Secrecy Surrounding Army Report on Abu Ghraib May Hide Evidence of High-Level Role, Prevent Accountability for Abuses

NEW YORK – Aug. 30 – In classifying key portions of a recent Army report, the Defense Department may have shielded high-level officials from scrutiny concerning actions that contributed to the abuse of detainees, Human Rights First said today.

An unclassified 177-page version of the Fay-Jones report, detailing the role of military intelligence personnel in prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq, was released on August 25. Since that time, additional information on the report has been provided to the New York Times and Washington Post — much of it revealing the role played by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, commander of joint U.S. forces in Iraq, in approving a range of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Abu Ghraib. That information was omitted from the public version of the report issued on August 25.

“We are concerned that there may not have been a legitimate reason for classifying the information that appears to link certain actions of General Sanchez, and perhaps other senior military officials, to the abuses at Abu Ghraib,” said Eric Biel, Deputy Washington Director and Senior Counsel of Human Rights First. “Our classification system is intended to safeguard genuine national security secrets, not to shield government officials from accountability for their actions.”

The unclassified version of the report, which is available on the Human Rights First website at http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/PDF/abuse/040825fay.pdf, notes that “[l]eaders in key positions failed properly to supervise the interrogation operations at Abu Ghraib and failed to understand the dynamics created at Abu Ghraib,” and includes several brief references to interrogation techniques approved for use at facilities in Iraq by Lt. Gen. Sanchez. At the same time, portions of several pages of the unclassified report are designated as “Secret” and therefore left blank. “While the unclassified account does reveal that at least three sets of changes to U.S. interrogation policy in Iraq in one month (in early fall 2003) created confusion about the policy and procedures in place, it does not clarify the specific roles of higher-level officials in this process,” Biel noted.

The likely reason for this classification is that the September 14 cable from Lt. Gen. Sanchez outlining plans for more aggressive interrogation techniques — including the use of dogs — itself remains secret. “Without seeing the Sanchez memo itself, it is difficult to assess whether it should stay classified,” said Biel. “But even if the full contents of that document cannot be released consistent with national security interests,” said Biel, “surely the Army report could have summarized it without compromising security. Hiding it entirely greatly diminishes what we can learn from the Fay report — including whether senior officials understood that the interrogation techniques they were approving violated the Geneva Conventions and contradicted prior Army procedures.”

“This is especially true given that the public version of the report expressly states that there was no documentation found showing that General Sanchez approved the use of dogs in interrogations,” added Biel. This obvious inconsistency confirms the importance of launching a truly independent, broad-based investigation of abuses — one which is able to put together the different pieces of the puzzle, and is not stymied by classification that hides an important part of the story. Public understanding of what caused the prisoner abuses demands nothing less.”
Human Rights First’s August 25 statement on the Fay-Jones report, which sets out why a comprehensive, independent investigation of abuses at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities is still needed, is available at http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/2004_alerts/0825_b.htm.

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