War Without End

dangerousdna

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July2004/Stanton-Madsen0709.htm

Iraq Survey Group
Donald Rumsfeld's Al Qaeda
by John Stanton and Wayne Madsen
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 9, 2000

A recent email from Bielomawicz.Wilkes@isg.mil (iraq survey group.military), commenting on our last article, "Torture Inc.: Oliver North Joins the Party," indicated that “I work for one of the company’s [sic] you mentioned in your article and it holds up to its title. You are just jealous and ignorant. Both of you are flaming morons and your article is full of crap. Freedom of speech is wonderful isn’t it.” Indeed, it is, but we were intrigued by the fact that one of the defense contractors we named in our last piece [CACI, ZKD, Calnet, USIS, United Placements, Design Staffing] would use the US military’s Iraq Survey Group’s (ISG) email to express his view. So we looked a little bit closer into the ISG's charter and the characters that run the show.

Major General Keith Dayton, U.S. Army, was director of the ISG, a 1400 person outfit headquartered in Baghdad with operations in Qatar, Kuwait and Washington, DC. Publicly, the ISG's mission is to search for Iraq’s nebulous weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), but a closer inspection of the ISG reveals that it is an intelligence tool of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. According to Rumsfeld’s favorite son, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, the ISG is a combat and intelligence unit that reports directly “into the Secretary of Defense with work product going to the Director of Central Intelligence.” According to Seymour Hersh, Cambone’s reputation is so bad that an active duty three-star general indicated that if the Pentagon was being overrun by the enemy, he’d use his last bullet on Cambone. The ISG and Dayton have been implicated in the shameful Abu Ghraib TortureGate scandal.

And with the ISG’s intelligence fusion operation located in Washington, DC, that means Rumsfeld’s hands are dirty. There is also a clear line that can be drawn between the ISG and Undersecretary for Plans and Policy Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans/Office of Northern Gulf Affairs (speculation has been that he is a dual USA-Israeli citizen like Dov Zakheim). Feith created the disinformation about Iraqi WMDs and then Rumsfeld/Cambone used torture as a tactic to elicit false confessions and exaggerated claims under extreme duress. It is a tactic that SS Commander Heinrich Himmler and Soviet KGB Chief Levrenti Beria practiced so well in Germany and the USSR, respectively. No one claims that the USA and Israel rise to the level of Nazi and Soviet torturers, but, it is too early to say.

At a May 30, 2003 press conference, Cambone introduced Dayton to America’s subservient press corps. Little noticed was that Dayton was not a boots-on-the-ground military man, but was a political operative, battle-hardened in the Byzantine inside-the-beltway intrigues that pit the bureaucracy against elected officials, and the military against its civilian masters. In that press conference, Dayton expressed confidence that WMDs would be found (the pre-election 2004 surprise is likely to be the discovery of WMDs at the bottom of a lake near Baghdad).

Torture for the Greater Good
Dayton served as the director of the Defense HUMINT Service (HUMINT=human intelligence) within the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was also a political-military operative, a defense attaché in Moscow, and spent some time at the Council on Foreign Relations where he worked on arms control matters. According to the New York Times, “Major General Keith Dayton of the DIA had primary responsibility for the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners designated as high-value targets. CIA employees would likely have participated in certain interrogations, according to intelligence experts. A CIA official told The New York Times that the agency was involved in the interrogation of no more than two dozen individuals at Abu Ghraib between September and December 2003.” And that quote was from his old buddies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

That’s no surprise since back in May 2003 Dayton indicated that the ISG’s job involved exploitation and interrogation. “…the ISG will collect and exploit documents and media related to terrorism, war crimes, POW [prisoner of war] and MIA [missing in action] issues, and other things relating to the former Iraqi regime. It will interrogate and debrief individuals, both hostile and friendly, and it will exploit captured materiel. The goal is to put all the pieces together in what is appearing to be a very complex jigsaw puzzle…The main effort is going to be in Iraq, with the headquarters in Baghdad. This collection operation will include a joint interrogation debriefing center, a joint materiel exploitation center, chemical and biological intelligence support teams and the ISG operation center. The main analytic effort will be co-located with CENTCOM forward, as will the combined media processing center. Furthermore, the ISG is going to have liaison elements with CJTF-7 [Commander Joint Task Force 7] in Kuwait and with other U.S. government agencies inside Iraq. And finally, the intelligence fusion center will be here in Washington, D.C. And all are going to be linked electronically.”

