Senate Panel Will Summon 3 Generals for Hearing

ASHINGTON, May 17 — The Senate Armed Services Committee, in an abrupt change of course, said on Monday that it would summon three senior military commanders to testify Wednesday about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Scheduled to appear are Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top officer in the Middle East; Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, ground commander in Iraq; and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, head of detention operations in Iraq.

The panel had not intended to take up the prisoner abuse issue again until action was completed on its $422 billion military authorization bill, which is on the Senate floor. But since the committee's last hearing about prisoner abuse, on May 11, lawmakers have seen hundreds of images of the abuse and those accused have given statements saying they were following orders of intelligence officers.

Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the committee, told reporters on Monday evening, "Daily we see from your press a number of new avenues that have to be explored, and we have also on our own initiative found a number of new avenues that need to be explored."

~snip~
more: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/national/18SPEN.html?ex=1085457600&en=b307787442f2d956&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

And John King just reported on Lou Dobbs that Rummy is pissed about all the time that is being taken on the Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal.

Abizad, Miller, Sanchez. This will be interesting.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-prisoner-abuse-timeline,0,7785463.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines

excerpt:

* Late January-early February: President Bush becomes aware of the charges sometime in this time period, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, although the spokesman has not pinpointed a date. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tells Bush of the charges, McClellan has said.

I think some warning bells are going off in the Senate, finally! I sure hope their testemony will be in public!

I mean, it's war goddammit. I'm not an Inhofe fan, but why is everyone shocked?

I was against the whole thing from the start because I figured this sort of thing would happen, and lots of ordinary people would be killed as they tried to go about their ordinary lives for no reason.

It should have said "this is a video game and we get do overs - none of ours will die and only little brown people will suffer"

That was what was sold to the GP via FAUX and subsidiaries.

Tell me General were you aware that this behaviour was
against the Geneva Convention, and did your staff inform you, such
as CJTS 7, Lt General Sanches?

Oh and what would be your take if any of our troops were subjected
to these conditions?

:bounce::evilgrin::bounce:

Can't ya just smell the rePuke nervousness wafting over from their encampment???

I can!

at the House - Duncan Hunter is making all these idiotic remarks about Warner liking the cameras -

Keep it up Hunter - Warner will stick it to you

Whoops, that's right, she's been rewarded with the post of Commandant of Training and Doctrine for ALL of Military Intelligence at Fort Huachuca, AZ. I can't wait to see the tens of thousands of Intel soldiers she's going to be churning out after her stellar performance as commander of the Intel people at Abu Ghraib.

==
Report steers clear of interrogators' boss

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published May 8, 2004

<snip>

But except for one brief mention, the 55-page report contains nothing about the role of the top military intelligence officer in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast. As head of intelligence for the U.S. command in Baghdad, Fast was in charge of interrogators at Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were beaten, sodomized and photographed in sexually degrading positions.

Experts contacted by the St. Petersburg Times say strict adherence to military protocol - and a possible reluctance to delve too far into intelligence operations - have kept Fast out of the spotlight even as her boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, faces blistering criticism and calls to resign.

<snip>

Over Karpinski's apparent opposition, military police units at Abu Ghraib were under the command of Col. Thomas Pappas, whose 205th Military Intelligence Brigade came under Fast's oversight.

"This effectively made a military intelligence officer, rather than a military police officer, responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that facility," the report says. "This is doctrinally unsound due to the different missions and agendas assigned to each of these respective specialties."

<snip>

But Korb, the former assistant secretary of defense, said "it's a legitimate question" why the investigation stopped at Pappas' level and didn't examine the role of his superiors, including Maj. Gen. Fast, head of intelligence in Iraq.

<snip>

As head of intelligence in Iraq, Fast would have been responsible for intelligence officers working inside Abu Ghraib. She also "would have been very interested in the interrogation reports coming out of that prison," says Charles Heyman, senior defense analyst for Jane's Consultancy.

<snip>

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/08/Worldandnation/Report_steers_clear_o.shtml

===============

Prison boss was officer at Huachuca

Written by azcentral.com

Friday May 7, 2004

<snip>

Huachuca connections

Pappas was division chief of the Futures Development Integration Center at Fort Huachuca, leaving that position four years ago.

The center plans and designs the future of the Military Intelligence Corps and develops intelligence concepts and training.

At some point, virtually every Army intelligence staffer undergoes training at the fort.

<snip>

(Maj. Gen. Barbara ) Fast is slated to return to Fort Huachuca as commanding general of the Intelligence Center.

