Panel I of a Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Allegations of Mistreatment of Iraqi Prisoners

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: PANEL I OF A HEARING OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: ALLEGATIONS OF MISTREATMENT OF IRAQI PRISONERS

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JOHN WARNER (R-VA)

WITNESSES: MAJOR GENERAL ANTONIO TAGUBA, USA DEPUTY COMMANDING GENERAL FOR SUPPORT, COALITION FORCES LAND COMPONENT COMMAND; STEPHEN CAMBONE, UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE; LIEUTENANT GENERAL LANCE SMITH, USAF DEPUTY COMMANDER, UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND

LOCATION: 106 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General Taguba, to the best of your knowledge, when did this pattern of abuse begin as we've seen in the pictures?

GEN. TAGUBA: Sir, to the best of the evidence that we gathered, it happened sometime after the 15th of October, thereabouts; mid- to late October.

SEN. REED: Fifteenth of October, right.

And, General Smith, General Miller came to Iraq in August with the baseline from Guantanamo, which had series of coercive measures which was being employed in Guantanamo, and we all recognize that area was not subject to the Geneva Convention.

He briefed, as you indicated in your previous testimony, individuals at the prison. He also recommended the establishment of a theater joint interrogation and detention center there.

Is that correct?

GEN. SMITH: I believe so.

SEN. REED: That's correct.

That's August, and then October we start seeing a series of abusive behaviors, which the accused suggest were a result of encouragement or direction from these intelligence people in this theater joint interrogation and detention center.

General Taguba has testified that he did not investigate, talk to or in any way know anything about what was going on in that joint interrogation center. Is that a fair sort of chronology?

GEN. SMITH: Sir, it's a fair chronology. I would only say that in talking and speaking with General Miller-and he has to be the one that answers some of this-he spoke directly to the brigade commanders that were involved here and he had the special operating procedures with him and left those with him.

SEN. REED: And General, to your knowledge, General Miller made it very clear to these brigade commanders that because of the Geneva Convention many of these provisions could not be applied?

GEN. SMITH: Sir, according to General Miller, that was very clear to the commanders.

SEN. REED: That was very clear. Then why would he bring those procedures over and brief them?

GEN. SMITH: Sir, he-to the best of my knowledge-and again, these are questions you're going to have to ask General Miller. But to the best of my knowledge, he did not bring those coercive procedures over with him.

SEN. REED: Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, you encouraged General Miller to visit --

MR. CAMBONE: I did, sir.

SEN. REED: Were you in communication or anyone in your office in communication with General Miller during his trip or after his trip?

MR. CAMBONE: He technically went over under joint staff auspices but with my encouragement, and that of other senior members of the department, to look at the issues that we've talked about. On his return, when he completed his report, I received a briefing on it and then asked for people to look at its subsequent progress and what had taken place.

SEN. REED: So you were briefed on his recommendation to use the guard force actively to condition the --

MR. CAMBONE: No, sir, again --

SEN. REED: You weren't briefed on that?

MR. CAMBONE: No, no, excuse me. I want to phrase this right and that is on the issue of making certain that we had the kind of cooperative relationships, I understood that. I don't know that I was being told and I don't know that General Miller said that there should be that kind of activity that you are ascribing to his recommendation.

SEN. REED: General Taguba-excuse me, and I'm probably doing-Taguba-I'm doing violence to your name. I apologize.

GEN. TAGUBA: (Laughs.)

SEN. REED: Taguba. Forgive me.

Was it clear from your reading of the report that one of the major recommendations was to use guards to condition soldiers-condition these prisoners, excuse me.

GEN. TAGUBA: As I read it on the report, yes, sir. That was recommended on the report.

SEN. REED: But General Miller didn't think it was important enough to brief you, Mr. Secretary?

MR. CAMBONE: That's right, I was not briefed by General Miller.

SEN. REED: Who were you briefed by?

MR. CAMBONE: My deputy general, Boykin, briefed me on the report.

