Tenet & Rumsfeld hid Iraqi terror prisoner from Red Cross

What - in his cellar? Or in that space under the stairs that's too big to be a broom cupboard and too small for wine-storage?

Pentagon Acknowledges Improperly Holding Iraqi in Secret
The AP finally picked up the story. But I notice they omitted the fact that the action was taken under direct order from Don Rumsfeld. Interesting omission, don't you think? ---BBB

Jun 16, 2004
Pentagon Acknowledges Improperly Holding Iraqi in Secret
By Matt Kelley
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The military improperly held a suspected Iraqi terrorist in secret for more than seven months, Pentagon officials acknowledged Wednesday.

The military has held the man in Iraq since October without assigning him a prisoner number or notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross that he is a prisoner, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday night.

Both assigning a prisoner number and notifying the Red Cross are required under the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian laws.

Whitman said the military made a mistake in the case, which was first reported Wednesday night by NBC and CBS. The prisoner will be given a number and the Red Cross will be formally notified soon, Whitman said.

"The ICRC should have been notified about the detainee earlier," Whitman said. "We should have taken steps, and we have taken the necessary steps to rectify the situation."

The prisoner is believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam, a radical group which had been based in northern Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion last year. U.S. officials believe the man was involved in attacks on coalition troops, Whitman said.

The CIA asked the military to take custody of the man in October and asked that he not be given a prisoner number or disclosed to the Red Cross while officials determined his status, Whitman said.

The Bush administration contends that terrorist suspects are "enemy combatants" who do not have any protection under the Geneva Conventions.

Military officials questioned the arrangement but those objections did not reach the highest levels in the Pentagon until last month, Whitman said.

"Certainly the people that had responsibility for maintaining him in custody knew that they had him, knew their instructions, knew that a disposition hadn't been determined for him and raised concern about it on a couple of occasions," Whitman said.

The prisoner has been treated humanely, Whitman said. He and Lawrence Di Rita, the top spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, declined to identify the prisoner.

The Red Cross and other humanitarian groups have criticized the United States for keeping some prisoners in secret. Wednesday's acknowledgment was the first by the Pentagon of a specific prisoner who was improperly held in secret.

The accused Ansar al-Islam member is not being held at the Abu Ghraib prison where infamous abuses occurred, said a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity because prisoner locations in Iraq are classified.

AP-ES-06-16-04 2032EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBEFO15KVD.html

Rumsfeld Issued an Order to Hide Detainee in Iraq
The New York Times story adds new information including naming George Tenet as the order's originator. ---BBB

June 17, 2004
PRISON ABUSE
Rumsfeld Issued an Order to Hide Detainee in Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, June 16 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, acting at the request of George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, ordered military officials in Iraq last November to hold a man suspected of being a senior Iraqi terrorist at a high-level detention center there but not list him on the prison's rolls, senior Pentagon and intelligence officials said Wednesday.

This prisoner and other "ghost detainees" were hidden largely to prevent the International Committee of the Red Cross from monitoring their treatment, and to avoid disclosing their location to an enemy, officials said.

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, the Army officer who in February investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, criticized the practice of allowing ghost detainees there and at other detention centers as "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law."

This prisoner, who has not been named, is believed to be the first to have been kept off the books at the orders of Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Tenet. He was not held at Abu Ghraib, but at another prison, Camp Cropper, on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport, officials said.

Pentagon and intelligence officials said the decision to hold the detainee without registering him - at least initially - was in keeping with the administration's legal opinion about the status of those viewed as an active threat in wartime.

Seven months later, however, the detainee - a reputed senior officer of Ansar al-Islam, a group the United States has linked to Al Qaeda and blames for some attacks in Iraq - is still languishing at the prison but has only been questioned once while in detention, in what government officials acknowledged was an extraordinary lapse.

"Once he was placed in military custody, people lost track of him," a senior intelligence official conceded Wednesday night. "The normal review processes that would keep track of him didn't."

The detainee was described by the official as someone "who was actively planning operations specifically targeting U.S. forces and interests both inside and outside of Iraq."

But once he was placed into custody at Camp Cropper, where about 100 detainees deemed to have the highest intelligence value are held, he received only one cursory arrival interrogation from military officers and was never again questioned by any other military or intelligence officers, according to Pentagon and intelligence officials.

The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Wednesday that officials at Camp Cropper questioned their superiors several times in recent months about what to do with the suspect.

But only in the last two weeks has Mr. Rumsfeld's top aide for intelligence policy, Stephen A. Cambone, called C.I.A. senior officials to request that the agency deal with the suspect or else have him go into the prison's regular reporting system.

