- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The
United States may have kept up to 100 "ghost detainees" in Iraq
off the books and concealed from Red Cross observers, a far higher number
than previously reported, an Army general told Congress on Thursday.
-
- Estimates were rough because the CIA has withheld
documents
on concealed detainees, Army generals who investigated U.S. abuses of Iraqi
prisoners told lawmakers. Republican and Democratic senators blasted the
CIA, and called for it to turn over the material.
-
- At a Senate committee hearing, Gen. Paul Kern, commander
of the U.S. Army Materiel Command, said he believed the number of ghost
detainees held in violation of Geneva Convention protections was "in
the dozens to perhaps up to 100," far surpassing the eight people
identified in an Army report.
-
- Maj. Gen. George Fay, deputy commander at the U.S. Army
Intelligence and Security Command, said he expected it may be two dozen
or more. "We were not able to get documentation from the Central
Intelligence
Agency to answer those types of questions. So we really don't know the
volume," he said.
-
- The Geneva Conventions require countries to disclose
information on prisoners to the International Committee of the Red Cross,
which monitors their treatment.
-
- The Senate and House of Representatives Armed Services
Committees held hearings on an Army probe of the role of military
intelligence
in abuses at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, as well as broader findings
on U.S. mistreatment of prisoners by an independent panel headed by former
Defense Secretary James Schlesinger.
-
- The reports depicted more widespread abuses than the
acts of a handful of soldiers accused when the images of horrific sexual
and physical humiliation and torture at the Abu Ghraib prison first came
to light last spring.
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- CIA CRITICIZED
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- While the panel led by Schlesinger blamed top Pentagon
civilian and military leaders for contributing to a climate that led to
the sadistic treatment of detainees, Schlesinger said U.S. forces in Iraq
had behaved far better overall than in previous wars, including World War
II, Korea and Vietnam.
-
- He said the 66 cases of confirmed abuse, although higher
than the Bush administration first disclosed, "is a small number --
comparing quite well ... with previous wars."
-
- Senators called the CIA's failure so far to turn over
information sought by Army investigators unacceptable.
-
- "The situation with the CIA and ghost soldiers is
beginning to look like a bad movie," said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona
Republican.
-
- "I think that this is something that needs to be
asked ... of the incoming director of the CIA," McCain said, referring
to Rep. Porter Goss, a Florida Republican tapped by President Bush to run
the CIA.
-
- The Senate Intelligence Committee scheduled a
confirmation
hearing for Goss on Sept. 14.
-
- Warner said the Intelligence Committee also was pressing
the CIA for information, and said the Armed Services Committee would more
closely examine the ghost detainees issue.
-
- CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency's inspector
general was conducting "a comprehensive review of the agency's
involvement
in detention and interrogation activities," and the agency was
"determined
to examine thoroughly any allegations of abuse."
-
- The findings of the Army investigation, headed by Fay
and Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones and released in August, listed 44 instances
of prisoner abuse, 13 directly involving interrogations.
-
- It said 27 military intelligence personnel -- 23 soldiers
and four contractors -- directly took part in abuse or induced others to
do so, while another eight -- six soldiers and two contractors -- failed
to report abuse they had witnessed. All have been recommended for possible
criminal charges.
-
- Lawmakers said those higher up the chain of command also
must be held accountable for failing in key duties.
-
- Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, worried
that the "only people that are court-martialed here are privates and
sergeants ... Dereliction of duty will be redefined one way or the other
after this investigation."
-
- - Additional reporting by Will Dunham, Jim Wolf and
Tabassum
Zakaria
-
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