Six weeks ago, I wrote:

The wheels of military justice may go round and round. But only after someone greases them and sets them spinning (as attested by Time’s role in turning the military’s mock investigations of the Haditha massacre into a real investigation). And very, very slowly even after that (as exemplified by the Pat Tillman shooting investigation, which is now in its third year).

There is a chillingly common pattern in these scandals, the two biggest battlefield scandals we have seen in the war on terror.

In both cases, the military first conducted not one but several rounds of Mickey Mouse investigations.

Here’s another U.S. military in Iraq story scripted to the same formula, from Salon:

Among all the former henchmen of Saddam Hussein, there may have been no man more deserving of the death penalty than Dr. Muhammad Munim al-Azmerli. For decades, he allegedly served as Iraq’s poison master, brewing potions for political assassinations out of ricin, snake venom and nitrogen mustard. He tested his wares on prisoners of the Baathist regime, as many as 100 individuals altogether, including Iranians, Kurds and a Saudi Arabian, according to declassified U.S. intelligence reports. His compatriots said he would feed detainees poisoned food, test explosives on the living and give prisoners drugs that caused memory loss and sexual dysfunction. Those who survived were often killed.

That still doesn’t allow us to beat him to death. Which is what we may have done. And then, unfortunately true to type, tried to cover it up afterwards through two separate Army investigations:

Azmerli … died at the age of 65 in a U.S. military hospital near Baghdad on Jan. 31, 2004, the only Iraqi weapons scientist known to have died in American custody. The neurosurgeon who examined him in the final days of his life said he was suffering from two separate brain hemorrhages. One had been caused days earlier when he allegedly fell from his hospital bed onto the floor. The second hemorrhage, which was considered life threatening on its own, had been caused more than three weeks earlier when Azmerli was in U.S. military custody, according to doctors’ statements to Army investigators. After two years, and two separate investigations, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command classified Azmerli’s death as “undetermined,” and closed his case in September 2005.

This summer, Salon began its own investigation into the circumstances surrounding Azmerli’s death, raising new questions about the causes of his injuries and the quality of the CID criminal inquiries. In response to these questions, the Army decided this week to open a third investigation into the death of Saddam’s poison master. “Your inquiry prompted us to do another review of the case,” said CID spokesman Christopher Grey on Thursday. “The investigative report was prematurely closed due to operational tempo.”

“Operational tempo” is a new one on me. The phrase not only took my breath away, it produced both shock and awe. If there is any justice in this world, Christopher Grey will be interrogated non-stop till he explains what the heck it means. (Or confesses that it means absolutely nothing.) We should, of course, use only purely humane, non-torture techniques. Like waterboarding, for example.

What a pity Grey didn’t coin an equally pithy phrase to explain why the third investigation was opened. I can’t pretend to be in the same league as him, so I’m probably going to embarrass myself by offering up a suggestion. But here it is, nonetheless: “situational crescendo”. (That’s when the basic situation itself cries out for a proper examination. Note how it would be improper to use the word re-examination in the last sentence.) I do, of course, realize that the fact this phrase has a readily apparent meaning is probably grounds for instant disqualification.

Please do read the full Salon story. It’s hair-raising how determinedly the Army turns a blind eye to situations that scream “possible crime” or “probable crime”. And how little it takes to whitewash a possible murder, especially if we’re talking about a damn Iraqi who was an evil henchman of Saddam. Step one: leave out some key evidence from the investigative report. Step two: suborn someone in the chain of investigative command to certify that the “undersigned finds no reason to believe that the deceased was abused by US or Foreign Coalition personnel”, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. Step three: are you kidding? We’re done, just break out the medicinal alcohol!