Coincidently, Dayton left the ISG on December 7, 2004, after the ISG “intelligence fusion center” the

parallel intelligence operation of Rumsfeld and Cambone—knew that the TortureGate scandal was about to break and their man Dayton was involved. Thanks to humanrightsfirst.org, Rumsfeld’s twenty-four detention facilities used in the "Global War on Terror"—including sites in Iraq, Pakistan,

Afghanistan, Jordan, and aboard U.S. Navy warships like the USS Bataan—were exposed; demonstrating that the Bush administration is quite capable of running Soviet-style Gulags.

American Doctor Mengeles Wanted
On March 30, 2004, Charles Duelfer, Director of Central Intelligence Special Advisory for Strategy regarding Iraqi Destruction WMD Programs—the new civilian lead for the ISG—indicated that the ISG had to try harder to pry information out of suspected Iraqi WMD specialists on the rationale that they had been trained not to talk about them. Duelfer is a resident expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, which is headed by former Democratic Representative Lee Hamilton, the co-chair of the 911 Commission. From 1993 to 2000, Duelfer was deputy executive chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). The UNSCOM team was withdrawn from Iraq in 1998 after reports emerged that the team had deviated from its charter to find WMDs and was involved in espionage against Iraqi government communications on behalf of U.S. intelligence agencies. The search for physical evidence of WMDs was nullified by Duelfer with the new focus being intent-to-build. “I arrived on the 12th of February 2004. I have endeavored to refine the strategy for ISG in the weeks since. In its simplest terms, my strategy is to determine the regime’s intentions for all the activities ISG has uncovered. The people we need to speak to have spent their entire professional lives being trained not to speak about WMD. Most of those in the ISG are not experts on Iraq, and most do not have extensive experience in the kinds of investigative operations and analysis they are asked to undertake.”

Rumsfeld’s Likely Recruits
“Investigative operations” is just another term for the torture of a non-white population. Most Americans are appalled by the torture of fellow human beings and, happily, that means it is going to be hard to find anyone with the “extensive experience” needed to bleed information out of a suspected WMD practitioner. However, given the misplaced anxiety of Americans that the devil is out to get ‘em, it’s easy to think about the most nightmarish of scenarios. One can only imagine that the ISG and its defense contractors are recruiting heavily from that minority of Americans who populate the despicable Aryan Nations, and other white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, who would jump at the chance to torture non-whites. And, not surprisingly, their numbers are rising.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “Buoyed by rising numbers of Skinhead and Klan groups, the American radical right staged something of a comeback last year, following a tumultuous period that saw the destruction or hobbling of some of the nation's leading hate groups. As 2003 came to an end, the number of racist skinhead groups had doubled over the prior year. The neo-Nazi Aryan Nations, despite having lost its Idaho compound, boasted 11 new chapters. A newcomer on the scene, Arkansas-based White Revolution, had grown much more powerful and seemed poised to keep rising. Several new Klan groups had appeared, and Klan activity was significant.” They also reported that the number of “hate websites” have increased by six percent.

The potential recruitment pool in the USA among American racist organizations, incited by George Bush and many American “holy land” ideologues in power in Washington, DC, makes for bad dreams. Middle Ages Crusade propaganda still sells! Add to that the constant propaganda about “the other races hate our way of life” (might they want to charge a fair price for fuel) vomited from the US news media and the madness of Rumsfeld’s worldview (imagine the idiocy of a Rumsfeld who could marvel that US soldiers have digital cameras and that he stands up for 8 to10 hours a day, so then why can’t prisoners)—makes one wonder about his connection to reality. So goes the DOD.

