We can’t undo the torture — but we can turn away its perpetrators

SO do you think we should welcome President Bush to Ireland in June?

Do you think we should spend €10 million or €15m on his security? Do you think we should bring in more water cannons to ensure that legitimate protesters are frightened away? Do you think our leaders should go down to wherever he is cloistered, to be photographed with him and issue a communiqué of banalities about EU/US relations? Do you think our leaders should confirm, if asked, that Shannon is still available to any US soldier who needs to land there? If you do, maybe you should get hold of a copy of Article 15-6 Investigation of 800th Military Police Brigade. It's not easy reading, partly because it contains a lot of US military jargon. And partly because some of the material in the report would make anyone wince.

But it's essential, especially to anyone who wants to understand how a military adventure, conceived out of expediency, can become entirely debased and degraded in the hands of the victors. The document is the US army's report on the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners most of them petty criminals with no connection whatever to the collapsed regime of Saddam Hussein or the Al-Qaida movement.