| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2004 3:47 pm Post subject: Abu Ghraib Probe Points to Top Brass |
| Abu Ghraib Probe Points to Top Brass
By Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks
An Army investigation into the role of military intelligence
personnel in the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison reports that the scandal was
not just caused by a small circle of rogue military police soldiers but
resulted from failures of leadership rising to the highest levels of the
U.S. command in Iraq, senior defense officials said.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the
report has not yet been completed, said the 9,000-page document says that
a combination of leadership failings, confounding policies, lack of
discipline and absolute confusion at the prison led to the abuse. It
widens the scope of culpability from seven MPs who have been charged with
abuse to include nearly 20 low-ranking soldiers who could face criminal
prosecution in military courts. No Army officers, however, are expected
to face criminal charges.
Officials also said that the report implicates five civilian
contractors in the abuse, and that Army officials plan to recommend that their
cases be sent to the Justice Department for possible prosecution in
civilian courts.
The investigation, shepherded by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, is one of
several into the abuse, which became widely known after hundreds of
photographs surfaced depicting detainees in mock sexual positions, in a
naked human pyramid and being intimidated by unmuzzled dogs. While the
Pentagon and the White House have consistently blamed the abuse on what
they have called a rogue band of MPs acting on their own, officials said
this new report spreads the blame and points to widespread problems at
the prison.
The findings, elements of which were reported by other news
organizations, appear to support contentions by defense attorneys for the charged
MPs that the problems at the prison were pervasive and were exacerbated
by a lack of leadership. The lawyers have asserted that their clients
were acting on orders when they stripped detainees and kept them awake
using stress positions and humiliating poses. Officials said the Fay
report will stop short of saying that soldiers were ordered to abuse
detainees.
One senior defense official said the investigation specifically
decries the fact that many soldiers saw or knew of the abuse and never
reported it to authorities. Concerns are also raised about the vague
instructions from high-ranking officials about what was allowed during
interrogations at the prison, which led military intelligence and military
police soldiers to misapply them, the official said.
"The interrogation policy was misunderstood, and it was one of a few
policies that failed," the official said. "There was total confusion
about the military intelligence tactics, techniques and procedures."
Another defense official said the Army study would be "a comprehensive
report, a thorough look at another aspect of Abu Ghraib, to include up
to the CJTF-command level," a reference to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez,
who until recently was the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Others said the
report criticizes the leadership but softens its assessment by noting
that top officers were focused on the insurgency that erupted last
summer.
Officials said the probe criticizes commanders for essentially failing
to pick up the strong signs of abuse as they rose through the chain of
command and for all but ignoring reports from the International
Committee of the Red Cross detailing the abuse.
The top command "shares responsibility for not ensuring proper
leadership, proper discipline and proper resources," one defense official
said. "Command should have paid more attention to the issue. Signals,
symptoms of abuse weren't fully vetted to the top."
Military officials said Fay's report is expected to be presented to
the public early next week. An independent investigative panel appointed
by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld plans to issue its report on
Tuesday. The Senate Armed Services Committee announced yesterday separate
hearings set for Sept. 9 to deal with both reports.
In the medical journal the Lancet, an American physician and
bioethicist called for an investigation of the role medical personnel may have
played in enabling and overlooking the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
"The U.S. military medical system failed to protect detainees' human
rights, sometimes collaborated with interrogators or abusive guards, and
failed to properly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings,"
Steven H. Miles of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota
wrote in the issue published today.
Miles based his assertions on the findings of Army investigators, the
translated testimony of detainees and news reports. He noted that a
psychiatrist helped "design, approve and monitor interrogations at Abu
Ghraib"; that a physician permitted an untrained guard to stitch a cut on
a prisoner's face; and that doctors "routinely attributed detainee
deaths on death certificates to . . . natural causes" when the deaths were
the result of torture.