Recent evidence offered by General Janis Karpinski, NGO’s and investigative reporters, indicates that

Israeli interrogators may have been active in Iraqi detention centers. But the Israeli government has stated that any Israelis in Iraq were there on their own. We are inclined to believe them to a point. The problem is that it gives rise to the specter that anti-Arab Israeli xenophobes, including members of the racist and terrorist Kach and Kahane Chai, were participating as either freelance torturers in Iraq or as part of a parallel intelligence operation -- separate from Mossad -- being run out of Ariel Sharon's office. They, like their American counterparts, make for great recruits. The scary part is that neither government can control them—or, perhaps, does not want to get involved.

Unfortunately, the question of the legality of Rumsfeld's personal intelligence operation in TortureGate, and all the connections, has received the glancing interest of Congress and the US media. But as more evidence of the illegal nature of the Pentagon's operations comes to light, and that of its associates, there is a clear need for the International Criminal Court to conduct its own investigation of the role of Rumsfeld's ersatz intelligence operation in committing human rights abuses in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.

John Stanton is a Virginia-based writer specializing in national security and political matters. He is the author of the forthcoming book, A Power, But Not Super. Reach John at cioran123@yahoo.com. Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. His forthcoming book is titled: Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates. Reach Wayne at wmadsen777@aol.com. Stanton and Madsen authored America’s Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II released in May 2003.
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Cowboy · Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 5:44 am Post subject:

Alpha

http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr040707_1_n.shtml

Israeli interrogators in Iraq - An exclusive report

At least one aspect of the occupation of Iraq was well planned by Washington. The USA needed help conducting mass interrogations of Arabic-speaking detainees. Foreign Report can now reveal that, to make up for this shortfall, the USA employed Israeli security service (Shin Bet) experts to help their US counterparts 'break' their captives.

The USA could have approached other friendly regimes in the Middle East, such as Egypt or Jordan, which have vast experience interrogating Muslim fundamentalists. The Israelis may be brilliant linguists, but they cannot match Arabs speaking their own language. But there is a significant difference between the Egyptian and Jordanian interrogation techniques and those of the Israelis. For the Egyptian and Jordanian secret services, physical torture is an essential part of interrogation and a key element in breaking the prisoner's will and making them co-operative.

In the past, Shin Bet would use torture when it interrogated prisoners. But 20 years ago, an Israeli government committee investigated the security service's practices and the use of torture was subsequently banned, forcing Shin Bet to adopt a variety of techniques that did not cause physical damage. These new methods are much more palatable to US sensibilities. They also brought faster and more convincing results.

Foreign Report has learnt that top Shin Bet interrogation experts were sent to Iraq to help with the most difficult interrogations, such as the captured heads of the Iraqi intelligence - and perhaps with former president Saddam Hussein. US sources say that in spite of the incidences of abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, such events are not representative of the sophisticated methods that Shin Bet used in Iraq.

Most of the Shin Bet interrogators are of Ashkenazim (European) origin who study the Arabic language only when they are in their twenties after joining the security service. Before each interrogation a psychologist who has studied in depth the mental profile of the prisoner is consulted. The interrogator will also read intelligence reports about their charge.

328 of 779 words

[End of non-subscriber extract.]

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Alpha

Forwarded:

You might also be interested in putting together an interview with James Bamford on his new book ('A Pretext for War') about the neoconservative cabal in the current Bush regime which basically pushed the USA (UK) to war in Iraq for their Likud cronies in Israel (if interested further, please see the additional mention of Bamford after the following):

http://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/iraq/sg071304.htm

Karpinski Interview Sparks New Call for Rumsfeld Testimony
By Leon Worden
Signal City Editor
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
*MEDIA—MANDATORY CREDIT: The Signal newspaper of Santa Clarita, Calif.

