|
|
| Abuse panel says rules on inmates need overhaul |
| By New York Times |
| Published: 08/30/2004 |
|
Attributing abuses of prisoners in Iraq to a string of failures that led all the way up the chain of command to the Pentagon, an independent panel called last Tuesday for a sweeping overhaul of how the American military handles and interrogates prisoners in the global campaign against terrorism. In its recommendations, the panel called for more and better trained military police and intelligence specialists. It urged that all prisoners be treated in "a way consistent with U.S. jurisprudence and military doctrine and with U.S. interpretation of the Geneva Conventions." While the panel said the nation's approach to international humanitarian law "must be adapted to the realities of the nature of conflict in the 21st century," it also said all military personnel engaged in detainee operations must be trained to equip them with a "sharp moral compass." The panel's report, released at a news conference at the Pentagon, was the first official finding in several military reviews conducted so far that assigns any responsibility, even indirectly, for the misconduct at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad to Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the top commanders in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. "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 panel concluded in its 93-page report. "There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels." James R. Schlesinger, the panel's chairman, warned that the "chilling effect" of the Abu Ghraib abuses might undermine attempts to obtain better intelligence through interrogations. "One consequence of the publicity that has been associated with the activities at Abu Ghraib and the punishments that prospectively will be handed out is that it has had a chilling effect on interrogation operations," Mr. Schlesinger said. "It is essential in the war on terror that we have adequate intelligence and that we have effective interrogation." The report may satisfy, at least partly, critics who have complained that only those of relatively low rank have been blamed for what happened at the prison in Iraq. It found that top commanders and staff officers in Iraq had not adequately supervised commanders at the prison. Up the chain of command to Washington, other officers and officials did not recognize that guards at the prison were overwhelmed by their task as an insurgency took hold and the prison population swelled, it said. By last October, 90 officers were assigned to oversee more than 7,000 prisoners Problems at the prison "were well known," said Mr. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, and he said corrective actions "could have been taken and should have been taken." Interrogation techniques that Mr. Rumsfeld approved for limited use at the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, "migrated to Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were neither limited nor safeguarded," the report said. As early as 2003, interrogation techniques employed by Special Operations forces in Afghanistan went beyond standard military doctrine, it disclosed. When Mr. Schlesinger was asked if Mr. Rumsfeld or other high-ranking officials should resign, he said the secretary's "resignation would be a boon for all of America's enemies." Mr. Rumsfeld, who was on vacation last week and was briefed by video-teleconference on the report before the news conference, issued a statement that praised the panel's work but did not address the inquiry's criticisms. |
MARKETPLACE search vendors | advanced search
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
|
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think