What Rumsfeld knew
Interviews with high-ranking military officials shed new light on the role Rumsfeld played in the harsh treatment of a Guantánamo detainee.

By Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin

April 14, 2006 | Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was personally involved in the late 2002 interrogation of a high-value al-Qaida detainee known in intelligence circles as "the 20th hijacker." He also communicated weekly with the man in charge of the interrogation, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the controversial commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center.

During the same period, detainee Mohammed al-Kahtani suffered from what Army investigators have called "degrading and abusive" treatment by soldiers who were following the interrogation plan Rumsfeld had approved. Kahtani was forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, and was forced to wear women's underwear and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash. He received 18-to-20-hour interrogations during 48 of 54 days.

Little more than two years later, during an investigation into the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantánamo, Rumsfeld expressed puzzlement at the notion that his policies had caused the abuse. "He was going, 'My God, you know, did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy's head?'" recalled Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, an investigator who interviewed Rumsfeld twice in early 2005.

These disclosures are contained in a Dec. 20, 2005, Army inspector general's report on Miller's conduct, which was obtained this week by Salon through the Freedom of Information Act. The 391-page document -- which has long passages blacked out by the government -- concludes that Miller should not be punished for his oversight role in detainee operations, a fact that was reported last month by Time magazine. But the never-before-released full report also includes the transcripts of interviews with high-ranking military officials that shed new light on the role that Rumsfeld and Miller played in the harsh treatment of Kahtani, who had met with Osama bin Laden on several occasions and received terrorist training in al-Qaida camps.

In a sworn statement to the inspector general, Schmidt described Rumsfeld as "personally involved" in the interrogation and said that the defense secretary was "talking weekly" with Miller. Schmidt said he concluded that Rumsfeld did not specifically prescribe the more "creative" interrogation methods used on Kahtani. But he added that the open-ended policies Rumsfeld approved, and that the apparent lack of supervision of day-to-day interrogations permitted the abusive conduct to take place. "Where is the throttle on this stuff?" asked Schmidt, an Air Force fighter pilot, who said in his interview under oath with the inspector general that he had concerns about the length and repetition of the harsh interrogation methods. "There were no limits."

Schmidt also saw close parallels between the interrogations at Guantánamo, and the photographic evidence of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "Just for the lack of a camera, it would sure look like Abu Ghraib," Schmidt told the inspector general, in the interview that was conducted in August 2005. At the direction of Pentagon officials, Miller led a mission to Iraq in August 2003 to review detainee operations at Abu Ghraib -- a visit that critics say precipitated the abuse of prisoners there.

In April 2005, Schmidt completed his report on detainee abuse at Guantánamo, which he co-authored with Brig. Gen. John T. Furlow. They recommended that Miller be "admonished" and "held accountable" for the alleged abuse of Kahtani. But that recommendation was rejected by Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the current head of the Southern Command, who said Miller had not violated any law or policy.

On Dec. 2, 2002, Rumsfeld approved 16 harsher interrogation strategies for use against Kahtani, including the use of forced nudity, stress positions and the removal of religious items. In public statements, however, Rumsfeld has maintained that none of the policies at Guantánamo led to "inhumane" treatment of detainees. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, told Salon Thursday that Kahtani was an al-Qaida terrorist who provided a "treasure trove" of still-classified information during his interrogation. "Al-Kahtani's interrogation was guided by a very detailed plan, conducted by trained professionals in a controlled environment, and with active supervision and oversight," Gordon said in an e-mail statement. "Nothing was done randomly."

Miller -- who has invoked his right against self-incrimination in courts-martial of Abu Ghraib soldiers -- said that he did not know all the details of Kahtani's interrogation. But Schmidt told the inspector general that he found that claim "hard to believe" in light of Miller's knowledge of Rumsfeld's continuing interest in Kahtani. "The secretary of defense is personally involved in the interrogation of one person, and the entire General Counsel system of all the departments of the military," Schmidt said. "There is just not a too-busy alibi there for that."

The harsh interrogation of Kahtani came to an abrupt end in mid-January 2003. Gen. James T. Hill, Craddock's predecessor as the head of Southern Command, recalled in his interview with the inspector general that he received a call from Rumsfeld on a January weekend asking about the progress of Kahtani's interrogation. "Someone had come to him and suggested that it needed to be looked at," Hill said of Rumsfeld. "He said, 'What do you think?' And I said, 'Why don't [you] let me call General Miller.'"

