ASHINGTON, May 11 — The Army general who first
investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib prison stood by his inquiry's finding
that military police officers should not have been involved in
conditioning Iraqi detainees for interrogation, even as a senior Pentagon
civilian sitting next to him at a Senate hearing on Tuesday disputed that
conclusion.
The officer, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that it had been against the Army's doctrine for
another Army general to recommend last summer that military guards "set
the conditions" to help Army intelligence officers extract information
from prisoners. He also said an order last November from the top American
officer in Iraq effectively put the prison guards under the command of the
intelligence unit there.
But the civilian official, Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of
defense for intelligence, contradicted the general. He said that the
military police and the military intelligence unit at the prison needed to
work closely to gain as much intelligence as possible from Iraqi prisoners
to prevent attacks against American soldiers. Mr. Cambone also said that
General Taguba misinterpreted the November order, which he said only put
the intelligence unit in charge of the prison facility, not of the
military police guards.
While General Taguba depicted the abuses at the prison as the acts of a
few soldiers under a fragmented and inept command, he also said that "they
were probably influenced by others, if not necessarily directed
specifically by others." His report called for an inquiry into the
culpability of intelligence officers, which is still under way.
The unusual public sparring between a two-star Army general and one of
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's most trusted aides cast a spotlight
on the confusing conditions at the prison last fall when the worst abuses
occurred, as well as the sensitive issue of whether the Pentagon's thirst
for better intelligence to combat Iraqi insurgents contributed to the
climate there.
"How do you expect the M.P.'s to get it straight if we have a
difference between the two of you?" said Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
Democrat of Massachusetts.
Later in the day, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the Army's deputy chief
of staff, said the issue of who controlled the military police officers
accused of abusing the prisoners "has to be ironed out." The key question,
he said, is whether the intelligence unit's commander told the M.P.'s "how
to do their job."
As senators demanded explanations for the abuses that were caught on
photographs and videos taken by Army prison guards, the Bush
administration and the Senate leadership reached an agreement that would
give senators a chance to view the pictures. But the White House and the
Pentagon signaled that they now have serious reservations about publicly
releasing the photographs and video clips.
Administration officials said no decision had been made about what to
do with the images. Political advisers to Mr. Bush have been pressing for
a quick release, saying full disclosure is the best way to contain the
damage.
But Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials emphasized their
concern that any public release could endanger efforts to prosecute the
Americans responsible for the abuse.
"I'd say there are a lot of equities here besides just satisfying the
desires of the press that want to have more pictures to print," Mr. Cheney
said in an interview with Fox News. "There are serious questions about
people's rights, as well as our ability to be able to prosecute. We
wouldn't want, as a result of the release of pictures and the mistreatment
of that kind of information, to allow guilty parties off the hook, so that
they couldn't be prosecuted."
Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said that when
President Bush went to the Pentagon for a
briefing on Monday, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces
in the Middle East, told him he was concerned about maintaining the
integrity of the criminal proceedings. Speaking over a video link from his
headquarters in the region, General Abizaid said the worst outcome as far
as public opinion in the Arab world was concerned would be for the
prosecutions to fall apart, Mr. Bartlett said.
The decision about how to handle the pictures has been left largely to
the Pentagon, Mr. Bartlett said, adding that the president "trusts their
judgment."
Asked whether there was a division of opinion within the administration
about how to proceed with the pictures, Mr. Bartlett replied, "There's no
daylight between the White House and the Pentagon on that front."
Senate leaders announced Tuesday night that members of the Senate who
wish to view the hundreds of photos and videos will be able to do so from
2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday in a secure room on the fourth floor of the
Capitol under Pentagon supervision. No staff members will be allowed.
But leaders of both parties said the material would remain the property
of the Pentagon, keeping a decision on what to release a matter for the
Bush administration to decide, not Congress.
At an open meeting with Pentagon civilian and military personnel, Mr.
Rumsfeld said Tuesday that abuse at Abu Ghraib was "a body blow" to
America delivered by "a few who have betrayed our values." He said that
acts of violent abuse and sexual humiliation captured in photos and video
images at Abu Ghraib "ought not to be allowed to define us — either in the
eyes of the world or our own eyes, adding, "We know who we are."
In the Senate hearing's three-hour morning session, General Taguba said
he found no evidence of a military policy to soften up detainees for
interrogation, but uncovered plenty of examples of guards collaborating
with interrogators who were "influencing their action to set the
conditions for successful interrogations."
