If you go to Page 17 of the national edition of the June 25 New York Times, stop at a story headed “Bipartisan Group to Speak Out on Detainees,” then scroll down to the ninth paragraph, you will find the following statement by retired Major General Antonio Taguba:

“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”

Taguba made his stunning statement in the preface to a report released June 17 by Physicians for Human Rights. Sounded newsworthy to me, so when I could find no mention of it on or about the 17th in the Times I e-mailed the paper’s public editor questioning the omission. Perhaps he prodded Times editors to get Taguba’s statement into the paper.

Even so, a buried reference in a story a week late at the bottom of a page deep inside the Times doesn’t begin to do justice to what the paper itself described as Taguba’s “blistering” accusation. After all, the general led the investigation of what he found to be “horrific” acts of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison; he charged in his 2004 report that actions at the prison constituted “grave breaches of international law.”

So when someone with Taguba’s credentials uses “torture” and “war crimes” in the same breath as “the current administration,” it demands attention by the press, including extensive follow-up. That’s particularly true since the Abu Ghraib investigation was carefully circumscribed to protect higher-ups in the chain of command. Taguba’s investigation, conducted under orders from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, was restricted to the actions of a single military police brigade during a three-month period.

Prisoners in U.S. hands have been battered, even killed, in flat-out violation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The U.S. is a party to the convention. The evidence of mistreatment is overwhelming, and it comes not just from detainees but from Red Cross and FBI eyewitneses.

McClatchy’s Washington bureau, which led the way in covering the build-up to the Iraq war, is going all-out to report on the shameful treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. McClatchy’s work, however, has limited reach.

[Click here for a NiemanWatchdog piece on charges of war crimes, including Taguba's statement, and here for a NiemanWatchdog interview with McClatchy's Washington editor.]

Bush administration lawyers, aided in part by Congress, have done their best to shield higher-ups from accountability. The press as a whole ought to be inspired by Taguba to get to work to assure that those ultimately reponsible for torture and war crimes are held to account.