number I could call to talk to them or something," he said. "I couldn't wait to get back. My mom thought I was crazy." apnews.myway.com