General Taguba and Mr. Cambone agreed that the main culprits so far
were a small group of low-level military police officers who suffered from
"a lack of discipline; no training whatsoever; and no supervision." Seven
soldiers face charges of abuse. He also left open the possibility that
members of the Central Intelligence Agency as well as civilian contractors
were culpable.
A separate Army inquiry is under way into what role military
intelligence officers played in the abuses. In afternoon testimony, senior
Army intelligence officers told senators that none of their people were
implicated despite conclusions to the contrary in General Taguba's
report.
General Alexander, head of military intelligence for the Army, said he
believed that the abuses were carried out by "a group of undisciplined
military police," adding that he had seen no evidence that military
intelligence officers had told them what to do.
Those assertions were greeted with skepticism by even some Republicans
on the committee.
Senator Susan M. Collins, Republican of Maine, said she found it
difficult to believe that junior military police officers would have
chosen on their own to use "sexual humiliation, which is particularly
embarrassing to Muslim men," if they had decided on their own to abuse the
men.
General Alexander disclosed that two or three more individuals who had
witnessed the abuses but had not reported them would be held accountable.
The Army's judge advocate general, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig, said the
Army was now tracking a total of 83 different prisoner abuse cases in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
The pattern of abuse seen in the photographs began around Oct. 15,
2003, and lasted through late December or early January, General Taguba
said.
Late last fall, the Red Cross forwarded a report containing allegations
of abuse at Abu Ghraib to the top lawyer at the American military command
in Baghdad, Army officials said. On Nov. 6, the report was sent to Brig.
Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, head of the 800th Military Police Brigade, which
operated the American-run prisons in Iraq.
General Karpinski forwarded her response to the Red Cross on Dec. 24,
but Army officials said there was no indication that she ever began
investigations into any reported abuses by military police or intelligence
officials. "I do not know if she in fact started an investigation into
those, because they are serious," General Alexander said.
General Taguba said he agreed with the conclusions in the Red Cross
report that coercive practices, like holding prisoners naked for long
periods, were used in a systematic way as part of the military
intelligence process at the prison.
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee,
called that "not just oversight or negligence or neglect or sloppiness,
but purposeful, willful determination to use these techniques as part of
an interrogation process," and asked General Taguba, "Would you include
that in your definition of failure of leadership?"
"Yes, sir," the general replied. "They were."
Mr. Cambone and other military officials said the interrogation
techniques approved for use in Iraq were straight out of the Army manual
and followed the Geneva Conventions. In that respect, he said, they
differed from harsher techniques, like sleep deprivation and forcing
prisoners to disrobe entirely for interrogations, that are authorized for
use at the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the deputy commander of American forces in the
Middle East, said that under a policy issued last Oct. 12, the only
extraordinary measure authorized for use in Iraq was placing prisoners in
solitary confinement for more than 30 days. That step required the
approval of the American commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez,
but General Smith said he was not aware of it ever being used.
General Smith said the use of military working dogs was allowed so long
as the animals "will be muzzled and under control of a handler at all
times to ensure safety." Photographs published by The New Yorker magazine
this week showed two unmuzzled dogs menacing a naked Iraqi prisoner.
Much of the morning session centered on the impact of a visit to Iraq
last August and September by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller to improve the
flow of intelligence from Abu Ghraib. General Miller, who is now the chief
of interrogations and detentions in Iraq, has defended his recommendations
to have prison guards prepare detainees for interrogations. He has said
those recommendations played no role in the later abuse and humiliation of
prisoners.
The hearing's sharpest exchange came when Mr. Cambone objected to a
characterization of the visit by Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island
Democrat.
"Your suggestion that the report on the phrase 'setting the conditions'
is tantamount to asking the military police to engage in abusive behavior,
I believe, is a misreading of General Miller's intent," Mr. Cambone said.
"Mr. Secretary, what I'm suggesting is anyone in your position should
have asked questions," Mr. Reed shot back. "One specifically would be:
What does it mean to set the conditions for these troops under the Geneva
Convention? Did you ask that question?"
"I didn't have to," Mr. Cambone replied. "We had been through a process
in which we understood what those limits were with respect to Iraq, and
what those were with respect to Guantanamo."
Richard W. Stevenson, Thom Shanker, Joel Brinkley and Carl Hulse
contributed reporting from Washington for this
article.