<snip>

Intelligence training

Fort Huachuca conducts a variety of training and education in military intelligence specialties. Among its missions, the Intelligence Center trains interrogators like those in Pappas' unit.

<snip>

Taguba's report accuses the soldiers of beating prisoners, videotaping and photographing naked male and female prisoners, forcibly arranging prisoners in sexually explicit positions, forcing naked male prisoners to wear women's underwear, killing some prisoners and raping at least one female prisoner.

"We train human intelligence collectors here at Fort Huachuca and in the field through mobile teams," Marks said.

"None of our training involves the kinds of actions described."

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0507iraq-pappas07.html
http://www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=3486

===========

On edit: More on Fast:

Religious remarks hound general
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published May 17, 2004

<snip>

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., twice asked to whom Pappas reported. Each time she got the vague answer "CJTF-7" - the main command force in Iraq, consisting of hundreds of military personnel.

But the hearing revealed that Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top intelligence officer in Iraq, had oversight of civilian contractors hired by U.S. Central Command in Tampa to interrogate prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's deputy chief of staff, said Fast required contractors to "read and state" they understood the interrogation rules. Asked if Fast had checked their experience and training, Alexander replied it "was part of the contract" that they met certain standards.

Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations said it is not surprising Fast would be responsible for civilian contractors because she would be "in the best position" to judge their work.

<snip>

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/17/Worldandnation/Religious_remarks_hou.shtml

===
Published on Friday, May 14, 2004 by the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Prisoner Abuse Rocks America's Faith in Itself
The abuse of prisoners in Iraq is destroying not just America's faith in its military but its belief in itself

by Marian Wilkinson

<snip>

Miller drew up a series of recommendations for General Sanchez and his chief intelligence officer in Baghdad, General Barbara Fast. They included using military guards to "set the conditions" for military intelligence officers at the jail. Following these recommendations, Sanchez issued his new rules of engagement for interrogations in October.

A military intelligence officer, Colonel Thomas Pappas, became a key figure in the running of the jail and its new interrogation center was also put under the control of military intelligence and private contract interrogators. CIA officers were also regular visitors.

It was at this time the worst of the Abu Ghraib abuses began.

THE surge in abuses was noted almost immediately by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which visited the prison in mid-October. According to a Red Cross report, "Punishment included being made to walk in the corridors handcuffed and naked, or with women's underwear on the head, or being handcuffed either dressed or naked to bed bars or the cell door." Prisoners headed for interrogation were stripped naked and left in empty, totally dark cells.

Red Cross delegates were so disturbed they broke off their visit and requested an explanation. "The military intelligence officer in charge of the interrogation explained that this practice was 'part of the process'," said the report.

<snip>

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0514-10.htm

===

Ft. Huachuca to get new leader

General's name arises in Iraq abuse inquiry
By Carol Ann Alaimo
ARIZONA DAILY STAR 5/8/04

<snip>

Maj. Gen. Barbara G. Fast, who is now the fort's deputy commander and is serving in Baghdad, will take over as head of the Sierra Vista Army post and its military intelligence school in late summer or early fall.

Fort Huachuca, about 75 miles southeast of Tucson, is the home of Army interrogation training and produced virtually all the Army interrogators now working in Iraq.

The Pentagon approved Fast's new post several weeks ago, according to a Defense Department Web site.

In a recent Army report on the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of several Military Police officers facing criminal charges, blamed Fast as the person largely responsible for causing overcrowding at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison, where many abuses took place.

Fast has been serving since last summer as intelligence chief for the U.S. military command in Baghdad. In that role, she was the person responsible for approving the release of prisoners who were "of no intelligence value and no longer pose a significant threat" to American forces and allies.

Karpinski told Army investigators that Fast routinely refused to approve the release of such prisoners even after a military review panel in Iraq had recommended that they be released.

<snip>

http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/sports/21177.php

==



05-10-2004
Prison Abuse: An MI Officer Sounds Off



Hack,

The abuse and humiliation actually took place at 3 prisons in the Baghdad area. This was not done by accident, it was a planned, systematic way to break down the prisoners will to resist any interrogation, degrade them and then blackmail them into working for US Intelligence.

