The New York Times > Washington > Abu Ghraib: Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Prison in Iraq:
"The Red Cross report in November was the earliest formal evidence known to have been presented to the military's headquarters in Baghdad before January, when photographs of the abuses came to the attention of criminal investigators and prompted a broad investigation. But the senior Army officer said the military did not start any criminal investigation before it replied to the Red Cross on Dec. 24.

The Red Cross report was made after its inspectors witnessed or heard about such practices as holding Iraqi prisoners naked in dark concrete cells for several days at a time and forcing them to wear women's underwear on their heads while being paraded and photographed.…"

Until now, the Army had described its response on Dec. 24 as evidence that the military was prompt in addressing Red Cross complaints, but it has declined to release the contents of the Army document, citing the tradition of confidentiality in dealing with the international agency.

An Army spokesman declined Tuesday to characterize the letter or to discuss what it said about the Red Cross's access to the cellblock.

In an interview, however, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, whose soldiers guarded the prisoners, said that despite the serious allegations in the Red Cross report, senior officers in Baghdad had treated it in "a light-hearted manner."

She said that she signed the Army's response on Dec. 24, but that it had been drafted primarily by Army lawyers who reported to Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top American commander in Iraq.

General Karpinski said she did not see the Red Cross complaint until late November, and questioned how the staff judge advocate for General Sanchez, and his team of lawyers, had dealt with the matter. "It was an unusual routing because they had possession of it before I knew the letter existed," she said of the Red Cross complaint.

"If I had been informed, and I had been drawn into this in any way, I would have said, `Hold on a second, because not in my facility you don't,' " General Karpinski said of the abuses detailed in the report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which she said she did not see until at least two weeks after it was submitted. "We followed the rules, and we gave unrestricted access to the I.C.R.C., and it validated our operations, actually.…"

For several months in Iraq, Red Cross inspectors had exercised the right to drop in on Army-run prisons without notifying prison officials in advance.

The senior Army officer questioned the rationale for the Army's assertion in November that Red Cross visits should be scheduled.

"I know what they were communicating in that letter: They wanted the I.C.R.C. to schedule visits for those particular cellblocks, because it could interrupt any of the military intelligence," said the officer. "The position that they were taking was that the I.C.R.C. could not have unrestricted access to those particular cellblocks."

Other top Army officers in Washington have said the behavior described by the Red Cross in October had warranted a criminal investigation.

"I do not know if she in fact started an investigation into those, because they are serious," Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of Army intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 11. "As soon as we hear about one of those allegations, an investigation should begin right away and we shouldn't wait for it."

General Alexander told senators that the abuses Red Cross inspectors witnessed "sounded the same as some of the abuses that we're seeing" in photographs taken by military guards that are now circulating worldwide.…

The disclosures about the Army's response to the Red Cross complaints came as new details emerged about the death of an Iraqi prisoner in C.I.A. custody last fall.

Central Intelligence Agency officers who brought a hooded man to Abu Ghraib ordered military guards at the prison not to remove the empty sandbag that covered his head, according to the sworn testimony of a military guard. Only after the prisoner slumped over dead during questioning was the hood removed, revealing that the man had severe facial injuries.

The incident was described in testimony at a closed hearing early last month in the case of Sgt. Javal S. Davis, one of the accused prison guards. The statements were made by two members of Sergeant Davis's unit, Specialists Bruce Brown and Jason A. Kenner. Their testimony appears to provide fresh clues to the mysterious death of a man identified by the American authorities only by his last name, Jamadi.

Mr. Jamadi is believed to be the man whose body was packed in ice and photographed at Abu Ghraib. The picture, among a group that depicted degrading treatment of detainees, has circulated widely on computer networks as one of most graphic images in the prisoner abuse scandal.…


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/politics/19ABUS.html?pagewanted=all&position=