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Heads Must RollTwo magazines think Rumsfeld should pay for Abu Ghraib.

By Josh LevinUpdated Friday, May 7, 2004, at 5:44 PM ET

New Republic, May 17; Economist, May 8
Rummy punch: Both magazines argue that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should take the fall for the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib. The Economist's cover story says Rumsfeld is the caretaker of "the wider culture to which these abuses may be connected." One example of that culture: The "dubious interrogation methods" used on the enemy combatants held at Guantanamo. The New Republic's TRB explains that the torture of Iraqi prisoners has the same root cause as the Unites States' other Iraq postwar failures: Rumsfeld's "ideology above experience" insistence that there were enough troops on the ground. Although Abu Ghraib was overcrowded, there weren't nearly enough guards on hand, and those who were there were undertrained.

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Religion and golf: TNR's cover story profiles Dr. K.A. Paul, an Indian religious leader and "spiritual adviser to the scum of the earth." The 40-year-old, who was raised Hindu before converting to Christianity, has advised Haitian rebel Guy Philippe, Saddam Hussein, and most famously, Liberia's Charles Taylor, whom Paul convinced to go into exile. But while he ministers to crowds in the hundreds of thousands abroad, Paul is frustrated by his anonymity in America. So far, he's recruited boxer Evander Holyfield to help in fund raising and hired a PR firm, all to no avail. … The Economist notes the rising popularity of golf in China. While the first course wasn't built until 20 years ago, there are now 200, with 1,000 more in the works. That is, there were, until the government halted construction, worried that golf takes up too much arable land, causes water shortages, and pushes peasants and farmers off their land.

GQ, June 2004
Two weeks before the issue hits newsstands, GQ went online with this feature on Colin Powell. The breaking news, buried at the end of the piece, comes from Powell's chief of staff Larry Wilkerson: "He's tired. Mentally and physically. And if the president were to ask him to stay on … he might for a transitional period, but I don't think he'd want to do another four years." Though Powell's preference for diplomacy in Iraq has left him alienated from the hawkish president and Department of Defense, he's still been an effective secretary of state. Powell has helped ease tensions in Libya and Taiwan, resisted sending troops to Iran and Syria, and leveraged his rapport with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to avert a crisis in Kashmir.

New York Times Magazine, May 9
The fascinating cover story cracks open the slot-machine industry by looking at the industry's leading game developer. International Game Technology's models, including a long-waited Star Wars-themed machine, feature the latest bells and whistles: virtual spinning reels, video-based bonus rounds, and an electronic recording of quarters falling. Some machines are "cherry dribblers," which offer many small payouts as they slowly and steadily erode your money. Others are programmed to look like you just missed the jackpot, though the chances of hitting it big are 1 in 46 million. The company's rules: No machine should take $20 until 15 or 20 minutes have passed, and you should be able to read the text unless you're legally blind. Behavioral psychologists say the "intermittent reward" model of slots is what makes them so addictive. "No other form of gambling manipulates the human mind as beautifully as these machines," says one expert.

Weekly Standard, May 10
After the 3/11 train attack that killed 191, Zapatero-era Spain "does not want a strategic relationship with the only power that can defend it." While Spaniards might think their country is safe from terrorist attacks after pulling out of the Iraq coalition, the country's history of Muslim rule means that radical Islamists will always see modern Spain as an apostate nation. … An article argues that Washington, D.C.'s school-voucher initiative, the first federally supported program of its kind in the U.S., is doomed to failure because it doesn't punish bad schools or reward good ones. If a public school loses students to a "choice school," it may lose a small amount of discretionary money, but it also eases overcrowding. And just because there's choice doesn't mean there's competition—D.C. schools are reminiscent of plentiful Soviet groceries, "all of them equally grim."

The New Yorker, May 10
Seymour M. Hersh reports that the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib wasn't simply the work of a few sadistic military policemen. An Army investigation, completed in February, alleges that higher-ups, including Army intelligence officers, CIA agents, and private contractors, insinuated that abuse was necessary, then offered praise because prisoners were "breaking down real fast." The head of Iraq's prison system, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who denied responsibility for the atrocities in this week's Newsweek, was little seen and didn't follow up on reports of prisoner abuse. Worst of all, the study says 60 percent of the Abu Ghraib prisoners weren't a threat and should have been released. … Another piece finds ambition, success, and grandstanding in John Kerry's law career. As an assistant district attorney, Kerry was an able prosecutor who proved adept at corralling federal funds, which he used to start a rape-counseling unit and to ensure violent criminals were tried in 90 days. Fun tidbit: As he launched a private practice in 1979, Kerry, who "prided himself on his homemade cookies," also opened a Quincy Market stand that sold his chocolate-chocolate-chunk confections.

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, May 10
Prisoners of war: Newsweek talks to Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who supervised prison guards in Iraq before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. Karpinski, now "awaiting release from active duty," passes the buck, saying she lacked the resources to do her job, that the soldiers responsible were "just bad people," and that when she complained about the treatment of prisoners to higher-ups she was ignored. The piece also notes that Human Rights Watch has complained about conditions in detention facilities in Afghanistan. … U.S. News says that Grand Ayatollah Sistani's son was part of a delegation of clerics that recently went to negotiate with Muqtada al-Sadr. … Time also reports on the Thulfiqar army, a new militia of al-Sadr rivals who want the radical cleric—and his own Mahdi militia—out of Najaf. Al-Sadr officials, though, say the Thulfiqar militia is an "invention of American propaganda."

Hunting and gathering: U.S. News reports from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where 20,000 U.S. troops are searching for Osama Bin Laden. Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf is more amenable to the hunt after surviving a couple of assassination attempts, but he still won't allow American troops to step foot into the country, effectively guaranteeing the safety of the 400 to 600 al-Qaida and Taliban guerrillas in the country. Also, ties between Pakistani soldiers and Pashtun tribesmen mean that they get advanced warning of raids. … Newsweek says that after the 9/11 commission grilled Condi Rice, the panel's chairman and vice chairman told the other members to tone down the fiery rhetoric, lest the body be seen as overly politicized. Sources say that last week's closed-door meeting between the commission and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was much less acrimonious.