Chain of command failed at Iraq prison, generals say

WASHINGTON -- The top US military commanders in Iraq said yesterday that they never approved unlawful treatment of prisoners or ordered military intelligence units to take over detention operations at Abu Ghraib prison, but acknowledged there was a systemic breakdown in command they said could lead to criminal charges against officers who oversaw the detainees.

Army General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq, took responsibility for the abuses that occurred on their watch in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which was alerted yesterday that the Pentagon has uncovered a computer disk containing additional photographs of prisoner abuses.

Meanwhile, Abizaid warned lawmakers that attacks in Iraq will probably rise following the transfer of power June 30, possibly requiring even more US troops than the beefed-up force of 135,000 slated for duty in the second half of the year.

The commanders faced a series of tough questions from the Senate panel on their role in overseeing interrogation techniques and on when they first learned of the abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib, which Sanchez yesterday said has been renamed ''Camp Redemption."

Seven soldiers are facing criminal charges in the abuse. The first soldier to be tried, Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits, was sentenced to one year in prison yesterday by a court-martial in Baghdad.

Appearing alongside Major General Geoffrey Miller, the newly installed chief of prison operations, Abizaid and Sanchez described a detention system in disarray, where roles were confused, rules governing interrogations were unclear, and repeated allegations of mistreatment from the International Committee of the Red Cross failed to reach senior commanders.

''No doubt we have made mistakes," Abizaid told the panel. ''We have suffered a setback. I accept responsibility for that setback."

Sanchez denied he ever approved a one-page memo attributed to him that listed some harsh interrogation tactics, but added that ''as a senior commander in Iraq, I accept responsibility for what happened at Abu Ghraib."

Panel members repeatedly asked about the one-page document released by the committee last week that listed a series of approved interrogation techniques and other, stronger measures -- such as sleep deprivation, forcing detainees into stressful positions, and the use of military dogs -- that had to first be approved on a case-by-case basis by Sanchez.

Under questioning from the ranking Democrat, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, Sanchez said he knew nothing about the document until it became public.

''I have never seen that, and I had never approved it, and had no part in putting that together," Sanchez said. In an order he signed on Friday, some of the techniques contained in the memo were expressly prohibited.

Although he said he was unaware of the memo, Sanchez did approve 25 requests to isolate prisoners for more than 30 days, according to Colonel Eric Warren, Sanchez' legal adviser, who also said that three requests to use ''stress positions" were denied and never reached Sanchez.

Warren told Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, that the controversial one-page document was drafted lower down the command chain and was intended to outline what was not permitted, rather than condone harsh treatment that could be considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

''So the intent of the chart, frankly, was to regulate, not to impose unlawful measures," Warren said. He said the document was ''not representative of our counter-resistance and interrogation policy."

Meanwhile, Sanchez attempted to clear up another point of contention: whether he approved putting military intelligence guards in charge of prisoners, rather than the guard commanders who normally oversaw the prison.

Major General Antonio Taguba, whose investigation earlier this year uncovered many of the abuses, concluded that intelligence officers took control of the prison at Sanchez's behest, a move he said went against usual procedure.

Some lawmakers have asked whether placing intelligence officers responsible for interrogations in charge may have contributed to the problems at the prison. Some soldiers have said they were following orders from intelligence officers to ''set the conditions" for interrogations. Those instructions have been viewed by some as a euphemism for roughing up prisoners.

Sanchez, saying he believed security at Abu Ghraib was unsatisfactory, said his November order was meant to place the intelligence unit in charge of defending the prison from mortar and artillery attacks from outside the walls, not to give the unit overall responsibility for the detainees.

''All the other responsibilities for continuing to run the prison for logistics, training, discipline, and the conduct of prison operations remained with the 800th Brigade commander," he said.

Miller, who was brought to Iraq in September from the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to help improve the intelligence-gathering process in the prison system, told the committee that he never recommended any techniques that would have violated the law.

He said prison guards were only allowed to gather ''passive intelligence" from the prsioners -- observing behavior, listening to conversations, and passing information to interrogators. Guards from the military-police unit would accompany detainees to the interrogation rooms but were not to actively participate.

''Our recommendations were that the MPs did not actively participate in any form of the interrogation itself," he said.

Nevertheless, Sanchez and Abizaid described a prison in disarray.

''It's clear that there were some breakdowns in procedures, in access, in standards of interrogation, and confusion between the roles of what the military intelligence people were doing, versus the military police," Abizaid said. ''From evidence already gathered, we believe that systemic problems existed at the prison that may have contributed to events there."

He said that several early reports from the Red Cross alleging abuse failed to reach senior commanders. ''We have a real problem with ICRC reports and the way that they're handled and the way that they move up and down the chain of command," Abizaid said.

Sanchez indicatedthat some officers who were relieved of duty after their subordinates' abuses came to light could still face other charges. ''We may find that the evidence produced in these investigations not only leads to more courts-martial, but cause us to revisit actions previously taken to determine whether to initiate judicial or nonjudicial action," he said.

About halfway through the hearing, the committee chairman, Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, interrupted to announce that the Pentagon had told his staff that more photos of abuse have been found and would be shown to members of Congress.

Abizaid also said he was wary of more violence in the months ahead, particularly after the scheduled June 30 handover of power to an interim government.

''Moving through the election period will be violent, and it could very well be more violent than we're seeing today," he said. ''So it is possible that we might need more forces."

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.