JAG Lawyers Say Political Appointees Ignored Their Warnings on Prisoners

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Advice Rejected
JAG Lawyers Say Political Appointees Ignored Their Warnings on Prisoner Treatment

By Jake Tapper and Clayton Sandell
ABCNEWS.com

W A S H I N G T O N, May 16, 2004 - Lawyers from the military's Judge Advocate General's Corps, or JAG, had been urging Pentagon officials to ensure protection for prisoners for two years before the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison came to light, current and former JAG officers told ABCNEWS.

But, the JAG lawyers say, political appointees at the Pentagon ignored their warnings, setting the stage for the Abu Ghraib abuses, in which military police reservists photographed each other subjecting Iraqi prisoners to physical abuse and sexual humiliation.

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"If we - 'we' being the uniformed lawyers - had been listened to, and what we said put into practice, then these abuses would not have occurred," said Rear Admiral Don Guter (ret.), the Navy Judge Advocate General from 2000 to 2002.

Specifically, JAG officers say they have been marginalized by Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, and William Haynes II, the Pentagon's general counsel, whom President Bush has nominated for a judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.


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http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/US/JAG_detainees_040515-1.html