A
former Abu Ghraib prison guard will use a recently published Signal interview in an effort to elicit Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's testimony, his attorney said Monday.
Sgt. Javal Davis, 26, of New Jersey, has claimed since charges were filed against him in April that he was acting on orders to "soften up" detainees for interrogation sessions last fall.
Leaked portions of an Army report said four military intelligence officers and contractors, including John B. Israel of Canyon Country, were responsible for the prisoner abuse, but no explanation of the accusation has been released to the public.
On June 21, Davis' attorneys convinced a military judge to order testimony from Davis' superior officers, all the way up to four-star Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, to determine what, if any, instructions he received.
But the judge, Col. James Pohl, didn't see sufficient cause to order testimony from Rumsfeld or Stephen A. Cambone, Rumsfeld's undersecretary for intelligence.
Although allegations have swirled at lower echelons, no general officer had publicly intimated that Rumsfeld had anything to do with the approval of interrogation methods at the Iraqi prison.
That changed June 29, a week after Davis' hearing in Baghdad, when Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski told The Signal that she saw memos where Rumsfeld "signed and agreed to" the use of particular interrogation tactics.
Karpinski, commander of detention operations throughout Iraq last fall, said she didn't see the approvals from Rumsfeld at the time, "but since all of this has come out, I've not only seen, but I've been asked about some of those documents."
The memos were "about using the same techniques that were successful in Guantanamo Bay, at Abu Ghraib," she said in the interview, published July 4.
On June 22, the Pentagon released memos showing Rumsfeld approved a list of interrogation tactics in late 2002 for use at Guantanamo Bay, including stripping, hooding and sensory deprivation.
The Pentagon flatly denied Karpinski's claim that Rumsfeld approved similar tactics for Iraq.
"The secretary of defense was not involved in the process in Iraq or the Central Command theater," a Pentagon spokesman said July 2. "He wasn't asked to approve anything."
But Paul Bergrin, Davis' civilian attorney, wants to hear it directly from the source.
Bergrin said Monday he is renewing his call "for demanding Secretary Rumsfeld to testify under oath, based on the direct link as stated by Brig. Gen. Karpinski" in the Signal interview.
Bergrin said he'll file a motion by Friday asking Pohl to reconsider.
A Pentagon official said Monday that the Defense Department "will cooperate with any due process," and said it doesn't get involved in the calling of witnesses.
Contesting or consenting to Bergrin's motion would be up to the Central Command prosecutor, whose spokeswoman in Baghdad could not be reached by press time.
Karpinski said Monday she believes it is important for all pertinent information to come out.
"Whatever it takes to ensure the soldiers are given the best opportunities to gather all necessary information and evidence, is what they need to allow," she told The Signal.
You can find the General Karpinski interview at the following URL:
http://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/iraq/index.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr040707_1_n.shtml

Israeli interrogators in Iraq - An exclusive report

At least one aspect of the occupation of Iraq was well planned by Washington. The USA needed help conducting mass interrogations of Arabic-speaking detainees. Foreign Report can now reveal that, to make up for this shortfall, the USA employed Israeli security service (Shin Bet) experts to help their US counterparts 'break' their captives.
The USA could have approached other friendly regimes in the Middle East, such as Egypt or Jordan, which have vast experience interrogating Muslim fundamentalists. The Israelis may be brilliant linguists, but they cannot match Arabs speaking their own language. But there is a significant difference between the Egyptian and Jordanian interrogation techniques and those of the Israelis. For the Egyptian and Jordanian secret services, physical torture is an essential part of interrogation and a key element in breaking the prisoner's will and making them co-operative.
In the past, Shin Bet would use torture when it interrogated prisoners. But 20 years ago, an Israeli government committee investigated the security service's practices and the use of torture was subsequently banned, forcing Shin Bet to adopt a variety of techniques that did not cause physical damage. These new methods are much more palatable to US sensibilities. They also brought faster and more convincing results.
Foreign Report has learnt that top Shin Bet interrogation experts were sent to Iraq to help with the most difficult interrogations, such as the captured heads of the Iraqi intelligence - and perhaps with former president Saddam Hussein. US sources say that in spite of the incidences of abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, such events are not representative of the sophisticated methods that Shin Bet used in Iraq.
Most of the Shin Bet interrogators are of Ashkenazim (European) origin who study the Arabic language only when they are in their twenties after joining the security service. Before each interrogation a psychologist who has studied in depth the mental profile of the prisoner is consulted. The interrogator will also read intelligence reports about their charge.
328 of 779 words
[End of non-subscriber extract.]
The full version of this article is accessible through our subscription services. Please refer to the box below for details.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You might want to get in touch with James Bamford as I have his contact information as well. His new book ('A Pretext for War') conveys that the JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neoconservative cabal at the Pentagon basically had wanted the Iraq invasion long before the tragic September 11th, 2001 attack and had cooked intelligence (through the Office of Special Plans and similar) to get it done for their Likud cronies in Israel:

