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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Interrogation Unit at Abu Ghraib Obtained Little Valuable Intelligence |
| 2004-05-27 |
| From The New York Times The questioning of hundreds of Iraqi prisoners last fall in the newly established interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison yielded very little valuable intelligence, according to civilian and military officials. The interrogation center was set up in September to obtain better information about an insurgency in Iraq that was killing American soldiers almost every day by last fall. .... But civilian and military intelligence officials, as well as top commanders with access to intelligence reports, now say they learned little about the insurgency from questioning inmates at the prison. Most of the prisoners held in the special cellblock that became the setting for the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib apparently were not linked to the insurgency, they said. All of the prisoners sent to Abu Ghraib had already been questioned by the troops who captured them for urgent information about roadside bombs, imminent attacks and the like. The officials could not say whether the harsh interrogation methods used at Abu Ghraib were counterproductive. But they said few if any prisoners there had been able to shed light on questions to which Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American commander for the Middle East, and his deputies had assigned highest priority, including the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein and the nature of the insurgency’s leadership. ... The Tier 1 cellblock at Abu Ghraib was set aside from the rest of the prison to house as many as 600 prisoners designated as "security detainees" because of their suspected involvement in or knowledge about attacks on American troops. .... In general, said a senior Army officer who served in Iraq, many of the prisoners held in the isolation wing at Abu Ghraib were kept there long beyond any period of usefulness because "no one wanted to be responsible for releasing the next Osama bin Laden." ... The Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib was established in September under the command of Lt. Col. Steve Jordan, and quickly established effective control over the cellblock set aside for the "security prisoners." .... No one from the interrogation center has been charged with crimes in connection with the abuses, several weeks after an initial Army inquiry suggested that Colonel Jordan, among three other senior officers and civilian contractors, was "directly or indirectly" culpable in the abuses. General Sanchez and other Army officials have said broader control of Abu Ghraib was not transferred from a military police unit, under Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, to an Army intelligence unit, under Col. Thomas M. Pappas, until Nov. 19, when the intelligence unit was put in charge of protecting the prison against attack and of the inmates’ safety. By then, abusive practices had been photographed in the prison for about a month and the International Committee of the Red Cross had already filed an official complaint about the practices. But the documents and interviews suggest that de facto control of the isolation cellblock had been given to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center by mid-October. ... On occasion, according to some statements collected in the investigations so far, members of the 372nd Military Police Company assigned to guard the isolation cellblock were invited into interrogation rooms and sometimes instructed to yell at or otherwise intimidate Iraqi prisoners being questioned. This is a violation of standard Army rules on the role of the military police. .... ... while Colonel Jordan had been "assigned to" Colonel Pappas’s brigade, he was not under its operational control. In interviews, several Army officers, including General Karpinski, said Colonel Jordan had received broad direction from General Fast, director of intelligence for occupation forces in Baghdad, who had been responsible for setting up the interrogation center. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #3 Frank, exactly! (But when you're the NYT, you have to eat the whole thing!) |
| Posted by: Jen 2004-05-27 10:56:23 AM |
| #2 I disagree, we did find out how high we can stack terrorists in a pyramid. Next time lets give them a field interrogation and then just shoot them. That is what the Geneva Convention says we should do. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-05-27 10:53:54 AM |
| #1 question: why would anybody who got valuable intel relay that to the NYT? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-27 10:01:23 AM |