He also said that inspectors from the International Committee of the
Red Cross found inadequate medical records on detainees and that monthly
"health inspections," required by the Geneva Conventions, were not
always done.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Miles conceded that military
physicians have difficult roles with regard to the enemy, but he said that
their ultimate loyalties should be clear.
"Docs are different from soldiers. . . . Our sole obligation is to the
well-being of the patient," he said. He said this is especially
important for physicians who have contact with prisoners.
"The health personnel will, in fact, be the first and last barrier
between them [prisoners] and human rights abuses," he said. "When the
health professionals are either silent or actively complicit in these
abuses, it sends a message to the detainees how utterly beyond human
protection they are."
Staff writer David Brown contributed to this report.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:06 am Post subject: Iraq Prison Probe Faults Intelligence Unit |
| Iraq Prison Probe Faults Intelligence Unit
2 hours, 48 minutes ago
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - More than two dozen soldiers and contractors attached to a military intelligence unit at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) approved or took part in abuses of Iraqi detainees, an Army investigation has found in one of the most comprehensive looks to date at the scandal that damaged America's image around the world.
AP Photo
Reuters
Slideshow: Iraq Prisoner Abuse Investigation
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Special Coverage
A few of the abuses amounted to torture, Maj. Gen. George Fay, one of the chief investigators, said Wednesday.
"This is clearly a deviation from everything we've taught people on how to behave," said Gen. Paul Kern, who oversaw the investigation. "There were failures of leadership, of people seeing these things and not correcting them. There were failures of discipline."
Officers in charge of the prison were negligent in the training and management of their troops, and some may face criminal charges, Army officials said. Until now, just seven lower-ranking military police soldiers have been charged.
In Philadelphia, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) repeated his call for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign and for President Bush (news - web sites) to appoint an independent commission.
"Harry Truman had that sign on the desk and it said, 'The buck stops here,'" Kerry said. "The buck doesn't stop at the Pentagon (news - web sites)."
The White House has blamed the scandal on a group of rogue soldiers who it said were acting on their own.
The new report identifies 27 people attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which oversaw interrogations at Abu Ghraib, who are accused of complicity in the abuses. Of those, 23 are soldiers and four were civilian contractors working for the unit.
The investigation report says the violent and sexual abuses — particularly those captured in the now-famous pictures of naked and frightened prisoners — were mostly the work of a group of guards and military intelligence personnel who were not conducting interrogations but instead amusing themselves.
The report distinguishes this group of abuses from mistreatment committed during actual interrogations, which also occurred.
Some 15 of 23 soldiers from the 205th who are accused of abuse were interrogating prisoners and wrongly believed they were using approved techniques to question them, Army officials said. One such unapproved technique was interrogating a detainee naked, the report said.
The Army's findings appear to widen to more than 50 the number of people who may face charges or disciplinary action for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Criminal allegations against civilian contractors will be referred to the Justice Department (news - web sites) for possible prosecution.
Investigators recommended that five officers with command responsibilities, including Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th, and Lt. Col. Stephen Jordan, director of the Abu Ghraib interrogation center, face possible disciplinary action, Army officials said.
While these individuals did not directly take part in abuses, their poor leadership contributed to the conditions that allowed them to occur, officials said.
The seven members of the 800th Military Police Brigade, which supplied the guards at the prison, have been charged in connection with the abuses seen in the photos. In addition, six soldiers in the 205th, the intelligence unit, and two other contractors witnessed the abuse but failed to report it, which also violates regulations, Kern said.
The report said investigators discovered three more MPs who took part in abuses, and one more who knew of the mistreatment and did not report it. It also noted that two medics knew of the abuses but did not report them.
Most of the people are not identified in the investigation report. All of them may face charges or disciplinary action for abuses that occurred between late July 2003 and early February 2004.
"We discovered serious misconduct and a loss of moral values," Kern said.
The report blames the abuses on several factors: "misconduct (ranging from inhumane to sadistic) by a small group of morally corrupt soldiers and civilians, a lack of discipline on the part of leaders and soldiers," and a "failure or lack of leadership" by higher command in Iraq.