James Bamford's New Book ('A Pretext for War') on the Neocon
Warmongers:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/06/14/iraq-war-for-israel-according-to-james-bamford-s-new-book.php

Alpha

Check out the latest article on the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal (involving Barbara Fast) from the Baltimore Sun newspaper which is included at the end of the following...

Why didn't 'Hardball' cover the story about General Karpinski mentioning that she met an Israeli interrogator in Iraq (you can listen to the segment via the link for General Karpinski under the broadcast for July 3rd, 2004 in the archive at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/listenagain_archive.shtml ) as AP and Reuters both then went with the story internnationally. Recently, Jane's (in a recent article dated July 9th, 2004) confirmed that Israeli Shin Bet operatives are indeed doing interrogations in Iraq for the USA, but 'Hardball' hasn't covered that either.. The Jane's article is included below...

http://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/iraq/sg071304.htm

Karpinski Interview Sparks New Call for Rumsfeld Testimony
By Leon Worden
Signal City Editor
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
*MEDIA—MANDATORY CREDIT: The Signal newspaper of Santa Clarita, Calif.

A
former Abu Ghraib prison guard will use a recently published Signal interview in an effort to elicit Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's testimony, his attorney said Monday.
Sgt. Javal Davis, 26, of New Jersey, has claimed since charges were filed against him in April that he was acting on orders to "soften up" detainees for interrogation sessions last fall.
Leaked portions of an Army report said four military intelligence officers and contractors, including John B. Israel of Canyon Country, were responsible for the prisoner abuse, but no explanation of the accusation has been released to the public.
On June 21, Davis' attorneys convinced a military judge to order testimony from Davis' superior officers, all the way up to four-star Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, to determine what, if any, instructions he received.
But the judge, Col. James Pohl, didn't see sufficient cause to order testimony from Rumsfeld or Stephen A. Cambone, Rumsfeld's undersecretary for intelligence.
Although allegations have swirled at lower echelons, no general officer had publicly intimated that Rumsfeld had anything to do with the approval of interrogation methods at the Iraqi prison.
That changed June 29, a week after Davis' hearing in Baghdad, when Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski told The Signal that she saw memos where Rumsfeld "signed and agreed to" the use of particular interrogation tactics.
Karpinski, commander of detention operations throughout Iraq last fall, said she didn't see the approvals from Rumsfeld at the time, "but since all of this has come out, I've not only seen, but I've been asked about some of those documents."
The memos were "about using the same techniques that were successful in Guantanamo Bay, at Abu Ghraib," she said in the interview, published July 4.
On June 22, the Pentagon released memos showing Rumsfeld approved a list of interrogation tactics in late 2002 for use at Guantanamo Bay, including stripping, hooding and sensory deprivation.
The Pentagon flatly denied Karpinski's claim that Rumsfeld approved similar tactics for Iraq.
"The secretary of defense was not involved in the process in Iraq or the Central Command theater," a Pentagon spokesman said July 2. "He wasn't asked to approve anything."
But Paul Bergrin, Davis' civilian attorney, wants to hear it directly from the source.
Bergrin said Monday he is renewing his call "for demanding Secretary Rumsfeld to testify under oath, based on the direct link as stated by Brig. Gen. Karpinski" in the Signal interview.
Bergrin said he'll file a motion by Friday asking Pohl to reconsider.
A Pentagon official said Monday that the Defense Department "will cooperate with any due process," and said it doesn't get involved in the calling of witnesses.
Contesting or consenting to Bergrin's motion would be up to the Central Command prosecutor, whose spokeswoman in Baghdad could not be reached by press time.
Karpinski said Monday she believes it is important for all pertinent information to come out.
"Whatever it takes to ensure the soldiers are given the best opportunities to gather all necessary information and evidence, is what they need to allow," she told The Signal.
You can find the General Karpinski interview at the following URL:
http://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/iraq/index.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr040707_1_n.shtml

