The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - Transcript

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

HEADLINE: Court Martial;
Chain of Command;
What Went Wrong

BYLINE: ANCHOR: JIM LEHRER; GUESTS: DEXTER FILKINS; EUGENE FIDELL; CORRESPONDENTS: ALEX THOMPSON; KWAME HOLMAN; RAY SUAREZ; SPENCER MICHELS; MARGARET WARNER; GWEN IFILL; TERENCE SMITH; KWAME HOLMAN

BODY:
KWAME HOLMAN: Colonel Warren later added that the rules listed would not necessarily violate the Geneva Conventions. All the questioning about methods of interrogation troubled Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: You've been asked about what about sleep adjustment or sleep management for 72 hours. Those, as I read this document, this is a restrictive document to say anything, that such an action must be... have the direct approval of the commanding general. Is that the way you understand it, Gen. Sanchez?

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ: Sir, that's the way I read that document also, sir.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: And was it you... are you the commanding general, or who was the commanding general referred to?

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ: That referred to the commanding general CJTF-7, that's me, sir.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: And so, the system was set up to restrict these kind of activities. They can never be done, even though, as Colonel Warren, the jag officer, said could be acceptable under-some of them, at least-could be acceptable under the Geneva Convention, they had to make a written report and request to you before any of those could be used?

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ: That is exactly right, sir.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: And were any of these ever approved by you?

LT. GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ: Sir, the only approvals that I ever had at my desk was for continued segregation beyond 30 days, and there were 25 of those who were approved. I never saw any other method come to my level requesting approval.

KWAME HOLMAN: General Abizaid did not deny a story Democrat Carl Levin cited from today's "Wall Street Journal," that the Red Cross reported to the military abuses of Iraqi prisoners as early as last November.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID: Sometimes commanders at the lowest level get the report and they work on it confidentially. And I think what we've got to do is have a system that, when there is something that comes to the attention at any level of command, that it not be worked through at the lower level but that it surface all the way up through the chain of command.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Abizaid had this response to Robert Byrd's question about a "New York Times" story that claimed the army last year tried to restrict Red Cross visits to Iraqi prisons.

GEN. JOHN ABIZAID: Sir, I never approved any policy or procedure or requirement to do that.

KWAME HOLMAN: But after all of the public testimony, Maine Republican Susan Collins said she still wasn't sure exactly happened at Abu Ghraib Prison.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS: I remain unclear about the answers to some very basic and critical questions, questions such as who really was in charge of the prison, and what was allowed in the treatment of the prisoners.

SPOKESMAN: Our doctrine is not right. It's just not right. I mean, there are so many things that are out there that aren't right in the way that we operate for this war. This is a doctrinal problem of understanding where you bring, what do the MP's do, what do the military intelligence guys do, how do they come together in the right way? And this doctrinal issue has got to be fixed if we're ever going to get our intelligence right to fight this war and beat this enemy.

KWAME HOLMAN: Several times, the generals said they could not answer questions about ongoing prisoner abuse investigations in public. At midday, the committee and the generals went to a separate hearing room for a closed session.

GWEN IFILL: Margaret Warner takes it from there.

MARGARET WARNER: What did the generals add to our understanding of what went wrong at Abu Ghraib? For that, we turn to two members of the Armed Services Committee, whom we've just heard: Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama; and Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat. Welcome to you both. Senator Sessions, what did today's testimony from the generals add to your understanding of who or what was responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I'm not sure it added anything. It certainly confirmed that the leadership, General Sanchez and General Abizaid had issued clear directives not to do these kind of activities, not to abuse prisoners in this direction and in this way. And eventually at some lower level it occurred. I think it further clarified that the defense department officials in Washington certainly weren't involved in these activities. And the generals in general were honest and direct and admitted that they were shortcomings in this very difficult time of combat and post-combat activities.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Reed, did you come to the same conclusion that today established one, that these generals were not responsible and two that the higher civilian leadership at the Pentagon was not?

SEN. JACK REED: Well, i share Senator Collins conclusion that there's still many questions that are unanswered. There's still a question of really what policy for interrogation applied. General Sanchez maintained he never approved the policy which last week the Department of Army presented to us as his policy. And yet Colonel Warren, the jag officer, indicated that a young captain in the facility had promulgated a policy, the one that General Sanchez didn't recognize and it was posted on bulletin boards where apparently it was operational. There are still serious questions about how the policy evolved and responsibility for senior leaders making sure that the right policy, whatever that was, was a policy that was in place in the prison. So I left with many questions.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me ask you...

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Can i respond to that.

MARGARET WARNER: Yes, senator.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: In defense of Gen. Sanchez. He issued a written directive and a captain at the company level showed the chart at several points you must follow the Geneva Conventions. You could not touch a prisoner or harm him in any way and said that any areas that weren't close to the Geneva Convention margins had to be approved in writing by General Sanchez. He said he never saw that summary chart but he did not say he did not issue the order.

SEN. JACK REED: In fact what he said was that was not his policy; that his policy did not contain any of the techniques that were listed in that chart posted in the prison. There is a real serious question about how techniques that apparently Gen. Sanchez did not approve wound up not only on the wall in that prison but apparently from the pictures we've seen, many things like that were conducted by military police officers.

MARGARET WARNER: Other thing that happened last fall in addition to those rules being posted, which i gather they were in October, was in September as we just mentioned in the set-up report, that was when Gen. Miller came from Guantanamo and made some recommendations about how to regularize and better extract information from detainees. You had Gen. Miller there today and Senator Sessions, I'll begin with you. Do you feel that was a factor in any way?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I believe Gen. Miller had a great reputation on how you handle a situation in Guantanamo and improved the situation in Iraq. I think it is proven to be a total dead end to suggest that his coming to Iraq had somehow led to these abuses to occur. There is no evidence of that.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Reed, your view on that?

