Delta Force’s operation: Rumsfeld knew about the tactics

More charges arise in Iraqi abuse. Report: Elite force threatened detainees with drowning and suffocation; Rumsfeld knew about the tactics
Craig Gordon

The Pentagon’s inspector general is investigating charges that the military’s elite Delta Force abused Iraqi prisoners far more seriously than anything known at Abu Ghraib, including threatening them with drowning and suffocation, NBC News reported last night ( http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=1074 ).

NBC reported that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew about the Delta Force’s operation and directed U.S. military officials to bring some of the methods to prisons like Abu Ghraib. The network cited "several top U.S. military and intelligence sources."

The report could not be verified last night.

A Pentagon spokesman denied allegations of prisoner abuse at Delta Force facilities.

If true, the NBC report would contradict Pentagon assertions that abuses in Iraq were carried out by just a handful of wrongdoers, and not authorized or condoned by Rumsfeld or any other senior commanders or policy makers.

The report came yesterday as Pentagon officials acknowledged that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba sought to use harsher methods than those in standard military policy in late 2002 and used them until military lawyers objected.

The Pentagon in late 2002 began using aggressive interrogation techniques on a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, who then confirmed suspicions about a planned attack on U.S. interests, a U.S. official said.

That information was gathered after Rumsfeld approved an expansion of traditional U.S. military interrogation techniques when officials at Guantanamo started to suspect the prisoner was hiding crucial information, said a U.S. official, who did not describe the techniques used.

Defense officials said Rumsfeld, based partly on objections from some military lawyers, backed away from some of the new, aggressive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo in January 2003.

Some were reinstated in April 2003 under an agreement with the military, the officials said.

The U.S. official said "a couple of dozen more aggressive" interrogation methods are now available for use by U.S. jailers at Guantanamo Bay if higher officials give their approval. The official said it was likely that these methods included some of the techniques that have now been placed off limits for use in Iraq, including sensory and sleep deprivation, the presence of guard dogs and body "stress positions."

Also yesterday, two defense sources said the Army is widening its criminal investigation of prisoner deaths in U.S. custody, now probing about five additional incidents where detainees died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That would bring the total deaths of U.S. military detainees to 30, including 25 death investigations the Army announced earlier this month at the same time the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq came to light.

Some of the five new death cases being investigated appear to involve natural deaths, while others are still under investigation, the sources said.

In addition, about a dozen new assault cases also are being investigated for possible charges against U.S. forces, one senior defense official said. The Army had previously announced 10 assault cases.

The Army expanded its criminal probe to include new incidents that came to light both inside and outside detention centers.

Wire services contributed to this story.

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