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"one comes to hate those savages....hate them to the death....Exterminate all the brutes!" In exhorting his troops, Steele called them "predators" and Iraqis "prey." His order - kill them for a big body count.
In appealing his November 9, 2005 - November 8, 2006 evaluation report preventing his promotion to full Colonel, Johnson added:
"Throughout the duration of my command tenure, Colonel Steele's attitude toward me and my battalion created a dysfunction and intentionally hostile command environment....(He) constantly articulated his judgment and displeasure that my battalion was not being aggressive enough toward the insurgents....He bullied and intimidated my company commanders and questioned them behind my back." The four targeted soldiers "implicated Colonel Steele (as a toxic leader), and he received a letter of reprimand from the Corp Commander."
Military documents, in fact, showed he acted illegally, caused four Iron Triangle deaths, and got four soldiers convicted for their commander's crime. Yet he escaped accountability with deputy division commander, Brig. General Thomas Maffey, citing his "miscommunication" (of the rules and) his honest belief of the correctness of the mission ROE."
Senate Committee Blames Higher-Ups for Soldier Abuses
The fall 2008 Levin-McCain Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody concluded that White House officials, their lawyers, and top Pentagon commanders were responsible for the Abu Ghraib abuses, not so-called "rotten apples." Still, they were wrongly imprisoned and never exonerated, while administration practices went unchallenged, and continue under a new president as official US policy.
Yet on May 10, 2007, General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command said:
"What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight....is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also human beings."
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