According to Hill's account of that call, Miller advised that the harsh interrogation of Kahtani should continue, using the techniques Rumsfeld had previously approved. "We think we're right on the verge of making a breakthrough," Hill remembered Miller saying. Hill said he called Rumsfeld back with the news. "The secretary said, 'Fine,'" Hill remembered.

Nonetheless, several days later Rumsfeld revoked the harsher interrogation methods, apparently responding to military lawyers who had raised concerns that they may constitute cruel and unusual punishment or torture.

"My attitude on that was, 'Great!'" said Hill. The general recalled thinking about Rumsfeld and the decision to halt the harsh interrogation, "All I'm trying to do is what you want us to do in the first place and doing it the right way."

The harsher methods were not approved again.

Report says Rumsfeld allowed Guantanamo abuse

Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:08pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld allowed an "abusive and degrading" interrogation of an al Qaeda detainee in 2002, the online magazine Salon reported on Friday, citing an Army document.

In a report a Pentagon spokesman denounced as "fiction," Salon quoted a December 2005 Army inspector general's report in which officers told of Rumsfeld's direct contact with the general overseeing the interrogation at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report at www.salon.com, titled "What Rumsfeld Knew," comes amid a spate of calls by retired U.S. generals for the Pentagon chief to resign to take responsibility for U.S. military setbacks in Iraq.

Rumsfeld spoke regularly to U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, a key player in the treatment of detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo, during the interrogation of Mohammed al-Kahtani, suspected to have been an intended September 11 hijacker, Salon quoted the inspector general's report as saying.


Kahtani, a Saudi national, received "degrading and abusive" treatment by soldiers who were following the interrogation plan Rumsfeld had approved, Salon said, quoting the 391-page report, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Over 54 days in late 2002, soldiers forced Kahtani to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, accused him of being a homosexual, and forced him to wear women's underwear and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash, Salon reported.

Salon cites Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, an Army investigator, as saying in a sworn statement to the inspector general that "The secretary of defense is personally involved in the interrogation of one person."

Schmidt is quoted under oath as saying he concluded that Rumsfeld did not specifically order the interrogation methods used on Kahtani, but that Rumsfeld's approval of broad policies permitted abuses to take place.

Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, dismissed the report's allegation that Rumsfeld or the agency condoned abuse.

"We've gone over this countless times and yet some still choose to print fiction versus facts," he said by telephone.

"Twelve major reviews, to include one done by an independent panel, all confirm the Department of Defense did not have a policy that encouraged or condoned abuse. To suggest otherwise is simply false," he said.

Schmidt, an Air Force fighter pilot, was quoted as telling the inspector general that he had concerns about the length and repetition of the harsh interrogation methods, which he likened to abuses later uncovered at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"There were no limits," Schmidt is quoted as telling the inspector general in an August 2005 interview.

The Pentagon has said Kahtani gave interrogators information on Osama bin Laden's health and methods of evading capture, and on al Qaeda's infiltration routes.

Miller -- who headed the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, helped shape detention practices at Abu Ghraib and later oversaw all detention operations in Iraq -- in January invoked his right not to incriminate himself in the courts martial of soldiers tried for Abu Ghraib abuses.

Reuters has put this story out on the news wire. 

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....TY-RUMSFELD.xml

Documents link Rumsfeld to prisoner's interrogation
Questions raised about his knowledge of abuse

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff  |  April 15, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld closely monitored the late 2002 interrogation of a key Guantanamo Bay prison detainee at the same time that the prisoner was subjected to treatment that a military investigator later called ''degrading and abusive," according to newly released documents.

The documents, portions of a December 2005 Army inspector general report, disclosed for the first time that Rumsfeld spoke weekly with the Guantanamo commander, Major Geoffrey Miller, about the progress of the interrogation of a Saudi man suspected of a connection to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The intense attention Rumsfeld and Miller were paying to the interrogation raises new questions about their later claims that they knew nothing about the tactics interrogators used, which included a range of physically intense and sexually humiliating techniques similar to those in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq.

Over a six-week period, according to subsequent investigations, the detainee was subjected to sleep deprivation, stripped naked, forced to wear women's underwear on his head, denied bathroom access until he urinated on himself, threatened with snarling dogs, and forced to perform tricks on a dog leash, among other things.

