News Hour with Jim Lehrer - Transcript

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: INTERVIEW WITH US SENATOR CARL LEVIN, RANKING DEMOCRAT ON SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE, AND US SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS, DISCUSSING THE IRAQI PRISONER ABUSE SCANDAL-AND A REPORT ON THE HEARINGS (NEWS HOUR WITH JIM LEHRER PBS TV 6:00 PM MAY 4, 2004)

BODY:
MARGARET WARNER: For more on the congressional reaction we go to two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who attended this morning's closed-door briefing by Pentagon officials: Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the committee, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. Welcome to you both.

Based on the briefing you all got this morning, Senator Levin, what's your conclusion about what went wrong? What explains those photographs we saw of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Well, I'd say it's a failure at a number of levels-obviously, the troops themselves who participated, but also, anybody in command or supervision who tolerated it, who heard about it, who should have known about it. There's a major, massive failure here which allowed some despicable conduct to take place, and it's at a number of levels. We don't know exactly yet who is involved.

We know that there's been six troops, six soldiers who have been the subject of criminal investigations. Apparently three of them have already been referred for a court martial. Three of them are still under investigation. We've got a couple of officers, noncommissioned, and a couple of general officers who are under investigation, and who have, I think, already been disciplined to some extent. But this is just really the beginning of what is required here, which is a very thorough, a very intense, a very tough, and a very prompt investigation.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Sessions, how detailed was this morning's briefing that you all got? For example, did they take questions or talk to you all about allegations that have been in the newspaper that not only active duty military, but in fact perhaps private contractors and military intelligence and perhaps even CIA people were involved? How much detail did you get?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: A lot of questions were asked about that, and a number of answers were received. Some answers were not complete at this time, and they said they would fill in the information later. It does appear to me that a number of people at the lower level were involved. How much the superior officers are responsible for not having the right supervision, not setting the right command leadership tone, we don't know yet. We'll look into that as we go.

MARGARET WARNER: So, in other words, were you told, essentially, that the military isn't sure yet, the investigators aren't sure yet how high up the responsibility goes?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, we were told some of that. Some things we were told, they were not sure about. But I think it's pretty clear that at least a couple of contractors may have been involved. Interestingly, I authored a piece of legislation in 2000 that deals with the ability to prosecute employees of the Department of Defense, civilian employees, if they violate laws outside the country. So I think that statute, in fact, would cover the circumstances, and would allow for a prosecution of a contractor in a United States court if they violated any law.

MARGARET WARNER: And did that legislation pass? That is law?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Yes, it did. It passed in 2000.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Levin, another issue that came up, according to Senator Kennedy, when he left the briefing, he said he thought that perhaps this was not an isolated incident. He said he feared that these allegations are "the beginning rather than the end." What impression did you get from the briefing in terms of whether this kind of abuse occurred in other facilities?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: The people who briefed us this morning didn't have any reference to this kind of abuse, but as to allegations of abuse of prisoners, there have been a number of those allegations over the last couple years. There have been many of them. They have been in various places in the investigative process. But this type of abuse, we were told by our briefers, was not similar to the other types, which we were informed about, at least numerically.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Sessions, today at his press conference, Secretary Rumsfeld-and he was speaking now of the way the Department of Defense has handled it-he said "the system worked." And by that, he said he meant that once a single soldier complained in January, an investigation was immediately started. Other investigations have been started. How do you judge the way the Department of Defense has handled this?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, I think fundamentally that's correct. A single soldier complained in early January. A general was put into looking into the allegations, and prepared a thorough report. Then unfortunately it broke before it had been properly announced to the public and explained to the Congress. That has caused some difficulties, no doubt. It would have been better had the defense department moved more promptly and carefully in deciding how to make this public.