Kern said Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. officer in Iraq when the abuses occurred, was responsible for "the things that did or did not happen" but not directly culpable for the abuse.
The lead investigators were Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones.
The Army's investigation recorded 44 separate incidents of abuse, including one that led to the death of a prisoner, officials said.
Kern said the most horrific case involved military canine handlers using their dogs to try to frighten two Iraqi adolescents into involuntarily fouling themselves.
The report attributes some problems to the influence of officials with "other government agencies" — a term frequently used by the Pentagon for the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites). CIA (news - web sites) interrogators and contractors were also at Abu Ghraib.
"It is clear that the interrogation practices of other government agencies led to a loss of accountability at Abu Ghraib," the report says, but it provides little detail.
The other agencies also kept at least eight "ghost detainees" — prisoners concealed from the International Committee of the Red Cross, Army officials said. It was one of those eight who died during interrogation.
Army officials credited the military with fixing many problems outlined in the report, and said the vast majority of military personnel in Iraq are doing their jobs honorably.
Their findings came a day after an independent panel released a report blaming senior leaders, including Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers, for lax oversight of military-run prisons in Iraq. This contributed to the chaos at Abu Ghraib, said members of that panel, led by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger.
That report said about one-third of the substantiated cases of prisoner abuse throughout the military-run prison system took place during interrogations.
It found no policy of abuse and concluded that the problems were directly the fault of the soldiers who committed violence against the prisoners, and their immediate supervisors.
___
On the Net:
The Army's report is available at:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/iraq/040825fay.pdf | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 11:56 am Post subject: How Torture Came Down From the Top |
| The following article shows just how clueless the Zionist cowboy really is:
How Torture Came Down From the Top
By Jackson Diehl
The latest official reports on the prisoner abuse scandal contain a
classic Washington contradiction. Their headlines proclaim that no
official policy mandated or allowed the torture of detainees in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and that no officials above the rank of colonel deserve
prosecution or formal punishment. But buried in their hundreds of pages of
detail, for anyone who cares to read them, is a clear and meticulous
account of how decisions made by President Bush, his top political aides
and senior military commanders led directly to those searing images of
naked prisoners being menaced with guard dogs.
An abbreviated tour of that buried narrative could begin on Page 33 of
the report by the panel led by James R. Schlesinger. There it details
how President Bush, on the advice of his White House counsel and
attorney general, decided in February 2002 that the Geneva Conventions would
not apply to captured members of al Qaeda and Afghanistan's Taliban.
This, despite the objections of the State Department and "many service
lawyers," who worried that the decision "would undermine the United States
military culture, which is based on a strict adherence to the law of
war."
In October 2002, Schlesinger recounts, authorities at the Guantanamo
Bay prison "requested approval of strengthened counter-interrogation
techniques," and in December, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
authorized a number of harsh methods. He was challenged by the military
lawyers whom he had failed to consult, and the policy was revised in April
2003.
Already, however, the techniques first authorized by Rumsfeld were
circulating around the world. According to the report of Army Maj. Gen.
George R. Fay, "the techniques employed in [Guantanamo] included the use
of stress positions, isolation for up to thirty days, removal of
clothing and the use of detainees' phobias (such as the use of dogs)," all of
which had been approved by Rumsfeld. "From December 2002, interrogators
in Afghanistan were removing clothing, isolating people for long
periods of time, using stress positions, exploiting fear of dogs and
implementing sleep and light deprivation."
How did these abusive practices spread to Iraq, where they were
clearly illegal under the Geneva Conventions? "Interrogators in Iraq," Fay
writes, "already familiar with the practice of some of these new ideas,
implemented them even prior to any policy guidance" from Iraq
commanders. But there was "policy guidance," too. In August 2003, Schlesinger
says, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then the commander at Guantanamo Bay,
arrived in Iraq; "he brought the Secretary of Defense's April 16, 2003,
policy guidelines for Guantanamo with him and gave this policy to" Lt.
Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq.
On Sept. 14, as Schlesinger recounts it, "Sanchez signed a memorandum
authorizing a dozen interrogation techniques beyond" the standard Army
practice under the Geneva Conventions, including "five beyond those
approved for Guantanamo." He did so, Schlesinger says, "using reasoning
from the President's Memorandum of February 7, 2002," which he believed
justified "additional, tougher measures." The methods he approved
included several of those on which Rumsfeld had signed off 10 months earlier
and which subsequently had appeared in Afghanistan: stress positions,
fear of dogs, and sleep and light deprivation.
Sanchez's policy was revised a month later, but interrogators at Abu
Ghraib, Fay reports, had begun using it immediately. Consequently, some
guards and interrogators who used dogs to frighten prisoners, deprived
them of clothing or subjected them to extreme isolation had every
reason to believe their acts were authorized. As Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones
delicately put it in his report, "Some of these incidents involved
conduct which, in retrospect, violated international law. However, at the
time some of the soldiers or contractors committed the acts, they may
have honestly believed the techniques were condoned."
The causal chain is all there: from Bush's February 2002 decision to
Rumsfeld's December 2002 authorization of nudity, stress positions and
dogs; to the adoption of those methods in Afghanistan and their sanction
in Iraq by a commander looking back to Bush's decision; and finally, to
their use on detainees by soldiers who reasonably believed they were
executing official policy.
So why do the reports' authors deny the role of policy, or its makers?
Partly because of the Army's inbred inability to indict its own; partly
because of the desire of Rumsfeld's old colleagues, such as
Schlesinger, to protect him. But there's another motive, too: a lingering will to
defend and preserve the groundbreaking decisions -- those that set
aside the Geneva Conventions and allowed harsh interrogation techniques.
Schlesinger argues they are needed for the war on terrorism; he and
senior Army commanders say they are worried about a "chilling effect" on
interrogations and a slackening in intelligence collection.
The buried message of their reports, though, is that the new system is
unworkable. Once the rules are bent for one class of prisoner, or one
detention facility, or one agency, exceptional practices cannot be
easily returned to their bottle -- and the chaos of Abu Ghraib is a
predictable result. Just as the Army professionals foresaw, Bush's 2002
decision undermined "U.S. military culture" and its "strict adherence to the
law of war." That is the headline the investigators ducked.
Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/admin/emailfriend?contentId=A37221-2004Aug26&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:48 pm Post subject: Generals May Pay a Price for Iraq Abuse |
| Generals May Pay a Price for Iraq Abuse
1 hour, 5 minutes ago
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON - The Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal could effectively end the careers of four Army generals who are linked indirectly to the misconduct but face no criminal charges.
AP Photo
The four are singled out for varying degrees of criticism — mixed with instances of praise — in two comprehensive investigative reports released last week. The investigators conclude that the generals are partly responsible, but not legally culpable, for the abuse last fall.
All four are "essentially finished in the military," even if they are not forced to resign, said Dan Goure, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank. "At the very minimum you could argue that they lost control" of their subordinates, he said.
The most senior of the four generals, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, already has been passed over for promotion to a four-star slot as chief of Southern Command because of an expectation by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Sanchez would face trouble in a Senate confirmation hearing (news - web sites).
Sanchez was the top U.S. commander in Iraq (news - web sites) until the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty in late June, when he returned to Army 5th Corps headquarters in Germany, where he is the commanding general.
Further complicating his situation is the fact that as 5th Corps commander he would normally be the person to make decisions about pursuing possible criminal charges against soldiers of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade who are implicated in the latest Army report.
But since his own role in Iraq is under scrutiny, that responsibility may be shifted elsewhere.
