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While there is NO excuse for any US soldier to be involved in this kind of treatment, here is a "smoking gun" pointing directly at top Army brass in Iraq -- and it is being held by a high ranking Army officer who should know.
"Military police in charge of prisons in Iraq saw their mission shift from guarding prisoners to supporting intelligence-gathering to help counter Iraqi attacks on the allied coalition last fall, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.
"Detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation ... to provide a safe, secure and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence," Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, head of a military prison task force, wrote in a November memo, quoted by the magazine in its May 17 issue, out Sunday.
The magazine says that on Nov. 19, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top operational commander in Iraq, issued an order taking tactical control of Abu Ghraib prison away from the MPs and turning it over to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
That policy went into effect over the objections of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, another military prison expert, who said the change was "not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agendas assigned to each of these respective specialties," the story says.
In February, Taguba submitted a scathing report on widespread and shocking abuses in the prisons that some officials believe stemmed in part from that change of policy. The report said certain military-intelligence officers and civilian contractors were directly or indirectly responsible for the mistreatment."
Conflicting beliefs from two top Army generals certainly can't help the situation.
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Fraternally,
DeltAlum
DTD
The above is the opinion of the poster which may or may not be based in known facts and does not necessarily reflect the views of Delta Tau Delta or Greek Chat -- but it might.
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