Former Secretary of Defense James “Schlesinger told a news conference Tuesday [August 24, 2004] that the four-member independent panel he chaired found that abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib [prison in Iraq] represented ‘deviant behavior and a failure of military leadership and discipline’ at the facility. He said the panel, appointed by [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld in May, found that the higher chain of command held direct and indirect responsibility for those acts and others elsewhere. The prison’s weaknesses were no secret, and they should have been fixed, said Schlesinger… ‘We believe that there is institutional and personal responsibility right up the chain of command as far as Washington is concerned,’ Schlesinger said. ‘There was sadism on the night shift at Abu Ghraib, sadism that was certainly not authorized,’ Schlesinger said. ‘It was kind of *Animal House* on the night shift.’ ”
– “General: Some Abu Ghraib Abuse was Torture,” CNN.com, Aug. 26, 2004