Sanchez and his top deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, are cited in an Army investigation for failure to "ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations" in Iraq, specifically at the Abu Ghraib prison where Iraqi detainees were physically abused and sexually humiliated by military police and intelligence soldiers in the fall of 2003.
That probe was conducted by Maj. Gen. George Fay and focused on the role of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade at Abu Ghraib, although it also assessed the performance of commanders and senior staff officers higher up the chain of command.
It found no evidence that the abuse was carried out under military orders, or in accordance with any Pentagon (news - web sites) policy, but rather was attributed to personal misconduct and, in some cases, confusion and inadequate supervision.
Wojdakowski had responsibility for detention operations at Abu Ghraib but was not based there. Separately, the intelligence soldiers who conducted interrogations at Abu Ghraib reported through Sanchez's intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast.
"These arrangements had the damaging result that no single individual was responsible for overseeing operations at the prison," according to a report by an independent panel of nongovernment experts, headed by former defense secretary James Schlesinger, also released last week.
Fast, Wojdakowski and Sanchez, as well as Janis Karpinski, the Army Reserve brigadier general who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade in Iraq, are criticized in both the Fay and Schlesinger reports.
Fast also is praised. The Fay report says she orchestrated a reorganization of the intelligence setup in Iraq after she arrived in July 2003 amid an emerging anti-U.S. insurgency.
"The subsequent successes of this new intelligence architecture created by Maj. Gen. Fast and her team exponentially improved the intelligence process and saved the lives of coalition forces and Iraqi civilians," it said. The organization she set up also led to the capture of key members of the former Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) regime and, ultimately, to Saddam's capture in December 2003.
The Schlesinger report says Wojdakowski failed to call for more military police at Abu Ghraib after it became clear that more were needed.
It faults Fast for improperly advising Sanchez on operating the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib and for failing to appropriately monitor the activities of the CIA (news - web sites), whose officers participated in some interrogations at the prison and who allegedly persuaded the Army to hold "ghost" detainees without registering them as required by law.
The Schlesinger report blamed Karpinski for leadership failures that "helped set the conditions at the prison which led to the abuses." She failed to ensure that Iraqi prisoners were protected by the Geneva Conventions and failed to deal with ineffective commanders below her. It recommended that she be relieved of command and given a letter of reprimand, which would essentially end her career.
Shortly before the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted last spring, the Army announced that Fast would take command of Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and its Army Intelligence Center when she returned from Iraq.
However, she has been back since late July and has yet to be installed as commander.
Col. Joseph Curtin, a spokesman at Army headquarters in the Pentagon, said Friday that Fast remains in line for the command but no date has been set for her to assume the post, which is in charge of training in interrogation, counterintelligence and other special skills.
A spokeswoman at Fort Huachuca, Joan Vasey, said Monday that Fast would not comment on the reports and that she still expects to become commander. She said Fast was on temporary duty away from Huachuca and that for security reasons she could not say more about Fast's current work.
___
On the Net:
The Schlesinger report at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2004/d20040824finalreport.pdf
The Fay report at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug2004/d20040825fay.pdf | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:54 pm Post subject: Alleged Israel Leak a Burden for Rumsfeld |
| Alleged Israel Leak a Burden for Rumsfeld
By ROBERT BURNS
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI investigation into whether a Pentagon analyst passed classified information to Israel is yet another political weight on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, still fending off criticism over the Iraq war and prisoner abuse.
It is not clear whether the investigation will result in charges of espionage at the Pentagon. At the least, the probe complicates Rumsfeld's position as congressional committees that oversee the Defense Department prepare for more hearings on the abuse scandal.
Rumsfeld has not commented publicly on the FBI's investigation. While the FBI has spent more than a year on the case, it only became public Friday.
Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the investigation is focused on Lawrence A. Franklin, an analyst of Iranian affairs who works in a policy office headed by Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary for policy. Feith has been accused by Democrats of seeking to manipulate intelligence to help make the case for going to war in Iraq. Congressional investigations have found no evidence of that.
