Review: Chain of Command, the Abu Ghraib Investigations
| Author | Dean Williams |
| Published date | 01 September 2006 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200606100318 |
| Date | 01 September 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| International Journal | Summer 2006 | 763 |
| Reviews |
have been influenced by a desire to favour his “own” constituency (141). An
occasional “bloomer” relieves the pain, for example, the author’s reference
to the “knave” (137) of the St Paul’s Anglican Church in Gaspé!
The text raises but fails to resolve a number of important questions.
Who was responsible for the Royal Canadian Navy’s initial, serious failures
as well as its remarkable recovery between 1942-44: the military profes-
sionals or the politicians? To what extent is the author’s intriguing sugges-
tion valid that the Royal Navy may have been used the RCN as a scapegoat
for its failures? Certainly the RN “raided the RCN of technicians; and the
Canadian government’s decision to accede to the British government’s
request for corvettes to support operation Torch precipitated the closing of
the St Lawrence” (143). Although the text contains fleeting reminders of the
Holocaust, references to the “nazification” of the German naval forces,
especially its U-Bootwaffe, and raises the issue of personal and collective
“responsibility,” none of these subjects is the focus of sustained analysis.
The result is that it is difficult to recommend this book to any audience;
there are already far better books available on the subject.
Carman Miller/McGill University
CHAIN OF COMMAND
The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
Seymour M. Hersh
New York: Harper Collins, 2004. xxii, 394pp, $36.95 cloth (ISBN 0-06-
019591-6)
THE ABU GHRAIB INVESTIGATIONS
The Official Reports of the Independent Panel and the Pentagon on the Shocking
Prisoner Abuse in Iraq
Edited by Steven Strasser
New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. xxvi, 181pp, $19.95 paper (ISBN 1-58648-
319-6)
If the claim, “I was only following orders” offends our notion of moral
action (and the reality of military law), then its obverse, “I take full respon-
sibility,” can all too easily offend logic and the weight of evidence. Such is
the case of Specialist Sabrina Harman, convicted in May 2005 on six of
seven counts of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib during 2003. Legal respon-
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