Spokesman Cites Pentagon Cooperation in Interrogation Probe

WASHINGTON, April 22, 2009 – The Defense Department provided full cooperation during a U.S. Senate committee investigation that examined detainee-interrogation operations, a senior official said here today.

“We fully cooperated with that effort in responding to requests for interviews, as well as documents,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.

The two-year Senate Armed Services Committee investigation centered on examining U.S. interrogation procedures for detainees captured during the war on terrorism. The committee’s report is critical of some interrogation procedures. The report was released yesterday, after a Pentagon review for declassification purposes.

The Pentagon has conducted several internal investigations into detainee interrogation operations over the years, Whitman said.

“Some of the conclusions in the Senate report are duplicate conclusions to the ones that were made by these [Pentagon] investigations,” Whitman said. “But, in those internal investigations, we have not found any policies of the department that ever permitted or condoned abusive treatment of detainees.

“Our policy has been one of treating detainees humanely,” Whitman emphasized.

However, Whitman said, when instances of improper treatment of detainees by military members were discovered, disciplinary action was taken against the perpetrators.

In fact, Whitman said, more than 400 disciplinary actions were taken against personnel found to have abused detainees, including imprisonment, bad-conduct discharges, forfeiture of pay and other punitive actions.

“The department has always taken any allegations of abuse seriously,” Whitman said. “All credible allegations of abuse have been thoroughly investigated, and when individuals have been found to be acting outside of our proscribed policies, they have been found accountable for their actions.”

Numerous internal Pentagon reviews and reports conducted over the years have examined interrogation policies and detainee procedures, Whitman said.

“We’ve had some 14 very-senior-level, comprehensive reports,” Whitman said, “which have covered not only interrogations, but also our detention operations.”

The Defense Department has worked closely with the Senate investigative committee, Whitman reiterated. More than 200 interviews, some of which were more than eight hours in duration, were facilitated between the committee’s staff and current and past Defense Department officials, he said.

“The effort to cooperate with the committee was significant,” Whitman said, noting that the Pentagon had also provided almost 200,000 pages of documents to committee staffers.

Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=54070

Pentagon to Release Photos From Detainee Custody Investigations

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 24, 2009 – The Defense Department soon will release a substantial number of photos associated with concluded past investigations of alleged abuse of detainees, a senior official said here today.

The photos were used as part of internal military investigations conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan, not including the photos used during allegations of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.

The pending late-May release of the photos comes from an agreement reached between the American Civil Liberties Union, the Justice Department and the Defense Department, Whitman said. The ACLU had sued the U.S. government for release of the photos.

A Justice Department letter filed yesterday in a New York District Court stated that the Defense Department would furnish 21 photographs ordered for release by the court and 23 other images involved in the lawsuit.

Additionally, the Justice Department letter stated, the Defense Department also will release “a substantial number of other images” contained in Army Criminal Investigation Division reports that have been closed. The Defense Department is to furnish all cited images by May 28, the letter said.

A number of the images being released in May were part of more than 60 investigations conducted by the U.S. military between 2003 and January 2006, Whitman said.

Since 2001, more than 400 military members charged with detainee abuse were found to be guilty of some form of misconduct, Whitman said. Punishment, he noted, ranged from imprisonment to bad-conduct discharges, reduction in rank and other types of punitive actions.

Defense Department policy always has advocated humane treatment of detainees, Whitman pointed out.

“We have, obviously, over time, found instances where performance has not matched policy,” Whitman said. “And when the performance hasn’t matched the policy, we’ve held people accountable for their actions.”

“There are a number of [lawsuits] that we’re dealing with for detainee photographs and so on,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said to reporters yesterday during his visit to Camp Lejeune, N.C. “There’s a certain inevitability, I believe, that much of this will eventually come out; much has already come out.”

Related Sites:
Justice Department Letter
Related Articles:
Spokesman Cites Pentagon Cooperation in Interrogation Probe

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/419lgkxx.asp

“Preening & Posturing
Throwing those who guard us while we sleep to the wolves.”
by William Kristol
05/04/2009, Volume 014, Issue 31

SNIPPET: “”We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history,” President Obama said when he ordered the release of the Justice Department interrogation memos. Actually, no. Not at all. We were attacked on 9/11. We responded to that attack with remarkable restraint in the use of force, respect for civil liberties, and even solicitude for those who might inadvertently be offended, let alone harmed, by our policies. We’ve fought a war on jihadist terror in a civilized, even legalized, way. Those who have been on the front and rear lines of that war—in the military and the intelligence agencies, at the Justice Department and, yes, in the White House—have much to be proud of. The rest of us, who’ve been asked to do little, should be grateful.

The dark and painful chapter we have to fear is rather the one President Obama may be ushering in. This would be a chapter in which politicians preen moralistically as they throw patriotic officials, who helped keep this country safe, to the wolves, and in which national leaders posture politically while endangering the nation’s security.

The preening is ridiculous, even by the standards of contemporary American politics and American liberalism. Obama fatuously asserts there are no real choices in the real world, just “false choices” that he can magically resolve. He foolishly suggests that even in war we would never have to do anything disagreeable for the sake of our security. He talks baby talk to intelligence officers: “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn.””

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