The New York Times reported on its Internet site in a story for Monday's editions that government officials say Franklin had been cooperating with federal agents for several weeks and was preparing to lead them to contacts inside the Israeli government when work of the investigation, first reported by CBS News, was leaked late last week.
The Israeli government has denied spying on the United States.
Efforts to reach Franklin by telephone have been unsuccessful. Local law enforcement officers have kept reporters and photographers away from his secluded home in rural West Virginia, about a 90-minute commute from Washington.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that the FBI investigation has broadened to include interviews with individuals at the State and Defense departments as well as Mideast affairs specialists outside the government. Israeli officials predicted that the allegation it got secret information on White House policy toward Iran from the Pentagon analyst would prove false.
Vincent Cannistraro, a retired CIA officer and former director of White House intelligence programs during the Reagan administration, said Sunday, ``It's another scandal for the Pentagon,'' with the potential in this case of going beyond the single individual under investigation.
Larry Di Rita, Rumsfeld's chief spokesman, said Sunday that the Pentagon is sticking by its initial statement Friday that it understands the investigation is limited in scope. He said it would be inappropriate for him or Rumsfeld to comment further because it is an active investigation.
As for the possible political implications for Rumsfeld at the height of a presidential election campaign, Di Rita said, ``I would not try to predict how the political season will affect this.''
Early in his tenure at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld spoke out publicly against the unauthorized release of classified information. He undertook a special investigation when some elements of Pentagon planning for war in Iraq leaked to the news media in 2002.
In his 3 1/2 years as secretary, Rumsfeld has had a sometimes rocky relationship with Congress. When the administration began a global fight against terrorism in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, his stock rose quickly and he gained popularity for his tough approach.
But as the insurgency in Iraq took hold in the summer of 2003 and the casualty toll for American troops mounted - more than 950 have been killed - Rumsfeld became a target of criticism on Capitol Hill.
A Time magazine poll released Saturday said 39 percent of those surveyed approve of the job Rumsfeld has done and 37 disapprove. They were split on whether President Bush should replace Rumsfeld: 49 percent said Rumsfeld should go and 48 percent preferred that he stay.
Rumsfeld, 72, took much political heat when the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal came to light in April with photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners.
Two official investigations found that the highest levels of the Defense Department shared blame for management lapses that may have contributed to the problems at Abu Ghraib. But those reviews found no evidence to suggest that Rumsfeld ordered, encouraged or condoned any abuse of Iraqis.
To the suggestion that Rumsfeld resign over the abuse scandal, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger said last week that such a development would be a ``boon to all of America's enemies.''
Schlesinger headed an independent panel that looked into the abuse. A second panelist, former Defense Secretary Harold Brown, agreed that Rumsfeld acted appropriately.
``If the head of a department had to resign every time anyone down below did something wrong, it would be a very empty Cabinet table'' Brown said.
That was just days before news broke of the FBI investigation at the Pentagon.
08/30/04 19:38 EDT | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2004 8:51 am Post subject: Israeli 'mole' investigation grows |
| From: TOOL
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 14:12:23 EDT
Subject: Israeli 'mole' investigation grows
Israeli 'mole' investigation grows
FBI interviews senior defense officials about leaking sensitive information to Israel.
by Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
FBI agents Sunday and Monday questioned senior officials in the Department of Defense as part of an investigation into allegations that a Pentagon analyst passed on classified documents to an Israeli lobbying group, which may have then passed them on to the government of Israel. The documents in question were papers on the US's stance towards Iran.
The Washington Post reports that Douglas Feith, undersecretary for policy for Defense, and Peter Rodman, assistant secretary for international security affairs, are among those whom the FBI interviewed about the contacts between Lawrence Franklin, a lower-level Pentagon analyst, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and an Israeli diplomat. The Post notes that Mr. Franklin, a Catholic, first came to the attention of the FBI more than a year ago when he appeared at a lunch between an AIPAC official and an Israeli diplomat. The FBI's counterintelligence unit was monitoring the meeting as part of another investigation that it has refused to comment on, although one FBI official said it is part of a broader investigation.