Mr. Di Rita referred questions about the prisoner's fate to the C.I.A.

A senior intelligence official said late Wednesday that "the matter is currently under discussion."

In July 2003, the man suspected of being an Ansar al-Islam official was captured in Iraq and turned over to C.I.A. officials, who took him to an undisclosed location outside of Iraq for interrogation. By that fall, however, a C.I.A. legal analysis determined that because the detainee was deemed to be an Iraqi unlawful combatant - outside the protections of the Geneva Conventions - he should be transferred back to Iraq.

Mr. Tenet made his request to Mr. Rumsfeld - that the suspect be held but not listed - in October. The request was passed down the chain of command: to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then to Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the Middle East, and finally to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the ground commander in Iraq. At each stage, lawyers reviewed the request and their bosses approved it.

A senior intelligence official said late Wednesday that the C.I.A. inquired about the detainee's status in January, but was told that American jailers in Iraq could not find him, perhaps as a result of the chaos and confusion of the November and December spike in insurgent violence.

The detention was first reported in this week's U.S. News & World Report. But the role played by senior officials in deciding the detainee's status was not known publicly before Wednesday. Pentagon and intelligence officials gave new details on Wednesday about the prisoner and the circumstances that brought him to Camp Cropper, including the fact that his status was decided by Mr. Tenet and Mr. Rumsfeld, and approved by senior officers.

While acknowledging mistakes in the prisoner's detention, the senior intelligence official said the detainee posed a significant threat to American forces in Iraq and elsewhere. "He also possessed significant information about Ansar al Islam's leadership structure, training and locations," the official said.

At Camp Cropper, some prisoners had been held since June 2003 for nearly 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in small cells without sunlight, according to a report by the international Red Cross.

The suspected Ansar official was segregated from the other detainees and was not listed on the rolls. Under the order that had filtered down to General Sanchez, military police were not to disclose the detainee's whereabouts to the Red Cross pending further directives.

The prisoner fell into legal limbo as the military police pressed their superiors for guidance, which has still not formally come.

"Over the course of the next several weeks, the custodians at the prison asked for additional guidance, but there were no interrogations," Mr. Di Rita said.

Before this case surfaced, the C.I.A. has said it had discontinued the ghost detainee practice, but said that the Geneva Conventions allowed a delay in the identification of prisoners to avoid disclosing their whereabouts to an enemy.

In Washington, the Army announced that Gen. Paul J. Kern, the head of the Army Matériel Command, would oversee an Army inquiry into the role military intelligence soldiers played in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. General Kern replaces General Sanchez as the senior officer reviewing the findings. General Sanchez removed himself from that role so he could be interviewed by investigators.

Hiding a bad guy named triple X
More information from the originator of the story but it doesn't include the revelation that the orders came from George Tenet and Donald Rumsfeld---interesting ommission. ---BBB

Hiding a bad guy named triple X
How the military treated some inmates at Abu Ghraib like 'ghosts'
By Edward T. Pound
U.S. News and World Report
6/21/04

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, issued a classified order last November directing military guards to hide a prisoner, later dubbed "Triple X" by soldiers, from Red Cross inspectors and keep his name off official rosters. The disclosure, by military sources, is the first indication that Sanchez was directly involved in efforts to hide prisoners from the Red Cross, a practice that was sharply criticized by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in a report describing abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Taguba blamed the 800th Military Police Brigade, which guarded the prison, for allowing "other government agencies"--a euphemism that includes the CIA--to hide "ghost" detainees at Abu Ghraib. The practice, he wrote, "was deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law." Taguba's report did not cite the November 18 directive issued by Sanchez to hide Triple X, identified as a high-ranking terrorist. It is not known if Taguba saw the directive. He declined to comment. The Army said it could not discuss a classified order.

The disclosure of Sanchez's involvement may focus more attention on him. There have been reports that his top Army lawyers sought to curb Red Cross access to Abu Ghraib, only weeks after the humanitarian agency uncovered abuses and sexual humiliation at the prison late last year. Some Army officers, including Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of the 800th MP Brigade, have blamed Sanchez's staff for refusing to release security detainees from Abu Ghraib even when they were believed to pose no threat to coalition forces.

Karpinski says Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who is Sanchez's top intelligence officer, was a major obstacle to releasing detainees. Fast, she says, served with her and a third officer on a detainee release board and vetoed recommendations to release inmates from the overcrowded facility, even after determining that they were of no intelligence value. "She did not want to release the next Osama bin Laden," Karpinski says. "She had a certain kind of paranoia." Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top military spokesman in Iraq, denies that Fast had veto authority and says most board decisions were unanimous.