SEN. REED: So General Boykin and General Miller were collaborating on this exercise?

MR. CAMBONE: No, sir. Not at all, sir. Not at all. General Miller --

SEN. REED: And he-so General Boykin didn't think it was important enough to brief you on that?

MR. CAMBONE: No, sir. Again, 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.

SEN. REED: Mr. Secretary, what I'm suggesting is anyone in your position should have asked questions. One specifically would be: What does it mean to set the conditions for these troops under the Geneva Convention?

MR. CAMBONE: Sir --

SEN. REED: Did you ask that question?

MR. CAMBONE: Well, I didn't have to answer (sic) that question. Why? Because 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.

SEN. REED: Mr. Secretary, what is the status of the detainees in that prison under the Geneva Convention?

MR. CAMBONE: I'm sorry, sir, which prison?

SEN. REED: What is the-Abu Ghraib.

MR. CAMBONE: Abu Ghraib? They are there under either Article 3 or Article 4 of the Geneva Convention.

SEN. REED: Let me recite Article 4. "Persons protected by the convention are those who at any given moment and in any manner whatsoever find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a party to the conflict or occupying power of which they are not nationals." These are protected persons.

Let me read Article 31. "No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain any information from them or from third parties."

MR. CAMBONE: Sir, we're in agreement here. What --

SEN. REED: Well-we're in agreement? I don't think we are, Mr. Secretary.

MR. CAMBONE: We are in agreement on the terms --

SEN. REED: General Miller suggested that guard forces be used to set the conditions, based on the template at Guantanamo, those methods were coercive. Yet you did not choose to ask about this. You were completely oblivious.

MR. CAMBONE: No, sir. Again, what I said was we knew what the circumstances were with respect to Guantanamo. We knew what the circumstances were with respect to Iraq. We understood that the Geneva Convention and all of its articles applied in Iraq. And that-again, I come back to what I keep saying here. The notion was that you had to have a cooperation, a cooperative attitude, team-building, call it what you will --

SEN. REED: Mr. Secretary, please. Please.

MR. CAMBONE: -- between the MPs and the MIs.

SEN. REED: Please.

MR. CAMBONE: Sir --

SEN. REED: This is not a cooperative attitude. This is not a guard observing the comments of a prisoner --

MR. CAMBONE: That is exactly true, sir.

SEN. REED: Is that what's happening at Guantanamo?

MR. CAMBONE: No, sir. What took place --

SEN. REED: Is that what's happening in Guantanamo?

MR. CAMBONE: What took place in the prison, we have all said, exceeded the regulations, laws, and laws of war, conventions of the Geneva Convention and everything else. General Taguba has said repeatedly that there was no policy, he discovered no direction; that these were not directed acts on the part of those individuals --

SEN. REED: Mr. Secretary, people failed to ensure, by asking the appropriate questions, that these recommendations were transmitted down to individual soldiers in a way that they would understand --

MR. CAMBONE: Yes, sir.

SEN. REED: -- that this just is cooperating, not participating in setting the conditions, as was done-as is done in Guantanamo.

MR. CAMBONE: Senator, I agree with you on the transmission of those directions. And as I said to you, and as General Smith has alluded to, there is a paper from General Sanchez making precisely those points. Moreover, if you read General Miller's report, he says before you do anything with this, we need a command staff judge advocate to work this problem and make sure it's --

SEN. REED: Did the command staff judge advocate issue a legal opinion?

MR. CAMBONE: Again, what I have is his report, and it says that that was an activity in progress.

And I have not heard-what I know is that General Sanchez --

SEN. REED: So General Sanchez ordered this policy without advice of counsel.

MR. CAMBONE: No, sir, he did not. If you read General Taguba's report, he will tell you that at the time he was there, he had not seen any actions-page 12, I think-to implement the procedures specifically and officially from General Sanchez down to anyone in the lower ranks of his command. The activity that was taking place was not authorized.