The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

In December of 2008, both Senators Carl Levin, and John McCain reported their findings on the classless conduct that had been going on at Abu Ghraib. They concluded that the upper echelons of the Bush administration, as well as Donald Rumsfeld, had a major responsibility for the abuse and various torture methods that went on. Their report also rejected the denial that Donald Rumsfeld and others had anything to do with the mistreatment of the prisoners. Another focus of both Senators Levin, and McCain was the Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) methods. SERE was meant to be for U.S. troops only in the event that they were to be caught and tortured. However SERE was never meant to be tried on detainees in the custody of the U.S. At the conclusion of what both Senators found Levin stated that “The abuses at Abu Ghraib GTMO and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples,” and that everyone had to be held accountable for what was ordered. Passing the buck to lower ranking soldiers wouldn’t be tolerated, and could be seen as pure negligence.