Ha'aretz reported that Franklin's colleagues called him "naive" and that his sympathy for Israel was "overt and public."
In conversations about Franklin with his colleagues, one of the words that comes up again and again is "naive." He is described as an ideologue who believes wholeheartedly in the neo-conservative approach. "Everything by him is black and white," said someone who has worked with Franklin in the Pentagon. "He is a very nice person, very conservative, not at all arrogant," said the colleague, adding that one of the reasons he was brought into the Near East and South Asia desk was his political beliefs.
The New York Times reported Monday that US officials said Franklin had actually been cooperating with "federal agents several weeks ago and was preparing to lead the authorities to contacts inside the Israeli government when the case became publicly known last week."
The disclosure of the inquiry on Friday revealed a covert national security investigation that the FBI had conducted for nearly a year, the officials said. News reports about the inquiry compromised important investigative steps, like the effort to follow the trail back to the Israelis, they said.
The Australian reported Tuesday that Israeli officials confirmed that Noar Gilon, an Israeli diplomat in Washington, met several times with Franklin over the past year. The Jerusalem Post reports Tuesday Mr. Gilon returned to the United States on Monday because he "had done nothing wrong" and "had nothing to hide." Foreign Affairs minister Silvan Shalom Monday called the charges "media nonsense."
"Israel would not do anything that could harm our best friend, the US," Shalom said at a joint press conference with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. "The government of Israel categorically rejects the accusations that it spied or is spying on its best friend, the US," he said.
Monday The Scotsman reported that Israeli cabinet minister Natan Sharansky blamed the incident on a rivalry "between the CIA and the Pentagon." But whatever the reason, Mr, Sharansky said the allegations have damanged ties between Israel and the US.
The Daily Star of Lebanon, however, writes that even if the government of Israel and AIPAC have catagorically denied any wrongdoing, "most observers" believe that US officials would not have leaked or discussed the case if they did not have enough evidence to prove their charges. The New York Times reported Tuesday that while no charges have been laid so far, US government officials said federal lawyers are prepared to "make the first arrests by issuing a criminal complaint against "one or more figures in the case."
Columnist Michael Ledeen, who is himself a figure on the edges of the Franklin/Feith story, writes in the National Review, that the whole "Israeli mole story" just doesn't make sense.
What do we know about Franklin? The main fact is that he's an intelligence professional. He spent his career in the DIA. Like everyone else who handles classified material, he knows the rule by heart: You cannot disclose such information to "unauthorized persons." So if a professional decides to do that, he's always going to do it very carefully. You've read enough spy novels to know the methods: dead drops, secret writing, codes, the whole nine yards. ... But the "stories" say that Franklin walked into a restaurant where one or two guys from AIPAC were having lunch or coffee or something with some Israeli, and dumped the documents on the table.
Meanwhile, the Boston Globe reports Tuesday that the Pentagon office for which Franklin worked is now under investigation for a second incident. This second probe is focusing on the possibility that members of Mr. Feith's office went "outside normal channels to gather intelligence on Iraq or overstepped their legal mandate by meeting with dissidents to plot against Iran and Syria."
The office, led by William J. Luti, a former Navy captain and adviser to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is a powerful cog in Bush administration policy making, populated by some ideologically-minded individuals who see their government service as a way to promote democracy in the Middle East and improve US-Israel ties, according to colleagues inside and outside government.
Washington Monthly writes that the investigations into the office run by Luti raise "the possibility that a rogue faction at the Pentagon was trying to work outside normal US foreign policy channels to advance a 'regime change' agenda not approved by the president's foreign policy principals or even the president himself."
Informed Comment blogger Juan Cole offers more details on the office and what Mr. Cole describes as its plan "to push the US into war with Iran" and how it all connects to the Franklin case. Cole writes that he suspects Franklin is "clearly a lamb being fattened."