SEN. JACK REED: I believe senator... excuse me, that Gen. Miller was selected to go to Iraq by leaders in the Pentagon, Secretary Cambone indicated he encouraged the trip because of experience at Guantanamo, a place where Geneva Convention does not apply. I find it curious that he would maintain that his only advice was to be humane and to have the MP's conduct passive observation, if you will, of prisoners, when in fact he described as Senator McCain pointed out, that they had to prepare them for interrogation. That's not a passive activity. Again, i think there are many questions that are outstanding.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Reed, staying with you for a minute. Were you better able to understand today after today's testimony, who was really in charge at Abu Ghraib? I mean Gen. Abizaid, and I'm going to quote him, he said "There was confusion between the roles of military intelligence and military police at that prison."

SEN. JACK REED: I think there was a great deal of confusion as to who was actually in charge. I think it was not just between military police and military intelligence. There were indications there were agents from other agencies of the government, presumably defense intelligence agency and central intelligence agency, that they had access to that facility. It is unclear what instructions they had and what policies they might suggest, maybe in error, but suggest were in effect in that prison. So it's still extraordinarily confused.

MARGARET WARNER: Senator Sessions, it was Gen. Sanchez who said today that he had put this Colonel Pappas, head of the military intelligence unit in what he called tactical control of the prison. Do you think that was a factor at all?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I don't think that was a factor at all. And the-in the misbehavior that occur in the sense that this is never acceptable under any conditions and no officer should ever approve this kind of activity. There was some confusion, i agree with Senator Reed, apparently, as to roles of the military intelligence and to the roles of the military police. And I believe that the report that will soon be out by general who is investigating military intelligence aspect of it is important. We need to know just how many of those may have been involved in misbehavior, illegal behavior, and I'm hopeful that that report will clear the air on that question.

MARGARET WARNER: But what I'm asking you, is do you think that General Sanchez's decision to put military intelligence in some sort of control of the prison contributed to that confusion?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: It could have. I just don't know. It could have. But, you know, i talked to a number of professional military officers who tell me that people the commander of the MP brigade was in command of those people for their training and their discipline, whereas the perimeter and other aspects of the facility were under the military intelligence. So they should not have been confusing but apparently it may have been.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Reed, I'd like to ask about another thing that I don't believe came up in the open hearing today. I didn't hear it but i know you had a closed one. That was the piece by Seymour Hirsch in the New Yorker in which he says that what happened is sort of an unintended expansion of what was really a covert program with tough interrogation methods used elsewhere in the world against al-Qaida, really top level al-Qaida suspects, and that Rumsfeld's office direction, somehow that whole approach was imported to Iraq at some point when they became frustrated at the lack of intelligence they had about the insurgency. Have you looked into that? Do you think there is any truth to that?

SEN. JACK REED: I have no information that would substantiate or corroborate those allegations. I think it has to be looked into. It is a very serious charge. It can't be ignored. But I have no specific information at this time that would add any credence to the report.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Sessions?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: No, neither do I. But I would note that both generals, Gen. Abizaid and Gen. Sanchez said they were unaware of anything of that kind.

MARGARET WARNER: So Sen. Reed, are you convinced that the military is going to pursue all of this wherever it leads; however high it leads, the responsibility for what happened?

SEN. JACK REED: I think, particularly with the leadership of Sen. Warner and Sen. Levin in the hearings that we're holding is that this is an issue now that cannot easily be dismissed or ignored, and I believe that it will be followed to its conclusion. And Gen. Abizaid has indicated that. He is an officer of great integrity and great dedication, and I believe it will be done. But I don't think it might have been done as quickly or as effectively without the kind of attention that has been brought to it by the media and also by Sen. Warner in these hearings

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Sessions.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I wouldn't agree with that. I think the military started the first day they heard about it, they commenced a criminal investigation. They suspended officers from command. They commenced a major investigation of the entire detention system, and they announced it within a few days of the public that they were doing so.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you think this is going to be pursued wherever it leads?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Yes, they were pursuing it before the Congress ever... before it dawned on Congress what was occurring there. They're going to do that. But maybe it's helpful that the American people have seen the top officials in the Pentagon and our top generals coming to testify about it certainly distracted them. But also I think after anyone watch this hearing, i think to date they would have to say that it looks very much like what we thought from the beginning, that it was a lower level abuse of orders and directions.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally Sen. Sessions, what also seemed to come out today was that the early warning system that sort of is built into the enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, which is letting the International Red Cross come in and look at things and submit private reports, that that did break down. Would you agree with that, that it did break down and why?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: The Red Cross was allowed in. I think they did 26 different visits. They met with lower commanders. They issued some reports that Gen. Abizaid said, frankly, some did not get to his desk. And they had to change the procedure on that in subsequent times. So I think the handling of the reports, they admitted were not well, but until later on, they were given almost unlimited access of the prisons.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Reed?

SEN. JACK REED: Well, the system did break down and i think one reason is that senior commanders didn't take the International Red Cross's activities seriously. These reports were made in a confidential basis. They were sent to the CENTCOM headquarters, dealt with in a routine fashion and frankly had the attention of the senior command brought immediately to the reports, i think they would have taken effective steps to try to stop what later became much more serious abuses.

MARGARET WARNER: Sen. Reed, Sen. Sessions, thank you both.

SEN. JACK REED: Thank you.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Thank you.