"Call the ACLUuuuuuuUUUUUuUUUUuuuu!"
Posted on 09/10/2004 4:49:07 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
Agency refuses to disclose identities and locations
WASHINGTON - Pentagon investigators believe the CIA is holding as many as 100 'ghost detainees' in Iraq without disclosing their identities or locations, many times more than previously disclosed, a senior Defence Department official has told Congress.
However, the precise number of undisclosed prisoners and the conditions in which they have been held remain a mystery, said General Paul Kern, because CIA officials have refused to cooper ate with Pentagon investigators, denying repeated requests for documents and information on the detainees.
The CIA apparently has held between a dozen and three dozen unregistered prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad since the war began in March last year, and others elsewhere in Iraq, said Gen Kern, who is overseeing the investigations into prisoner abuse.
Pentagon officials had previously cited only eight cases of failure to account for prisoners, which is an apparent violation of international law under the Geneva Conventions.
'If they fall under the category of ghost detainees, there are no records,' Gen Kern told reporters after addressing members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Members of the congressional panel expressed surprise over the number of detainees as well as disbelief and outrage over the lack of CIA cooperation.
'The situation with CIA and ghost (detainees) is beginning to look like a bad movie,' said Republican Senator John McCain.
Democratic Senator Carl Levin, the committee's ranking Democrat, said the panel should take further action on the CIA's stance, a recommendation that the committee's chairman, Republican Senator John Warner, said would be considered.
'It's totally unacceptable that the documents that are requested from the CIA have not been forthcoming,' Mr Levin said.
War is he!!........
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