Overcrowding, lack of force protection in a hot combat zone, and unsanitary conditions may have contributed to the problems at Abu Ghraib. Internal Army records obtained by U.S. News show that the military moved at a snail's pace in releasing security detainees from Abu Ghraib and three other facilities. In early December, there were 1,604 detainees kept for more than 91 days. By late January, that figure had grown to 3,016. An additional 1,500 were kept for more than two months, the January report shows.

Karpinski didn't see eye to eye with either Sanchez or Fast. She says that security detainees were held because they were thought to pose a threat to, or had committed crimes against, coalition forces. But many, she says, should not have been held for so long. Some weren't guilty of anything, she says, pointing out that in the wake of the scandal, the military has been releasing large groups of prisoners from Abu Ghraib. According to various news reports, 1,680 prisoners have been released since May 14.

Some detainees, says Karpinski, "were in the wrong place at the wrong time." She explains: "MI [military intelligence] would do an initial interrogation, find out they were passing by, borrowing a cup of sugar, and they get policed up. They try to explain to somebody that they were only going there to borrow a cup of sugar, but nobody believed them."

No one is arguing that decisions on releasing detainees were easy. Army officers point to an embarrassing incident that took place in May 2003: An Iraqi man was released from Camp Bucca in southern Iraq after convincing an interrogator that he was a "tomato farmer," but he turned out to be Mohammed Jawad An Neifus, Saddam Hussein's most loyal tribal leader. Neifus was believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of Shiites, an Army officer says.

Triple X certainly fit the category of a potential threat. Sanchez, in his directive to the 800th MP Brigade--Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) No. 1099--identified the man by name, said he was a terrorist, and told the brigade not to put his name in any electronic roster of detainees. He instructed the brigade not to disclose his whereabouts to the Red Cross pending further notice, military sources say.

When the brigade objected, Sanchez's staff lawyers directed the MP s to implement the order, according to a 25-page report sent to the Senate Armed Services Committee by Capt. Lisa Weidenbush, operations officer for the 800th MP Brigade (box). She included only bare-bones information about the FRAGO in arguing that the brigade was not involved in a scheme to hide detainees. She declined comment when reached last week.

Beginning last November, the military sources say, Triple X was kept alone, under guard in his own room, at the High Value Detention facility near the Baghdad airport. When Red Cross inspectors visited the facility, the military sources recall, they had no reason to know Triple X was there, and they were not shown him. Even today, not much is known about the man--he is said to be Middle Eastern, short, slightly built, and in his 40s.

It is not clear why there was so much secrecy surrounding Triple X. One senior officer says there were "all these wild rumors" last fall that Triple X might know the location of Saddam, who had not yet been captured. In the end, however, only a handful of people knew why he was so valuable, Sanchez included, and they're not talking.

Thanks BBB.

I'm dearly awaiting an explanation of this from one of the apologists.

Cycloptichorn

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top13jun17,1,1509995.story
Rumsfeld Ordered Secret Arrest in Iraq
By MATT KELLEY
Associated Press Writer
9:08 AM PDT, June 17, 2004



The suspected terrorist has been held since October without being given an identification number and without the International Committee of the Red Cross being notified, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. Both conditions violate the Geneva Accords on treatment of prisoners of war.

Rumsfeld ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have the prisoner secretly detained on the day last October, when Tenet made the request, Whitman said.

"The director of central intelligence requested he not be assigned an internment serial number while the CIA worked to determine his precise disposition," Whitman said.

The Bush administration has argued that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to suspected terrorists who do not follow the conventions themselves. But Rumsfeld and other administration officials have said the Geneva Conventions applied to all U.S. military activities in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

The prisoner will be given a number and the Red Cross will be formally notified soon, Whitman said.

"The ICRC should have been notified about the detainee earlier," Whitman said. "We should have taken steps, and we have taken the necessary steps to rectify the situation."

The Pentagon's admission came a day before a human rights group released a report accusing the United States of keeping an unknown number of terrorist suspects in secret lockups around the world.

A report from New York-based Human Rights First said the Bush administration was violating U.S. and international law by refusing to notify all detainees' families or give names, numbers and locations of all terror war prisoners to the Red Cross.

None of that was done in the Iraqi detainee's case, Whitman said.

Keeping secret prisoners creates conditions for abuses such as the humiliations and beatings suffered by some Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the group argues.

"The official secrecy surrounding U.S. practices has made conditions ripe for illegality and abuse," said the report from Human Rights First, formerly called the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

The group said the United States should immediately allow Red Cross access to all terror war detainees, notify the prisoners' families and announce the number and location of such prisoners.