Rumsfeld offered to resign after the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison came to light in 2004, but President Bush rejected his offer. Rumsfeld is now under fire from many retired generals who have called for his ouster because of his handling of the Iraq war, but yesterday Bush again expressed confidence in the defense secretary.

The new documents cast further light on the period following the Sept. 11 attacks, but before the Iraq invasion, during which harsh interrogation techniques were developed at Guantanamo that later migrated to Abu Ghraib.

In the case of the Saudi detainee, a military investigation last summer concluded that the treatment of the prisoner crossed the line into abuse but stopped short of torture. The investigation also found that the tactics were covered by a list of vaguely worded guidelines that Rumsfeld had approved in early December 2002, then rescinded in January 2003.

The tactics -- which were approved for use on the Saudi detainee, Mohamed al-Qahtani -- included forced nudity, prolonged isolation, standing for long periods, playing on ''individual phobias" such as dogs, and others designed to lower the pride and ego of the detainee.

The Sept. 11 Commission later concluded that Qahtani was an Al Qaeda member who probably would have been the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks. In August 2001, he was turned away from Orlando International Airport by a suspicious immigrations officer while Sept. 11 ringleader Mohammed Atta waited in the lobby. Qahtani was later captured in south Asia and brought to Guantanamo.

The documents released yesterday, which the online magazine Salon obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and partially posted on its website, shed new light on a critical period in Guantanamo's history.

The newly released information included a sworn statement given to the inspector general by Lieutenant General Randall Schmidt, an Army investigator who last year examined claims by FBI agents that they had witnessed ''torture techniques" on Guantanamo prisoners. Schmidt told the inspector general that Rumsfeld had been ''personally involved in the interrogation of one person" -- Qahtani -- and was ''talking weekly" with Miller about its progress.

But more than two years later, when Schmidt interviewed Rumsfeld about the treatment of Qahtani, the defense secretary expressed incredulity, saying: ''My God, you know, did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy's head?"

Schmidt concluded that Rumsfeld did not specifically authorize the ''creative" tactics, but that the vagueness of his instructions had allowed the abuses to occur. ''There were no limits," Schmidt said in his statement.

The international group Human Rights Watch yesterday called for a special prosecutor to investigate Rumsfeld and others who were involved in the harsh interrogations, saying the techniques used on Qahtani ''were so abusive that they amounted to torture." ''The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it's whether he should be indicted," said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director at Human Rights Watch. ''General Schmidt's sworn statement suggests that Rumsfeld may have been perfectly aware of the abuses inflicted on Qahtani."

A Defense Department spokeswoman e-mailed a statement insisting that the Pentagon ''did not have a policy that encouraged or condoned abuse," calling any suggestion to the contrary ''fiction." She did not respond to specific questions about the newly released report.

Since May 2004, when the photographs of the Abu Ghraib scandal were published, the military has conducted a dozen investigations into its treatment of detainees at its prisons in Guantanamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The investigations have concluded that there was no deliberate policy of mistreatment, instead blaming numerous cases of abuse on rogue low-level interrogators, confusion over changing rules, and lax supervision. In one review, an independent panel faulted Rumsfeld for failing to set clear rules for interrogations. The most egregious abuses took place at the Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs showed US soldiers abusing detainees in the fall of 2003 -- shortly after Miller traveled from Guantanamo to Iraq and offered suggestions about how to improve interrogations.

Miller, who has denied suggesting the tactics seen in the Abu Ghraib photographs, is now working a desk job at the Pentagon. In an unusual move for a military officer, he has invoked his right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying in the court-martial of a soldier at Abu Ghraib.

In the documents released yesterday, Schmidt said he found Miller's account that he did not know what was happening to Qahtani ''hard to believe," given the general's frequent conversations with Rumsfeld about developments in the case.

The inspector general, however, did not find enough evidence to hold Miller accountable for the abuses of Qahtani.

But in his report last summer, Schmidt recommended reprimanding Miller for failing to adequately supervise the Qahtani interrogation. However, the leader of the US Southern Command, General Bantz J. Craddock, rejected Schmidt's recommendation, saying the interrogation of Qahtani did not violate military law. Prior to being named to head Southcom, Craddock was Rumsfeld's senior military assistant.