NYT: Pentagon Study Describes Abuse by Units in Iraq

By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: June 17, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 16 — United States Special Operations troops employed a set of harsh, unauthorized interrogation techniques against detainees in Iraq during a four-month period in early 2004, long after approval for their use was rescinded, according to a Pentagon inquiry released Friday.

The investigation is the last of 12 major inquiries to be made public that focus on allegations of detainee abuse by American personnel in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, and the first to focus on Special Operations troops, who operate with more latitude than other military units. It detailed harsh treatment that continued at isolated bases even after the abuses first surfaced at the Abu Ghraib prison.

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Despite the findings, General Formica recommended that none of the soldiers be disciplined, saying what they did was wrong but not deliberate abuse. He faulted "inadequate policy guidance" rather than "personal failure" for the mistreatment, and cited the dangerous environment in which Special Operations forces carried out their counterinsurgency missions. He said that, from his observations, none of the detainees seemed to be the worse for wear because of the treatment. "Seventeen days with only bread and water is too long," the general concluded. But he added that the military command's surgeon general had advised him "it would take longer than 17 days to develop a protein or vitamin deficiency from a diet of bread and water."

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General Formica said that the Special Operations forces mistakenly used 5 of 12 interrogation techniques between February and May 2004 that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top commander in Iraq, had withdrawn in October 2003 because military lawyers had found they were too harsh. "It is regrettable," General Formica said in an interview at the Pentagon with three reporters on Friday. "But they were erroneously given the wrong policy."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/washington/17formica.html?hp&ex=1150516800&en=1ba1e853350c70f2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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"It is regrettable"...No General, it is unconscionable. It is immoral. And people at the top are responsible.