The Iraqi prisoner is so far the only individual Defense Department officials have acknowledged shielding from the Red Cross. Before Wednesday's admission, Pentagon spokesmen would not confirm or deny if anyone was being held in secret.

"We've not talked about the location of specific detainees other than Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba simply because it gets into the classified realm," Air Force Maj. Michael Shavers said in an e-mail response to questions from The Associated Press on Wednesday, before the Iraq admission.

President Bush and members of his administration have said repeatedly that all detainees are treated humanely. Pentagon officials have argued that announcing the numbers or locations of all detainees would indicate the scope of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts to terrorist groups and give them ideas of sites to attack.

The secret prisoner in Iraq is believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam, a radical group which had been based in northern Iraq before the U.S. invasion last year. U.S. officials believe the man was involved in attacks on coalition troops, Whitman said.

Deborah Pearlstein, a co-author of the Human Rights First report, said the United States needs to stop keeping secret prisoners altogether.

"There's a lot of unnecessary mystery surrounding U.S. detention practices," Pearlstein said Wednesday, before the Pentagon's admission.

<looks around>

Hello? Apologists? I would like to hear ANYONE explain this one to me, and I'll keep bumping it until someone does....

Cycloptichorn

"Pentagon officials have argued that announcing the numbers or locations of all detainees would indicate the scope of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts to terrorist groups and give them ideas of sites to attack.

The secret prisoner in Iraq is believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam, a radical group which had been based in northern Iraq before the U.S. invasion last year. U.S. officials believe the man was involved in attacks on coalition troops, Whitman said."

The only explanation is that the abuse at Abu Gharib was not the isolated actions of a few out of control soldiers but a small part of a larger policy that originated at the top. There is evidence from multiple sources to link people all the way up the chain of command but as of yet no one has put it together to create a full picture of what is going on. This might place several top officials in this administration in violation of international treaties and laws which if this were not the US would land them in front of an international tribunal.

How is that the ONLY explaination?

What is the other one, McG? That we simple do not have to show certain prisoners to the Red Cross?

That is not an acceptable situation by any moral standards.

The explanation you gave is bullsh*t. What are the terrorists going to do, attack heavily armored american bunker/prisons? It's not really their style. And even if they did, do you really think they would have any chance of liberating these prisoners?!?!?

Pull your head out of the sand and admit that there is something rotten in Washington D.C. at the moment.

Cycloptichorn

We capture a possible high ranking operative.

He may have important information on enemy locations, codes, weapons caches and other operational information.

If we release the fact that he is being held and interrogated, ALL those above mentioned things will move or change.

If the enemy believes that their leader is merely 'in hiding' they will stay put and wont change their operations.

Where is the problem here?

Can anyone show some common sense and realize that this is a war, and if we have to keep some people 'incommunicado' until we round up the rest of their friends, then thats the price they pay for going up against us.

The police do this all the time:
Catch someone with vital information.
Don't let it get out that you have that person until you can 'bust the whole operation open'

Well, all this certainly will be reported in the Department of State's 2004 Human Rights Reports.
And surely some embargo will soon start to press the re-establishment of Human Rights in this country and its organisations .....

ooops - I forgot that the USA can throw stones at others although they sit in glasshouse.

We broke the laws. You can sit there and try to justify it all you want, but we were breaking the law of the Geneva convention.

It wouldn't surprise me at all that that doesn't bother you in the slightest. But you should never, ever, ever expect an American POW to be treated with any sort of decency, or respect to laws, ever again. It would be the height of hypocracy to do so.

Cycloptichorn

How dare you equate a terrorist to an American POW.

One wears a uniform, carries out his duties under a uniform code of justice, follows an international convention of laws, and follows orders from a recognizable leadership that reports to a recognized goverment that belongs to a world organization. the other hides amongst the populace, has no uniform, has no recognized chain of command, and kills civilians indiscriminatly.

If you can't tell the difference between those two, then you have some serious issues. Those two peopel should NEVER be treated the same. EVER.

If they want protection under the Geneva conventions, they had better start following it themselves.

McG, it the American Revolution, and again in the War of 1812, many American soldiers, particularly militia unites called up for short durations, were dressed in civilian cloths, and the British made exactly the same claims you are making.

Well, certainly that is today's favourite interpretation by the US - which doesn't made it true either.

Aren't we supposed to be setting the moral example for the world, McG?

Shouldn't we be treating them with respect, even though they would not do the same for us? Isn't that what we are about, NOT stooping to their level?

Cycloptichorn

This isn't the American revolution and this isn't 1812. this is today, and we have rules of war. If you want the protection of those rules, you follow those rules.