NEWS: Rumsfeld urged to testify on prisoner abuses; Military investigating possibility of abuses at other Iraqi prisons
"The former prisoner, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified, said he had cheered the ouster of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but that after his treatment at the hands of his U.S. captors, he considered the Americans to be as bad as “10 Saddams.”
NBC News and news services
Updated: 12:16 p.m. ET May 04, 2004
msnbc.msn.com
WASHINGTON - Stunned by the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military and intelligence personnel, lawmakers demanded answers Tuesday about how the abuse was allowed to happen, and several made a bipartisan push for public hearings to grill Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., emerged from a closed-door Senate Armed Services hearing to say that Rumsfeld should answer questions in public.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said he feared that the allegations made public so far are “the beginning rather than the end” of the abuse claims.
“This does not appear to be an isolated incident,” Kennedy said. There might be other abuses at facilities in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan, he said.
The Pentagon sent several lower-level uniformed military officials to Capitol Hill after being summoned by the committee.
Gen. George Casey, the vice chief of the Army, told reporters afterward that the actions of a few represented "a complete breakdown of discipline."
Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said the allegations, “if proven, represent an appalling and totally unacceptable breach of military conduct that could undermine much of the courageous work and sacrifice by our forces in the war on terror.”
As the committee met, Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said on the Senate floor that he wants Rumsfeld to come to the legislative body “no later than the end of this week ... and explain to us what they know.”
Among other things, Daschle said he wanted to know why President Bush was not earlier informed of a report that American soldiers had subjected detainees to blatant and sadistic abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison and why Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers have not yet read the 2-month-old report.
“Why, in other words, has there been this extraordinary disconnect, this unbelievable failure of communication, of oversight,” Daschle said. “We cannot let this action go without doing all that we can to ensure that we understand all of the circumstances ... and be provided with ... specific and detailed response involving discipline.”
Administration timeline of events
Bush learned of the allegations sometime after the Pentagon began an investigation in late January and first saw the pictures when they became public last week, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Tuesday.
On Monday, a Pentagon official said the U.S. military did a “top-level review” last fall of how its detention centers in Iraq were run, months before commanders first were told about the sexual humiliation and abuse of Iraqis, which has created an international uproar.
Larry Di Rita, the top spokesman for Rumsfeld, said the review was done at the request of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq.
Di Rita did not say what prompted the review. He said it “drew certain conclusions” that later were taken into account by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who began an investigation on Jan. 31 focusing on an unidentified soldier’s report of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib prison.
That second probe led to findings of blatant and sadistic abuse by U.S. military police and perhaps others. It has drawn wide condemnation, particularly with the publication of photos documenting the mistreatment.
Just following orders?
An attorney for a military police officer being investigated in the abuse probe said on NBC’s “Today” show that the photographs “were obviously staged” to manipulate the prisoners into cooperating with intelligence officials.
“They were part of the psychological manipulation of the prisoners being interrogated,” said Guy Womack, attorney for Charles Graner, a Greene County, Pa. corrections officer who was activated to the military in March 2003.
“It was being controlled and devised by the military intelligence community and other governmental agencies, including the CIA,” Womack said. The soldiers, he said, were simply “following orders.”
Asked if he thought the treatment of the prisoners warranted courts-martial, Womack said it could "but you court-martial the right person, you don't court-martial the soldier who was following orders."
Graner is among six military police officers who had criminal charges filed against them on March 20. As many as three of the six cases have been referred to military trial, and others are in various stages of preliminary hearings, officials said.
In addition to the criminal cases, seven others — all military police — have been given noncriminal punishment — in six of the cases they got letters of reprimand. Some of the seven are members of the Army Reserve, according to a defense official who has direct knowledge of the situation.
The official said he believed that the investigations of the officers were complete and that they would not face further action or court-martial. However, the reprimands could spell the end of their careers.
It was unclear whether others, including those in military intelligence, will face disciplinary action. The names of the seven have not been made public.
Other inquiries under way
The investigation came to attention last week when CBS’s “60 Minutes II” broadcast images showing Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by their U.S. captors.
But officials told NBC News that at least five other investigations were under way to determine whether similar mistreatment was taking place at other U.S. facilities.