The pictures were taken as a way to intimidate the prisoner and then keep them working as low level collectors (if they did not the pictures would have been released to their family and tribes) Videos were also made as a way to record the "success" to be used as a teaching tool at Fort Huachuca (to train future interrogators). The MPs and Interrogators were told the Geneva Convention did not apply to Iraq Soldiers and Civilian Detainees. The methods the MPs used were actually taught to the MPs by military intelligence professionals and civilian contractors. This was a sanctioned operation and the methods were known to be used by Generals in the chain of command. Women MPs were sought out to further humiliate the Iraqi prisoners. The female MPs who accepted the jobs, conducted degrading acts upon the Iraq men, because such acts by women on men in the Arab culture are so humiliating, it was thought that the men would then talk just to stop the abuse by the female MPs. This abuse was done in stages and the less cooperative Iraqis were given the more degrading abuse to condition them to interrogation. The Major General (Barbara Fast) in charge of the MI personnel in Baghdad sanctioned this treatment.

Hack, if they are going to hang privates and NCOs for meting out this abuse, they better go after the Generals and Colonels who sanctioned and approved these methods be use. This is a not an isolated case of abuse by a few soldiers, this was a planned campaign well know by the entire chain of command. There is also evidence that people in the Pentagon also knew and approved of these methods many months prior to the pictures being relased and only told the President when the pictures were published.

The DOD is now trying to pin the blame on anything else, other than the Generals amd Colonels who sanctioned this treatment.

MI Senior NCO

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Feedback%202004.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=13&rnd=832.9569443463192

==

<snip>

A 'quiet guy'

Pappas did not respond to repeated requests for comment. While other players in the scandal have gone before congressional committees or television cameras over the past two weeks, Pappas has remained out of sight. Some of his subordinates in Germany say they were unaware that he had faced disciplinary action until the first news reports about Abu Ghraib.

Even in Iraq, they said, Pappas remained largely out of view - working from the living quarters that doubled as his office and frequently in meetings with Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, and Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top intelligence officer reporting to Sanchez.

"He went to an awful lot of meetings with those folks," said the military intelligence officer who worked with Pappas and spoke to The Sun on condition of anonymity.

The officer described Pappas as a "pretty quiet guy, didn't seem like a screamer." But he would press subordinates to interrogate more people and come up with more information. If Pappas wasn't satisfied, he would say, "That's all? You guys have to do more," the officer said.

<snip>

Career military man

Pappas was appointed commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in June 2003, after graduating from the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Earlier, Pappas served for four years as a division chief at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., where officers are expressly taught practices allowed and forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

<snip>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.pappas17may17,0,1237036.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

John McCain isn't going to be interested since the good MG works in AZ.

cover-up mode and gingerly stepping around this issue.

Hillary Clinton was the hardest hitting of them all but because if the involvement of third party nationals in the interrogations, I don't see her pursuing this.

I'm at a loss- what do you think?

Our guys seem more to want to burn Bush with this, and rightfully so, but without touching/harming the intelligence structure.

Carl Levin was warned of the prison abuses a year ago and sat on it so who do we have?

He will byte, I have seen him byte on what I have sent him... and he is from Hawaii bra, so nobody expects HIM TO AKS questions....

senator@akaka.senate.gov

Oh and hit the usual suspects anyhow and remember, if you are NOT a constituent they tend to give it to your usual reps.

This is courtesy... still emailing him, USED to be in the state...

And those trusty alternate ways to make a stink!

PLEASE NOTE MY SIG LINE – TO CALL YOUR REPS, TOLL FREE!!!

OR, TRY (877) – 762 – 8762. It’ll get you there, too! (Thank you, DUer redqueen!)


Please note, here, The World's Greatest Lists of Media Contacts – updated May 5, 2004– in the following thread:

LINK:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1533796#

IF THEY THINK WE DON’T CARE, THEY WON’T, EITHER!

None are real anxious to kill the golden goose.

Sens : Leahy, Feingold, Kennedy, Chafee, Collins, Hagel, Lisa Murkowski, Akaka, Stabenow

Reps: Berman, Waxman, Wynn, Waters, Rush, Rangel

this is important for them

I really don't want to see this woman get off scot-free, with a reward at that!

To put her in charge of military intelligence training & doctrine is an abomination!

sent to all these, and I may not be a constituent but have donated to most....sent my confirmation letters with the email. :)

Let's hope Warner is serious and it is not just another love fest where they spend the fist half hour smootching the witnesses' butts and never getting down to brass tacks.

Washington - The officer in charge of interrogations at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison said intelligence officers sometimes instructed the military police on pre-interrogation techniques, The New York Times said on Tuesday.

The techniques, which included forcing prisoners to strip naked and shackling them before questioning were used on prisoners protected by the Geneva Convention that prohibits inhuman treatment of prisoners of war, the daily said.

The disclosure, included in a classified, 6 000-page report by General Antonio Taguba on the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, is the highest-level confirmation so far that military intelligence officers directed military guards in preparing for interrogations, said the daily.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1528694,00.html

*