Israeli interrogators in Iraq - An exclusive report

At least one aspect of the occupation of Iraq was well planned by Washington. The USA needed help conducting mass interrogations of Arabic-speaking detainees. Foreign Report can now reveal that, to make up for this shortfall, the USA employed Israeli security service (Shin Bet) experts to help their US counterparts 'break' their captives.
The USA could have approached other friendly regimes in the Middle East, such as Egypt or Jordan, which have vast experience interrogating Muslim fundamentalists. The Israelis may be brilliant linguists, but they cannot match Arabs speaking their own language. But there is a significant difference between the Egyptian and Jordanian interrogation techniques and those of the Israelis. For the Egyptian and Jordanian secret services, physical torture is an essential part of interrogation and a key element in breaking the prisoner's will and making them co-operative.
In the past, Shin Bet would use torture when it interrogated prisoners. But 20 years ago, an Israeli government committee investigated the security service's practices and the use of torture was subsequently banned, forcing Shin Bet to adopt a variety of techniques that did not cause physical damage. These new methods are much more palatable to US sensibilities. They also brought faster and more convincing results.
Foreign Report has learnt that top Shin Bet interrogation experts were sent to Iraq to help with the most difficult interrogations, such as the captured heads of the Iraqi intelligence - and perhaps with former president Saddam Hussein. US sources say that in spite of the incidences of abuse in Abu Ghraib prison, such events are not representative of the sophisticated methods that Shin Bet used in Iraq.
Most of the Shin Bet interrogators are of Ashkenazim (European) origin who study the Arabic language only when they are in their twenties after joining the security service. Before each interrogation a psychologist who has studied in depth the mental profile of the prisoner is consulted. The interrogator will also read intelligence reports about their charge.
328 of 779 words
[End of non-subscriber extract.]
The full version of this article is accessible through our subscription services.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

General faces Abu Ghraib scrutiny

Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast among most important officers in investigation

By Tom Bowman
Sun National Staff

July 15, 2004

WASHINGTON - Among the handful of Army officers facing scrutiny in the investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast is perhaps the least known, but among the most important.

Fast, 50, the senior intelligence officer in Iraq, was the key conduit for orders and information that related to Abu Ghraib, which she visited frequently, including the infamous cellblocks 1A and 1B, where abuses took place.

A civilian interrogator at the prison wrote that she was involved in CIA access, and Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was the overall commander of military police at the facility, said Fast was aware of a Red Cross report revealing wrongdoing at the prison three months before the scandal broke.

Fast approved the order putting Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of a military intelligence brigade at Abu Ghraib in overall command of the prison. She prodded him for fresh information from detainees so insistently that he remarked, "It's worse than a root canal," Karpinski said.

Fast also installed Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, an aggressive interrogator who said that he "only reported to her," said Army officers and soldiers who served with Fast in Iraq.

Pappas, Jordan and some of the civilian interrogators have since been singled out in an Army report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba for being "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib."

The two officers have been reprimanded. Fast, whose career has ascended rapidly, has been given a plum assignment when she leaves Iraq next month: commander of the Army's intelligence center and school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., where she served a brief tour as assistant commandant.

