President George W. Bush said:
“One basic difference between democracies and dictatorships is that free countries confront such abuses [the tortures] openly and directly.”

I would like to believe in the meaning of that statement, but I don’t want to fool myself.

Secretary of Sate Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, according to the ICRC, were informed about the tortures and bad treatments to the Iraqi prisoners since January 2004. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top military officers knew about the tortures matter but they attempted to avoid the scandal during several months. In January, representatives of the ICRC also met with Powell, Wolfowitz, and Rice in Washington and showed their concern to them. British authorities also knew of the tortures since about a year ago (AI).

If they were aware of the abuses long ago, and if this is a democracy, why they did not “confront” the issue “openly and directly”? Is it because the difference between democracies and dictatorships is just propaganda?

President Bush, certainly, may know about it: “Gee, if this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier… just as long as I am the dictator.”

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