Ultimately, it was heading for that. So they did investigate it, and much of what we hear is a result of the investigation, the Department of Defense has conducted. People are being charged as a result of it already. And so, to that extent, I think it's fair to say this military does not tolerate this, and takes action to deal with it.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Levin, your view on that, about whether the system worked?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: The system did not work in terms of the notice to the Congress of a very, very serious incident that's going to have an effect on America, our security, and on our troops for a long time to come. This report was finished sometime in February, we're now told. It was acted upon in early April, we're now told. We knew nothing about it until we saw it on a TV show. At the same day that Secretary Rumsfeld came up here to brief us on events in Iraq, he didn't even tell us that same day as to what was going to explode that evening, although he apparently knew all about it. So in terms of informing the public, this is just too secretive an administration on this issue, and on too many other issues.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, let me just remind you of what Secretary Rumsfeld said about that today, and General Pace said the same thing: That these investigations go up a chain of command, and that each successive level is supposed to read the whole report, deal with it at their level, and that there's a sort of methodical process. Are you saying that should have been leapfrogged at some point and come directly to your committee, and if so, what would you have done about it?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: What I'm saying is that the action was taken on April 3, I believe, apparently, we're told today, on the recommendations in this report, so that the actions had already been taken. And surely, we should have been informed about actions which were taken in an event which is this major an event, that could be this calamitous, that could have this kind of an impact on our relations in the world, how we're perceived in the world. We all hope that this is just a few soldiers.

We know there's contractors now that were apparently either involved or who knew about it, and it's stunning to me that we have contractors doing interrogation. That's something we surely should have been informed about a long time before now. So I'm not at all satisfied. I hope the investigation has been thorough as far as the Army can go, but I don't think we can take that for granted. We have to have checks and balances, we've got to have oversight, and that's what hopefully the Armed Services Committee is going to do.

MARGARET WARNER: And general-Senator Sessions-excuse me, I almost made you a general-you share that view that at least once these charges had been filed and these actions had been taken, your committee should have been told?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, I think so. I think the results of the confusion make clear that it would have been better had that occurred. I did want to say, though, really, the Defense Department moved on this. They charged people, and they followed up with a thorough investigation by a high-ranking officer. That's what we expect of them. They did not, I think, handle the public relations well, and it's made it more difficult for us than otherwise would have been the case.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Levin just referred to the fact-and you both have now-that contractors were involved, and he was kind of stunned that they were even involved in interrogations. One of the conclusions of the report by General Taguba, and it was discussed today at the Rumsfeld press conference, was that part of this was the result of just having inadequate military forces on the ground to do the job. You all have oversight of the military. What is your view of that, and what were you told this morning about that, about whether that was a significant factor?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, let me say this: I think every soldier is taught the Geneva Conventions. They're taught how to treat a prisoner of war, even if they're not in the MPs, the military police. Apparently these soldiers were military police. Some of them had been correctional officers before. No matter how many were there, how did they have time to do this kind of thing? This is unacceptable by any American standards of law or the military law. So I think how many troops we had there or whether they were thoroughly trained in prisons is really beside the point. The question is, did they have enough supervision? Were they managed effectively? Certainly they made individual decisions that were just calamitous.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Levin, your view on that issue, and what you heard this morning about whether there were adequate, trained military people to do this job?

SEN. CARL LEVIN: Well, I think that-I don't know about the training. We'll find that out during the investigation. It shouldn't take special training, frankly, for people not to behave this way. That should not be needed. This is just so basic. This kind of conduct, it seems to me, is so brutal, it's so bestial that it shouldn't take special training for anybody not to participate in that kind of conduct.

But in terms of using contractors for interrogation, it seems to me that is a fundamental mistake. This is a governmental function. It should be carried out by the Army, people that are responsible to us. General-Senator Sessions-I made him a general now, too-Senator Sessions indeed did get a law passed which I hope will be sustained in court, which goes to the issue of whether someone who is working for us can be held criminally accountable if they violate the law as a contractor, even though it's overseas. That was, I think, something which took a lot of foresight on Senator Sessions' part. But that does not answer the question of whether they should be engaged in this conduct to begin with. Whether or not we should be having private contractors doing interrogation for the government, I think is just fundamentally wrong. It shouldn't be privatized that way.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I have a little different tact on that. We have a lot of former military people with military intelligence experience-former FBI agents, police officers-who can be contracted to handle these kind of interrogations, and are used to doing it in these circumstances. So I don't complain that they've used contractors. I think it could be very helpful, really. But it does indicate that we need good supervision and good management. No one can be left unsupervised in these kinds of circumstances.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Sessions and Senator Levin, thank you both.