Clinton: The focus on the pictures being released is, with all due respect, missing the point. The report was well known, and apparently discussed on numerous occasions. And obviously, the release of the pictures to the entire world was devastating.
And Rumsfeld's response:
You say the report was well known. I don't know how you know that. All I know is when it made the public, when somebody took a secret document out of prosecutorial channels and released it to the press, I do not believe it was yet anywhere in the Pentagon. Certainly, I had not been given it or seen it.
Clinton/Rumsfeld exchange......
CLINTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
CLINTON: I think, Mr. Secretary, that you can discern from the questions that there are still many issues that we need further clarification on. I particularly look forward to the answer that you will provide to Senator Reed's last question -- following up on his line of questioning concerning the enabling of interrogation by M.P.s, something which, based on Army regulations, was not to be either done or condoned.
But, Mr. Secretary, in January 2002, when you publicly declared that hundreds of people detained by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention, that was taken as a signal.
And it is clear in looking through the number of investigations that are currently ongoing, that it wasn't just this particular battalion but others that did not receive appropriate training and information about their responsibilities with respect to detention or the Geneva Convention.
The atrocities that have been depicted in photographs were very graphically, verbally, described in the Taguba report. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to read those descriptions and have one's stomach just turn in disgust.
The focus on the pictures being released is, with all due respect, missing the point. The report was well known, and apparently discussed on numerous occasions. And obviously, the release of the pictures to the entire world was devastating.
But the underlying conduct, and the failure of the command, both at the site and further up the chain, to act with the appropriate quick response, is really at the heart of what the most serious problems we face here today are.
CLINTON: The information in the Taguba report links the atrocities at Abu Ghraib to Camp Buka. In fact, some of the same people, some of the same command, some of the same M.P.s were involved apparently.
And with respect to the recommendations at the end of General Taguba's report, they call for establishing the conditions with the resources and personnel required to prevent future occurrences of detainee abuse.
I would appreciate, since we don't have time in this round of questioning, to receive for the committee a report about exactly how that is being handled. What changes have been made? Are the Geneva Convention training going on now? Are the appropriate rules being posted in both English and Arabic?
And certainly an explanation as to the adequacy of the punishment that was meted out because, with respect to who was being punished for what, there is a clear distinction -- at least as reported by General Taguba -- between enlisted personnel and those up the command.
But I'm also concerned by a related matter. And let me just quickly reference the case of Chaplain Yee, the Muslim Army chaplain from Guantanamo Bay who was arrested and placed in solitary confinement. Ultimately all of the charges were dropped after his reputation was sullied.
CLINTON: It's obvious that the information about this particular case came from government sources. It was pushed out and it was widely disseminated.
So, Mr. Secretary, how is it that a case with no basis in fact gets such widespread publicity, based on information from government sources, while egregious conduct like that at the Abu Ghraib prison is cloaked in a classified report, and is only made available when the investigation is leaked to the press?
RUMSFELD: Well, Senator, first let me say, with respect to the question that Senator Reed raised, I can't conceive of anyone looking at the pictures and suggesting that anyone could have recommended, condoned, permitted, encouraged, subtly, directly, in any way, that those things take place.
Second, the decision that was made by the president of the United States that you referred to was announced. And in the announcement it was said that the Al Qaida in Guantanamo that are captured in the world, mostly in Afghanistan, would be treated consistent with the Geneva Convention. That is a fact.
You say the report was well known. I don't know how you know that. All I know is when it made the public, when somebody took a secret document out of prosecutorial channels and released it to the press, I do not believe it was yet anywhere in the Pentagon. Certainly, I had not been given it or seen it.
I quite agree with you. When you read the report, you do get an impression, as you suggested, that there is something much worse than what was in the press release, for example, in January or the discussion in March by the Central Command.
RUMSFELD: But that was not something that had been moved past the Central Command, to my knowledge. It may have been somewhere in the Department of Defense, but certainly I had not received a copy. It was still in those channels.
Thanks to hole_n_one for providing the : Full transcript is here
Clinton: The focus on the pictures being released is, with all due respect, missing the point. The report was well known, and apparently discussed on numerous occasions. And obviously, the release of the pictures to the entire world was devastating.
And Rumsfeld's response:
You say the report was well known. I don't know how you know that. All I know is when it made the public, when somebody took a secret document out of prosecutorial channels and released it to the press, I do not believe it was yet anywhere in the Pentagon. Certainly, I had not been given it or seen it. Link to Washington Post which has full transcript of Senate Armed Services Testimony
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13319-2004Feb4_5.html
Maybe the WP didn't want the reader to get bogged down in extraneous reading, so they eliminated that exchange between HClinton and Rumsfeld.