In an interview with NBC News, a former Iraqi prisoner at a separate detention center said he was held down by six U.S. soldiers, who he said beat the bottoms of his feet with steel rods.
The former prisoner, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified, said he had cheered the ouster of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but that after his treatment at the hands of his U.S. captors, he considered the Americans to be as bad as “10 Saddams.”
Secret Army report
Publicly, the Defense Department blamed the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, for a breakdown in command at Abu Ghraib, slapping her with an “admonishment” after she left Iraq earlier this year as part of a rotation of U.S. forces.
The New Yorker via AP
U.S. soldiers pose with Iraqi prisoners, naked and hooded, at Abu Ghraib prison in an undated photo.
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But U.S. officials noted that Karpinski — who was not suspended or relieved of her command, her lawyer, Neal Puckett, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” — oversaw 25 other detention centers in addition to Abu Ghraib.
NBC News on Monday obtained a copy of Taguba's findings, which found that at least some irregularities in the treatment of Iraqi prisoners extended beyond Abu Ghraib, noting that “the various detention facilities operated by the 800th MP Brigade have routinely held persons brought to them by Other Government Agencies (OGAs) without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention.”
The report, whose existence was first disclosed by The New Yorker magazine, has not been completed, Di Rita said. He said Rumsfeld had not yet seen it.
The 53-page document is devoted primarily to the alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, where, it says, Iraqi detainees were subjected to “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses.”
Military intelligence officers and civilian interrogators encouraged military police to abuse prisoners to “soften them up” for interrogation, the report said, adding, “This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated.” It said its conclusions were supported by written confessions by some of the suspects, among other evidence.
The report, which stated that Karpinski had been admonished, recommends that she be relieved of duty.
Prisoners told U.S. investigators that their military guards beat them with broom handles and chairs, threatened to rape male prisoners, and sodomized them with chemical light sticks and broom handles.
There was no independent corroboration of the prisoners’ charges, but Taguba wrote that “I find these witnesses to be credible.”
‘32 boots’
Karpinski accepted some responsibility for the treatment Monday on “Good Morning America,” but she said she did not know about the abuse as it was happening, and she accused other officers of condoning what was going on.
“They were despicable acts,” Karpinski said. “Had I known anything about it, I certainly would have reacted very quickly.” But she insisted that the cell blocks where some of the alleged abuses occurred were “under the military intelligence control.”
Karpinski said that in one photograph from the prison, there appeared to be more Americans involved in the alleged abuse than the six MPs who have already been charged.
“Absolutely. One photograph showed — it didn’t show faces completely, but the photograph showed 32 boots,” Karpinski said on ABC. “I’m saying other people than the military police.”
Bush calls for punishment
McClellan said the president called Rumsfeld Monday to make sure that U.S. soldiers involved in “these shameful and appalling acts” were punished.
The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council joined the international criticism of the abuse, terming it a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions.
The council demanded that U.S. authorities allow Iraqi judges to take part in the interrogations of prisoners and open the detention centers to inspections by Iraqi officials.
The military reportedly was briefing troops on how to discuss the issue in conversation with Iraqis.
“We’ve made it very clear to commanders and all the way down to the lowest soldier, ‘You’ve got to get out there and explain what happened here,’ ” one official said.
CIA conduct under microscope
Separate from the Army investigation, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News that at least two of the other probes of alleged abuses of Iraqi prisoners were looking specifically at CIA personnel.
The officials said on condition of anonymity that one investigation by the agency’s inspector general had been under way for several months and that the second involved an instance in which a prisoner allegedly was abused in the field, not at Abu Ghraib.
Amnesty International said it had uncovered a “pattern of torture” of Iraqi prisoners by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. The group called for an independent investigation into the claims and said it had received “scores” of reports of ill treatment of detainees.
But a U.S. defense contractor whose employees are alleged to have led some of the abuse said Monday that it had not been informed of any such accusations by the government.
J.P. London, president and CEO of CACI International Inc., issued a statement saying, “In the event there is wrongdoing on the part of any CACI employee, we will take swift action to correct it immediately, but at this time we have no information from the U.S. government of any violations or wrongful behavior.”
Di Rita said he could not comment on the contractors.
NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Andrea Mitchell in Washington and Robert Windrem in New York, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. |
