May 17, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- In spite of a strong recommendation by a top Army general, the Pentagon has failed to investigate the military's role in handling "ghost detainees," prisoners secretly held and interrogated by the U.S. government at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq. Nearly two years ago, in multiple meetings, Army Gen. Paul J. Kern briefed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top Army officials about the need for such a probe. In an interview with Salon, Kern, now retired, said he left those briefings with the expectation that an investigation would be carried out. According to a Department of Defense spokesman, however, no Pentagon investigation has taken place, nor is one planned.
Kern headed a major investigation in 2004 into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, known as the Fay-Jones report. "When we finished the report, we felt there was an unfinished part that needed to be done with respect to ghost detainees," Kern told Salon. Based on his findings, Kern concluded that the Pentagon needed to look into the arrangement, between the Army and the CIA, under which the military held prisoners in secret -- a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
In addition to his multiple briefings with Pentagon leaders, in August 2004 Kern publicly called for an investigation into the matter of ghost detainees. And on Sept. 9, 2004, Kern told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, then headed by Joseph E. Schmitz, had "agreed" to conduct an investigation. Kern told Salon last week, "I look forward to it being finished."
But an investigation was never started. Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the Defense Department's inspector general's office, told Salon, "The Department of Defense inspector general has not undertaken an investigation into the ghost detainee issue, and none is planned."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/17/ghost_detainees/
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