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Report blames pentagon neglection Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2399285http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2399285
Prisoner-abuse report says guards had no orders to torture, but there is 'responsibility at higher levels'
By Stephen J. Hedges
Chicago Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
2004-08-25 01:45:23.344
WASHINGTON - A Pentagon-appointed commission that examined the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops puts much of the blame for those actions on soldiers in Iraq, but it also rebukes senior Pentagon civilian and military leaders for neglecting the treatment of detainees.
The four-member Schlesinger Commission issued a 92-page report Tuesday stating that the worst of the prisoner abuse was the work of a small group of U.S. military police guards inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Referring to photographs taken by U.S. guards in which hooded detainees were placed in degrading positions, panel chairman James Schlesinger said: ''The abuses that were depicted in the photos did not come from authorized interrogation. They did not come from seeking intelligence. They were freelance activities on the part of the night shift at Abu Ghraib.''
The commission was also sharply critical of military commanders in Iraq, from the colonel running interrogations in the prison to Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who until June was responsible for all coalition forces in Iraq, and even to Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the U.S. Central Command.
It found that commanders in the prison failed to adequately supervise guards, that Sanchez set up a confusing command structure in an effort to glean more intelligence from a growing detainee population, and that Abizaid and his subordinate generals failed to put enough trained military guards and equipment at the prison.
''The abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce proper discipline,'' the report states. ''There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels.''
Besides Schlesinger, who served as secretary of defense under Republican Presidents Nixon and Ford, the commission's members also included Harold Brown, who served as defense secretary under Democratic President Carter; Tillie Fowler, a former Republican congresswoman from Florida; and retired Air Force Gen. Charles Horner.
The panel was appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in May to examine the operation of military detention facilities. Each panelist also serves on Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, which offers Rumsfeld advice on a variety of issues. Rumsfeld appoints board members.
The commission report did not criticize Rumsfeld or his staff directly. Rumsfeld's name, in fact, does not appear in the report. When asked if Rumsfeld should resign over responsibility for the mistreatment of prisoners by soldiers, all four panel members said he should not.
''Let me say that his resignation would be a boon to all of America's enemies,'' Schlesinger said, ''and consequently I think that it would be a misfortune if it were to take place.''
In a statement, Rumsfeld said the commission's work was ''the product of a great deal of effort and commitment, and has benefited from the members' unusually broad experiences. We look forward to reviewing their analysis and recommendations in detail.''
The report did note the confusion caused by Rumsfeld's approval of tough prisoner interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in December 2002, and then his decision the next month to rescind those practices after military lawyers objected. Some of those techniques, the report found, were later used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
''Various versions of these techniques migrated unauthorized to Afghanistan and to Iraq, and in Iraq of course the Geneva Conventions did apply,'' said Brown, referring to the protocols that dictate the humane treatment of prisoners of war.
Brown also faulted Rumsfeld and the Bush administration for failing to foresee the looting and lawlessness that would engulf Iraq following the U.S. invasion and the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, as well as the rise of an anti-American insurgency. And he said Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should have done more to keep order in the U.S.-run prisons in Iraq.
Still, Schlesinger said that although there are more than 300 cases of detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan and at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the commission found no direct order or command from Washington to deliberately mistreat prisoners.
''There was no policy of abuse,'' Schlesinger said. ''Quite the contrary. Senior officials repeatedly said that in Iraq, Geneva regulations would apply. In Afghanistan and Guantanamo, it was quite different, but even there it was said, following the president's directive, that all activity should be consistent with the Geneva accord.''
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