Yahoo! News - Pentagon's Explanations Add to Confusion: "The Pentagon (news - web sites)'s explanations for some key events surrounding prisoner abuse in Iraq (news - web sites) are in conflict with other testimony or findings of Army investigators.
Such contradictions are adding to the confusion over who was ultimately responsible for the abuses that prompted criminal charges against seven American soldiers and an apology from President Bush (news - web sites).
Congress is demanding answers, but some conflicting testimony from top military and defense officials only has added to the uncertainty.
The examples abound:
_ The Pentagon's top spokesman said Defense Department intelligence chief Stephen Cambone was not involved in discussions of interrogation rules for Iraq. But only days earlier, Cambone testified he, in fact, helped push for those new rules.
_ The general in charge of all U.S. troops in Iraq contradicted the general in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison guards � and an Army investigative report - about who was in command at the lockup after mid-November.
"_ A top military lawyer contradicted a defense spokesman and an Army general about whether some interrogation techniques used at the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay violate the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war.
One area of conflict involves the role played by Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Cambone testified that he urged Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then the commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, to travel to Iraq last August and make recommendations on how to better interrogate prisoners. Cambone said he was involved in Pentagon discussions on how to press detainees for information without violating the Geneva Conventions.
'He (Miller) technically went over under Joint Staff auspices but with my encouragement, and that of other senior members of the department,' Cambone told the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) last week. 'On his return, when he completed his report, I received a briefing on it and then asked for people to look at its subsequent progress and what had taken place.'
But Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Cambone and his deputy, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, were not involved in the Iraq interrogation issue.
'Undersecretary Cambone has no responsibility, nor has he had any responsibility in the past, for detainee or interrogation programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else in the world,' Di Rita said in a statement given to reporters Sunday.
Di Rita told The Associated Press that the Pentagon's top policy official, Douglas Feith, was the official primarily responsible for developing interrogation rules. "
Cover up! These people are responsible for humiliating this country and abusing the people they supposedly wanted to liberate. There is no honor in this administration. They don't deserve to be in office, represent this country or hold any power. Out!
- posted by geoff @ #