Pentagon Plans Tighter Control of Interrogation

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The Pentagon has approved a new policy directive governing interrogations as part of an effort to tighten controls over the questioning of terror suspects and other prisoners by American soldiers

The eight-page directive, which was signed without any public announcement last Thursday by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, will allow the Army to issue a long-delayed field manual for interrogators that is supposed to incorporate the lessons gleaned from the prisoner-abuse scandals last year.

The Army intends, for example, to ensure that interrogation techniques are approved at the highest levels in the Pentagon, that interrogators are properly trained, and that personnel in the field are required to report any abuses, defense officials said. Such changes have been under consideration since the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison were disclosed in April 2004, and reflect continuing problems with abuses by troops in Afghanistan and Iraq since then.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, is sponsoring a measure to ban abusive treatment of prisoners in American custody. The new interrogations directive is also part of a wider effort by the Defense Department, which began last December, to review the treatment of prisoners in military custody. A second directive, governing all aspects of prisoner detentions, not just interrogation methods, has caused sharp debate within the Bush administration. At issue is whether the Pentagon's broad guidelines on detention should include language from the Geneva Conventions barring the use of "cruel," "humiliating" and degrading treatment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/politics/08abuse.html?hp&ex=1131512400&en=86f6c1f61eaa62b0&ei=5094&partner=homepage