Pentagon says No One in High Position of Authority Responsible for Torture

The U.S. military failed to react to early signs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and missed chances to correct lapses that caused abuse but its own policies and top officials were not directly to blame, according to a Pentagon report on Thursday that critics called a "whitewash." The report, by Navy Vice Adm. Albert Church, was billed by the Pentagon as its broadest investigation into the treatment of detainees by the U.S. military, particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. Human Rights Watch said the report looked "like another whitewash." Amnesty International said that to prevent future abuses "senior officials need to be held to account, not placed beyond the reach of investigation." Church said in the course of his probe, he did not interview Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, Paul Bremer, who served as the U.S. governor of Iraq at the time of many of the abuses, or any detainees or former detainees. "I don't believe anybody can call this a whitewash," Church told a Pentagon briefing. "Had the facts and the documentation led me to a different conclusion, I would have made that conclusion," said Church, adding it was not his job to assess any responsibility of high-level officials for detainee abuse. A 21-page unclassified summary released at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing largely echoed the Pentagon's previous contention that its leaders were not directly responsible for sexual and physical mistreatment of prisoners. The full 368-page report was deemed classified and was not released. The summary found "no single, over-arching explanation" for the abuses, which have drawn international condemnation and undermined U.S. credibility as it pursues President Bush's war against terrorism. It said authorized interrogation policies did not cause the abuses. [more]