Monday, May 10, 2004

The Taguba Report classified?

This could become a very interesting sinkhole in the quagmire.

From the Progress Report:

DON'T READ THIS REPORT: The instinct to hush things up was still in effect after the story and gruesome pictures broke. According to Time magazine, the administration sent an email to Pentagon staff with the subject line "URGENT IT (Information Technology) BULLETIN: Taguba Report." The email orders "employees not to read or download the Taguba report...on the grounds that the document is classified. It also orders them not to discuss the matter with friends or family members."

The potential problem here is that it is a crime to classify any document for the sole purpose of covering up other illegal activity. The question is, what other reason would there have been to classify the Taguba report?

Some speculation has been voiced that the information about "Ghost Detainees" is what prompted the decision to classify the document. And there is a distinct absence of any questioning about these detainees in the congressional hearings with Rumsfiend and crew.

"The various detention facilities operated by the 800th MP Brigade have routinely held persons brought to them by other government agencies (OGAs) WITHOUT ACCOUNTING FOR THEM, KNOWING their identities, or even THE REASON for their detention. The Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib called these detainees "GHOST DETAINEES". ON AT LEAST ONE OCCASION, the 320th MP Battalion at Abu Ghraib held a handful of "ghost detainees" (6-8) for OGAs that they moved around within the facility to HIDE THEM from a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross survey team. This maneuver was DECEPTIVE, contrary to Army Doctrine and in VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW…."
  source

Stay tuned.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.