"Major General Fast is not doing interviews related to Abu Ghraib while the [Army intelligence] investigation is ongoing," said Maj. Carolyn Dysart, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq. "It would be inappropriate for her to comment."

A clearer picture of Fast, one of the highest-ranking women in the Army, is likely to emerge in coming weeks through the report by Army intelligence investigators that Dysart referred to, Senate hearings and questions by attorneys representing the military police facing courts-martial.

All seven who have been charged are low-level reservists attached to the 372nd Military Police Unit based in Cresaptown, Md.

Their attorneys argue that military intelligence officers ordered the MPs to commit the abuses to gain information.

Sen. John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, has listed Fast among those he wants the committee to question about Abu Ghraib.

"It would seem that her new command is certainly premature, if not inappropriate," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat. "There are still so many unanswered questions."

"It's very strange. [Fast] was never suspended. And she [will take] command of Fort Huachuca," said Karpinski, who was commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade until she received a letter of admonishment for her alleged leadership failures and was suspended from command. She is trying to get reinstated to her post.

Fast was aware of at least some of the Abu Ghraib activities of CIA personnel, a number of whom are being questioned about the abuses and at least one death, according to the writings of a civilian interrogator at Abu Ghraib, Joe Ryan, who worked for the Virginia-based contractor CACI International.

In a Web diary that is part of a court exhibit filed by Iraqis who claim they were abused at the prison, Ryan wrote: "The CIA has proven once again they are incompetent boobs. ... They have General Fast's ire. They cannot set foot on Abu Ghurayb without her expressed permission."

Fast arrived in Baghdad late last summer to become intelligence chief for the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. How she ran intelligence operations is among the questions of an Army investigation led by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones, whose equivalent rank allows him to question Sanchez.

Karpinski said Fast spoke of the difficulties of gathering intelligence in Iraq. "She said, 'It's like herding cats. I can't get my arms around it,'" Karpinski said.

As the insurgency increased throughout the summer, Fast repeatedly pressed her staff for more information from the detainees, according to fellow officers. One intelligence officer who worked with Pappas said he seemed beaten down.

"There was a lot of pressure for [intelligence]. Anything that could affect the safety of our soldiers," he said.

After meetings with Fast, Karpinski said, Pappas would "hold his head and say, 'It's worse than a root canal.'" Pappas pressed his soldiers to conduct more interrogations and produce more reports.

Harsher techniques were also being approved. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, visited Abu Ghraib in September and said MPs should "set the conditions" for interrogations, a phrase that has been interpreted by some as meaning softening up the prisoners for questioning.

Miller later told Congress he meant only that the MPs should monitor detainees, watch whom they talked with, study their demeanor and report such details to military interrogators.

Karpinski said Pappas "got beat up pretty badly by General Miller, I mean in terms of his criticism," according to an appendix to the Taguba report posted yesterday on the Web site of U.S. News and World Report.

Sanchez soon authorized as many as 30 interrogation tactics for detainees at Abu Ghraib, including sleep deprivation and crouching positions. Some were later rescinded.

More interrogators were sent to Abu Ghraib in the fall. Fast told visiting Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the top Pentagon intelligence official that "they were going to be picking up the pace with some of the procedures that General Miller had recommended to them," said Karpinski, who said she was present at the meeting.

Some of the intelligence officers and civilian contractors at the prison said they were on special assignments for Fast or worked directly for her.

"They would play the 'General Fast card,' saying they only reported to her," said a military intelligence soldier who served at Abu Ghraib.

Karpinski told Taguba that she complained that a former Iraqi prisoner had been put to work as a translator with "no background check," according to the appendix.

"I talked to General Fast about it several times," she said. "Nobody seemed to care that this guy was out there and had full access to everywhere on the compound."

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's senior intelligence officer, told Congress in May that Army intelligence in Iraq had oversight of the civilian contractors and that Fast was responsible for making sure they understood the interrogation rules.

