Friday, June 18, 2004

Prisoner's identity concealed to prevent Red Cross access

US, [war criminal], Defence, [War], Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, acting at the request of the CIA, ordered that a suspected Iraqi insurgent leader, [occupation and genocide resister], be detained off the books to conceal his identity from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Pentagon has confirmed.

CIA director George Tenet requested in late October that the prisoner, a suspected military planner for the Kurdish militant, [? resistance], group Ansar al Islam, be held by the military, in a way that he "not be assigned for the purpose of access to the ICRC," Larry DiRita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, [said.]

Rumsfeld approved the request and issued the order the same day, he said.

"He was asked to do that. He did," Mr DiRita said.

The prisoner then languished in secret military custody until late May, when Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defence, [War], for Intelligence, decided to return him to the general prison population, he said.

An investigation by Major General Antonio Taguba had noted in March the practice of keeping certain "ghost detainees" off the rolls at Abu Ghraib prison and denounced them as "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine and in violation of international law".

Mr DiRita said the Geneva Conventions allow prisoners to be held secretly for reasons of "military necessity" for a period of time. He acknowledged, however, that "nobody believes those provisions allow you to do this for seven months".

A US intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the CIA had been holding the prisoner, who was captured in northern Iraq in June, at an undisclosed location outside Iraq since July.

But after receiving legal guidance that as an Iraqi he should be returned to Iraq, Tenet asked the military to take custody of him without registering him, he said.

"He was believed to be a combatant engaged in hostilities or supporting a force hostile to the United States. He was actively planning operations specifically targeting US forces both inside and outside of Iraq," the official said.

[So because the US war criminal government, who has pre-emptively struck a foreign nation state, like Iraq, and has committed occupation and genocide there believes something about someone indigenous to that country, then that makes it right? How can the US criminals be believed?]

Neither the CIA nor the US military followed up by questioning the prisoner after he was back in custody in Iraq.

"Now, in January, officials inquired about him to the military. They were unable to locate him. Frankly, it's a case where people lost track of him," the intelligence official said.

"The normal review procedures that would kick into play didn't in this instance and it fell between the cracks," he said.

Mr DiRita disputed that the military lost track of the prisoner after taking custody of him but admitted that neither the CIA nor the Defence, [War], Department took further action, despite periodic questions about his status from those holding him.

"The question is, did the CIA then come back to us and say, 'We want this guy back'? The answer is no," said Mr DiRita.

"Did the CIA then determine further disposition and tell us, 'Keep him, or we'll take him'? The answer is no," he said.

"Did people lose track of him? The answer is also no. Because the people who had custody of him, by all indications, two or three times came back up the chain of command and said, 'We still have this guy. Will somebody tell us [what to do with him]?'"

The prisoner, who has not been identified, was held at Camp Cropper, a detention facility for high-value prisoners near the Baghdad International Airport.

"The people who were holding him basically did all they should have done," Mr DiRita said. What didn't happen was that, at a higher level between this department and the CIA, further disposition of his case was never made, until finally it got to the attention of intelligence professionals in both departments," he said.

Meanwhile, the Army announced that General Paul Kern has been appointed to oversee an investigation into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib replacing Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez.

By Just Us 18 June 04

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