Released Army document linked the U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to "abusive and degrading" interrogation methods used against what the U.S. government calls “terror suspects” at Guantanamo prison in Cuba, the online magazine Salon reported Friday.
The report, titled "What Rumsfeld Knew," and rejected by Pentagon spokesman as "fiction," refers to a December 2005 Army inspector general's report stating that officers told of Rumsfeld's allowance of inhuman interrogation methods at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Saloon report comes amid mounting calls by respected military commanders, demanding the Pentagon chief to submit his resignation, over his failure in handling Iraq war.
• Calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation
In an essay published last week's issue of Time magazine, Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, who was the military's top operations officer before March 2003 Iraq invasion, said he did not more energetically question those who took the nation to war, expressing his deep regret over the occupation, which has so far claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including women and children.
The three-star Marine Corps general who retired in late 2002, called for replacing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and "many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach".
"I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat," Newbold, the third retired senior officer in recent weeks to call on Mr. Rumsfeld to step down, wrote.
The decision to invade Iraq "was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results."
• Rumsfeld ordered the abuse of Kahtani
According to the Salon report, the Secretary of Defense spoke regularly to Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who played a key role in how detainees at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo were treated, during the interrogation of Mohammed al-Kahtani, a Saudi prisoner who Bush’s administration claims was an intended Sept. 11 hijacker.
Soldiers who used "degrading and abusive" methods for over 54 days in late 2002 during the interrogation of Kahtani were following a plan set and approved by Mr. Rumsfeld, the Salon added, citing 391-page report, it had obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Kahtani was forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator. He was also accused by U.S. soldiers, who forced him wear women's underwear and made him perform "dog tricks" on a leash, of being a homosexual, the Salon report further stated.
In a sworn statement to the inspector general Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, an Army investigator, said that "The secretary of defense is personally involved in the interrogation of one person," according to the report.
Salon’s report moreover, quoted Schmidt, an Air Force fighter pilot, as saying under oath that he concluded that the Pentagon chief did not specifically order the interrogation methods used on Kahtani, but that his approval of broad policies permitted abuses to take place.
Schmidt was moreover quoted as expressing to the inspector general his deep concerns over the length and repetition of the harsh interrogation methods used against the detainees.
He likened methods used at Guantanamo to those previously uncovered at Abu Ghraib prison near the Iraqi capital.
"There were no limits," Schmidt was quoted as telling the inspector general in an August 2005 interview.
• Treatment "amounted to torture"
Meanwhile, the U.S. Human Rights Watch called for appointing a special prosecutor to investigate whether Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for the treatment of Mohamed Kahtani.
The rights group said it had obtained a copy of the interrogation log, which proves that Kahtani was also subjected to sleep deprivation and forced to maintain "stress" positions.
According to the U.S. Human Rights Watch, the treatment "amounted to torture".
But military investigators rejected the rights group’s charge, arguing that the interrogation did not amount to torture but was "abusive and degrading".
The Bush administration had been implicated in numerous torture scandals, but this is the first time Rumsfeld's own involvement emerges.
In response to publication of the report, the Pentagon issued a statement, claiming:
"We've gone over this countless times, and yet some still choose to print fiction versus fact. Twelve reviews, to include one done by an independent panel, all confirm the department of defence did not have a policy that encouraged or condoned abuse. To suggest otherwise is simply false," the spokesman said.
Despite the numerous scandals revealing the U.S. government’s abusive tactics used against what it calls “terror suspects” in jails it runs in Iraq and Guantanamo, only junior U.S. officers had been charged and convicted of abusing detainees.
Al Jazeera