Jordan, who was selected by Fast to run the interrogation center at the prison, also told Karpinski that he reported directly to Fast, Karpinski said.

In October, investigators from the International Committee of the Red Cross made one of their periodic visits to Abu Ghraib and were troubled by what they saw.

The investigators reported seeing detainees kept "completely naked in totally empty concrete cells and in total darkness." They complained to U.S. officials, and "the military intelligence officer in charge of the interrogation explained that this practice was 'part of the process,'" the report said.

Karpinski said she was given earlier Red Cross reports but not the one from that October visit. The next month she learned of the report during a meeting attended by Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, Sanchez's deputy, Col. Marc Warren, Sanchez's legal officer and Pappas. The officers helped Karpinski prepare an official response.

"I said, 'What does General Fast say about this? She saw the report. She's aware of it,'" Warren said.

Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun

Alpha

Subject: Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse ...
> >
> >Salon.com - War 'o4
> >http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html
> >
> >Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape
> >
> >After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May,
there
> >was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon's custody more
horrific
> >than
> >anything made public so far. "If these are released to the public,
obviously
> >it's going to make matters worse," Rumsfeld said. Since then, the
Washington
> >Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the
prison.
But if
> >Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.
> >
> >Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that
children
> >were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has
tape
> >of it.
> >The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week,
which
was in
> >turn posted on Jim Romenesko's media blog, and now EdCone.com and
other
blogs
> >are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here
(it
starts
> >at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the
transcript
here,
> >you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:
> >
> >"Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened
you
don't
> >know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may
have
> >read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their
men.
> >This is
> >at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please
come
and
> >kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is
that
> >those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases
that
have
> >been
> >recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the
worst
> >above
> >all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your
government
has.
> >They are in total terror. It's going to come out."
> >
> >"It's impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are
we? Who
are
> >these people that sent us there? When I did My Lai I was very
troubled
like
> >anybody in his right mind would be about what happened. I ended up
in
> >something
> >I wrote saying in the end I said that the people who did the killing
were
as
> >much victims as the people they killed because of the scars they
had, I
can
> >tell you some of the personal stories by some of the people who were
in
these
> >units witnessed this. I can also tell you written complaints were
made to
the
> >highest officers and so we're dealing with a enormous massive amount
of
> >criminal
> >wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and
higher,
> >and we have to get to it and we will. We will. You know there's
enough
out
> >there, they can't (Applause). .... So it's going to be an
interesting
> >election
> >year."
> >
> >Notes from a similar speech Hersh gave in Chicago in June were
posted on
Brad
> >DeLong's blog. Rick Pearlstein, who watched the speech, wrote:
"[Hersh]
said
> >that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork
to
tell
> >him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He
said,
> >'You
> >haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible
things
> >done
> >to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked
frightened."
> >
> >So, there are several questions here: Has Hersh actually seen the
video
he
> >described to the ACLU, and why hasn't he written about it yet? Will
he be
> >forced
> >to elaborate in more public venues now that these two speeches are
getting so
> >much attention, at least in the blogosphere? And who else has seen
the
video,
> >if it exists -- will journalists see and report on it? did senators
see
these
> >images when they had their closed-door sessions with the Abu Ghraib
evidence?
> >-- and what is being done about it?

Alpha

'Secret film shows Iraq prisoners sodomised'

By Charles Arthur, Technology Editor

16 July 2004

Young male prisoners were filmed being sodomised by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to the journalist who first revealed the abuses there.

Seymour Hersh, who reported on the torture of the prisoners in New Yorker magazine in May, told an audience in San Francisco that "it's worse". But he added that he would reveal the extent of the abuses: "I'm not done reporting on all this," he told a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union.

He said: "The boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war."

He accused the US administration, and all but accused President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney of complicity in covering up what he called "war crimes".

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=541472

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http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=4777&s2=14

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Has America Adopted Israel’s Legacy of Torture and Abuse?

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/July_Aug_2004/0407018.html

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