Was Army Report Classified to Protect the Guilty?

[G_j]

Was Army Torture Report Classified to Protect the Guilty?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/050604A.shtml

SECRECY NEWS
From the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2004, Issue No. 42

Wednesday 05 May 2004

Torture report may have broken classification rules
By classifying an explosive report on the torture of Iraqi prisoners as "Secret," the Pentagon may have violated official secrecy policies, which prohibit the use of classification to conceal illegal activities.

The report, authored by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, found that "between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees."

"The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence," Gen. Taguba wrote.

These specific observations, and the report as a whole, were classified "Secret / No Foreign Dissemination."

Why the secrecy?
"There's clearly nothing in there that's inherently secret, such as intelligence sources and methods or troop movements," an astute reporter noted at a Pentagon press briefing on May 4. "Was this kept secret because it would be embarrassing to the world, particularly the Arab world?"

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