Due to the dangling participle, I just had to edit this title.
This is the SECOND prison investigation by a brigadeer general NOT invesitgating a major general. Totally unacceptable!
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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/25/probe_leaves_out_ex_commander_at_guantanamo/Probe leaves out ex-commander at Guantanamo
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | February 25, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The high-profile investigation into FBI agents' allegations of detainee abuses at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is not examining the conduct of the man who oversaw the interrogation operation at the time that prisoners were allegedly shackled in painful positions and exposed to extreme temperatures to break their silence. Army Major General Geoffrey Miller commanded Camp Delta, the intelligence-gathering prison, from fall 2002 until spring 2004, when the Pentagon sent him to Iraq to take over detention operations amid the Abu Ghraib scandal. According to several internal FBI memos made public in a lawsuit, agents assigned to help in the interrogations say they alerted Miller about the abusive techniques they witnessed at Guantanamo, but Miller rebuffed them.
Despite Miller's key role at Guantanamo, the US Southern Command assigned a one-star officer, Brigadier General John Furlow, to conduct its investigation into the alleged abuses. Under Army regulations, an investigating officer must outrank anyone he or she investigates, and Miller's two stars place him beyond Furlow's reach.
The assignment of a junior officer to investigate the allegations raises questions about whether the probe, which the Bush administration announced in January and has repeatedly touted in response to questions about the FBI memos, can reveal the full scope of responsibility. Furlow's report is due to the Southern Command commander, Lieutenant General Bantz Craddock, in five days.
''It's difficult to see how it can be anything but a whitewash if the investigator doesn't have the authority to look at high-level responsibility," said Jameel Jaffer, a senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that sued to make the FBI memos public. Lieutenant Colonel Jim Marshall, a Southern Command spokesman, said that Furlow has a mandate to ''determine the facts of the allegations" and that Craddock has the option to appoint a ranking general to examine Miller's conduct, although he has not chosen to at this point. Furlow and his team are interviewing former Guantanamo guards and interrogators as well as the FBI agents who wrote the internal memos. ''At this point, a more senior investigating officer is not required; however, this possibility has not been ruled out," Marshall said. ''If that point is reached, an officer of the grade commensurate to the new requirement will be assigned."
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According to the memos, several experienced FBI interrogators assigned to help obtain information from suspected Al Qaeda or Taliban militants wrote that they told Miller the harsh techniques were ineffective, counterproductive, and unlikely to produce reliable information. One agent says Miller told him that his ''marching orders" came from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, according to the memos. Miller has been a central figure as allegations of detainee abuses grabbed headlines. Critics have linked the allegations to the Bush administration's decision to withhold Geneva Convention protections from prisoners captured in Afghanistan. The Geneva treaty forbids coercive interrogation practices against prisoners of war, but specialists say information is vital for defense against terrorism.
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