The Straits Times of Singapore reports that the "political target" of both investigations may be Mr. Feith, who is an associate of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the investigations have created more problems for Mr. Rumsfeld, who is also dealing with the criticism he and other leaders at the Pentagon received in a recent internal Army investigation report on the abuse of prisoners by US soliders at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0831/dailyUpdate.html | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 8:11 am Post subject: Retired Pentagon Brass Seek Abuse Probe |
| Retired Pentagon Brass Seek Abuse Probe
2 hours, 14 minutes ago
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) is under increasing fire for its handling of the prison abuse investigation, as some retired military officers call for an independent commission to get to the bottom of the four-month-old scandal.
AP Photo
Their appeal came a day before Thursday's hearings by the Senate and House armed services panels, which were reviewing the two latest reports ordered by the Defense Department.
"We cannot ignore that there are now dozens of well-documented allegations of torture, abuse and otherwise questionable detention practices" eight former generals and admirals said Wednesday of prisons in Iraq (news - web sites), Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In-house Pentagon probes don't require sworn testimony, don't have subpoena power and are examples of the military trying to police itself, the officers said in a letter to Bush.
Most of the officers had backgrounds in military law.
In the presidential campaign, two of them have publicly called for President Bush (news - web sites)'s defeat in November.
The Pentagon says a probe headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger was independent, but its members were appointed by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has been criticized in the scandal.
An Army investigation headed by Maj. Gen. George Fay concentrated on which military intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq could be charged with crimes under military law. But Fay's group also said the Army's top commanders in Iraq shared some blame for management failures.
The Schlesinger report looked at Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay as well as Iraq and at military police, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Rumsfeld as well as intelligence officers in Iraq. It concluded that while lower ranking soldiers might be charged, some blame could go to the highest levels of the Pentagon for inadequate supervision and failure to adapt to developments.
A Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) said Wednesday that months of piecemeal military investigations have left officials and the public without a full idea of exactly what happened and who is responsible.
"It's about time we had an investigation that is complete and answers all the questions," Sen. Jack Reed (news, bio, voting record) of Rhode Island said in telephone conference with several reporters.
The scandal created international revulsion four months ago with disclosure of photographs showing troops threatening prisoners at Abu Ghraib with dogs, posing them in sexual positions and keeping detainees naked and hooded.
Though defense officials said the photos portrayed the actions of a few bad apples, the controversy has grown to include probes of some 300 allegations of detainee deaths, torture or other mistreatment, some during interrogations to gather intelligence.
Abuses occurred as long as nearly two years ago — among prisoners taken in the campaign to rout al-Qaida from Afghanistan.
Critics say fault may ultimately rest with White House and Pentagon leaders for creating confusion when they decided in early 2002 that terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay did not fall under Geneva Conventions and then sought to redefine longtime rules of detention, interrogation and trials to suit the counterterror war.
Reed decried what he called "the corrosive effect of ignoring laws and regulations."
"After a while, the rules are anybody's guess," he said.
The retired military leaders who wrote to Bush were Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, Navy Judge Advocate General from 1997 to 2000; Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, Marine Corps senior legal adviser from 1983 to 1988; Brig. Gen. James Cullen, former chief judge of the Army Court of Criminal Appeals; Maj. Gen. John L. Fugh, former Judge Advocate General of the Army; Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, currently a consultant in international security; Vice Adm. Lee F. Gunn, Inspector General of the Department of the Navy until his retirement in August 2000; Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former commander of U.S. Central Command; Brig. Gen. Richard Omeara, who served in the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps.
Hoar is part of a group of retired diplomats and military officers who has said Bush should be voted out of office because his policies damaged U.S. national security interests and America's standing in the world. Gunn is among 12 retired generals and admirals who have endorsed Bush's Democratic rival John Kerry (news - web sites). | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
