Whois
12-08-2004, 12:06 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/politics/07cnd-abus.html?ex=1103462134&ei=1&en=1329389e02672a45
December 7, 2004
Memos Say 2 Officials Who Saw Prison Abuse Were Threatened
By NEIL A. LEWIS
ASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - Two Defense Department intelligence officials reported observing brutal treatment of Iraqi insurgents captured in Baghdad last June, several weeks after disclosures of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison there created a worldwide uproar, according to a memorandum disclosed today.
The memorandum, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to a senior Pentagon official, said that when the two members of his agency objected to the treatment, they were threatened and told to keep quiet by other military interrogators. The memorandum said that the Defense Intelligence Agency officials saw prisoners being brought in to a detention center with burn marks on their backs and complaining about sore kidneys.
The memorandum was disclosed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained it as part of a cache of documents from a civil lawsuit seeking to discover the extent of abuse of prisoners by the military.
Other memorandums disclosed this week, including some released by the A.C.L.U., showed that the interrogation and detention system at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had drawn strong objections from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which argued that the coercive techniques used there were unnecessary and produced unreliable information. The Associated Press reported Monday that one F.B.I. official wrote in a memorandum of witnessing a series of coercive procedures at Guantánamo, including a female interrogator squeezing the genitals of a detainee and bending back his thumbs painfully.
The June 25 memorandum, written by Vice Admiral Lowell .E. Jacoby, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was addressed to the under secretary of Defense for intelligence, Stephen Cambone. Admiral Jacoby wrote that one of his officers witnessed an interrogator from the special operations unit known as Task Force 6-26 "punch a prisoner in the face to the point the individual needed medical attention." Admiral Jacoby said that when the D.I.A. official took photos of that detainee, the pictures were confiscated.
The memorandum said that the two D.I.A. employees, who were not identified, had the keys to their vehicles confiscated, were instructed "not to leave the compound without specific permission even to get a haircut," were threatened, and were told their e-mail messages were being screened. The memorandum said they persevered and provided their accounts to superiors in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
In response to the document's disclosure, a Defense Department spokesman said today: "U.S. policy condemns and prohibits torture. U.S. personnel are required to follow this policy and applicable law."
The spokesman did not say what action if any was taken by Mr. Cambone, but added: "We have said all along that we do not tolerate any mistreatment of detainees. We investigate thoroughly any credible allegations and take appropriate action if they are substantiated. The same process applies to these allegations."
The Pentagon has also said that the activities disclosed earlier this week about Guantánamo, including the account about the female interrogator, were under investigation.
The place in Iraq where the events described by Admiral Jacoby occurred is referred to in his memorandum as the Temporary Detention Facility in Baghdad. Task Force 6-26 is a special unit that is devoted mostly to capturing and interrogating what the military calls "high value detainees" involved in the Iraqi insurgency, officials said.
It is not known whether the members of the task force involved in the incidents were military personnel or civilians.
The situation of the prisoners likely to be interviewed by such special forces teams differ from those held at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, military officials said. The prisoners in custody at the Temporary Detention Facility are more likely to be interrogated about some activity that just occurred, in the hope that fresh intelligence might be obtained immediately after an incident or confrontation.
The disclosure of memorandums by the A.C.L.U., as well as reports of a recent complaint about torture at Guantánamo by the International Committee of the Red Cross, have increasingly contradicted the military's statements about the limited extent of harsh treatment of prisoners.
One of the F.B.I. memorandums disclosed earlier this week described a bureau official expressing shock to read an interview given by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commander of the Guantánamo prison until last April, to the Stars and Stripes newspaper in which he asserted that the interrogation system there was based on establishing rapport with the detainees.
The bureau official reported being so surprised, "I did cartwheels."
General Miller, according to the memorandum, had been so frank in discussions about the need to use harsh interrogation tactics that it resulted in strong disagreements with the F.B.I. contingent in Guantánamo.
December 7, 2004
Memos Say 2 Officials Who Saw Prison Abuse Were Threatened
By NEIL A. LEWIS
ASHINGTON, Dec. 7 - Two Defense Department intelligence officials reported observing brutal treatment of Iraqi insurgents captured in Baghdad last June, several weeks after disclosures of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison there created a worldwide uproar, according to a memorandum disclosed today.
The memorandum, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to a senior Pentagon official, said that when the two members of his agency objected to the treatment, they were threatened and told to keep quiet by other military interrogators. The memorandum said that the Defense Intelligence Agency officials saw prisoners being brought in to a detention center with burn marks on their backs and complaining about sore kidneys.
The memorandum was disclosed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained it as part of a cache of documents from a civil lawsuit seeking to discover the extent of abuse of prisoners by the military.
Other memorandums disclosed this week, including some released by the A.C.L.U., showed that the interrogation and detention system at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had drawn strong objections from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which argued that the coercive techniques used there were unnecessary and produced unreliable information. The Associated Press reported Monday that one F.B.I. official wrote in a memorandum of witnessing a series of coercive procedures at Guantánamo, including a female interrogator squeezing the genitals of a detainee and bending back his thumbs painfully.
The June 25 memorandum, written by Vice Admiral Lowell .E. Jacoby, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was addressed to the under secretary of Defense for intelligence, Stephen Cambone. Admiral Jacoby wrote that one of his officers witnessed an interrogator from the special operations unit known as Task Force 6-26 "punch a prisoner in the face to the point the individual needed medical attention." Admiral Jacoby said that when the D.I.A. official took photos of that detainee, the pictures were confiscated.
The memorandum said that the two D.I.A. employees, who were not identified, had the keys to their vehicles confiscated, were instructed "not to leave the compound without specific permission even to get a haircut," were threatened, and were told their e-mail messages were being screened. The memorandum said they persevered and provided their accounts to superiors in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
In response to the document's disclosure, a Defense Department spokesman said today: "U.S. policy condemns and prohibits torture. U.S. personnel are required to follow this policy and applicable law."
The spokesman did not say what action if any was taken by Mr. Cambone, but added: "We have said all along that we do not tolerate any mistreatment of detainees. We investigate thoroughly any credible allegations and take appropriate action if they are substantiated. The same process applies to these allegations."
The Pentagon has also said that the activities disclosed earlier this week about Guantánamo, including the account about the female interrogator, were under investigation.
The place in Iraq where the events described by Admiral Jacoby occurred is referred to in his memorandum as the Temporary Detention Facility in Baghdad. Task Force 6-26 is a special unit that is devoted mostly to capturing and interrogating what the military calls "high value detainees" involved in the Iraqi insurgency, officials said.
It is not known whether the members of the task force involved in the incidents were military personnel or civilians.
The situation of the prisoners likely to be interviewed by such special forces teams differ from those held at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, military officials said. The prisoners in custody at the Temporary Detention Facility are more likely to be interrogated about some activity that just occurred, in the hope that fresh intelligence might be obtained immediately after an incident or confrontation.
The disclosure of memorandums by the A.C.L.U., as well as reports of a recent complaint about torture at Guantánamo by the International Committee of the Red Cross, have increasingly contradicted the military's statements about the limited extent of harsh treatment of prisoners.
One of the F.B.I. memorandums disclosed earlier this week described a bureau official expressing shock to read an interview given by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commander of the Guantánamo prison until last April, to the Stars and Stripes newspaper in which he asserted that the interrogation system there was based on establishing rapport with the detainees.
The bureau official reported being so surprised, "I did cartwheels."
General Miller, according to the memorandum, had been so frank in discussions about the need to use harsh interrogation tactics that it resulted in strong disagreements with the F.B.I. contingent in Guantánamo.