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Abu Ghraib aftermath continues

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published September 23, 2007

Here's a curious fact: Among the very few people to be punished in connection with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal may be two Catholic priests. And they weren't even in Iraq.

Last November, the Rev. Louis Vitale and the Rev. Steve Kelly went to Fort Huachuca in Arizona, home of the Army Intelligence Center. They wanted to speak to students at the center and deliver a letter denouncing the use of torture to Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the base commander.

Dressed in their priestly attire, the pair walked into the fort, knelt to pray and were arrested for trespassing on federal, a.k.a. taxpayers', property. Their trial is set for Oct. 17.

The priests say they have a co-defendant. "We're going to put torture on trial," they vow.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which prohibits the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of prisoners. But the priests say the intelligence center near Tucson continues to teach physical and mental torture techniques like those that appalled the world when they came to light in Iraq in early 2004.

Not so, said Fast, who has insisted training "is completely consistent with applicable law."

You may remember that Fast, one of Army's highest-ranking women, was in charge of military intelligence in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. One of her main jobs was to make sure Army interrogators gathered "actionable" information from prisoners that could help U.S. soldiers fight the growing insurgency.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who then ran Iraq's prison system, said Fast regularly visited Abu Ghraib where prisoners were beaten, sodomized and forced into sexually humiliating poses. The Army's first report on the scandal said intelligence officers - who reported to Fast - gave military police instructions on how to "loosen up" inmates so they would talk.

The 55-page report had only a brief mention of Fast herself, noting she was in charge of deciding which inmates accused of crimes against the coalition could be released.

In subsequent investigations, Fast also seemed immune from close scrutiny, perhaps because the Army wanted to protect a rising female star. Or, experts say, because no one wanted to go too far up the chain of command in determining who knew what about torture.

To date, only 11 low-ranking soldiers have been convicted of crimes in connection with Abu Ghraib. On Aug. 28, a military jury acquitted Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the only officer who faced criminal charges. Karpinski was reprimanded and demoted to colonel but never charged criminally.

Military investigations absolved Fast of wrongdoing, and in 2005 she got the plum job of commanding Fort Huachuca. Abu Ghraib seemed behind her - until the priests showed up and the American Civil Liberties Union obtained what it says is new evidence of a possible "coverup" of prisoner abuse and Fast's failure to act promptly after receiving reports of abuse.

According to documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act, an unidentified colonel said he met with Fast in late 2003 and gave her a copy of his report into alleged abuse - along with the names of "two people who admitted it." But was not until almost six months later, after the scandal became public, that Fast acknowledged seeing his report for the first time.

"The outcome of the investigation into Fast et al. illustrates the Defense Department's refusal to hold her, or any other senior military officials, responsible for failing to put a stop to the known abuses," the ACLU says.

Fast's career seems to have stalled, at least temporarily. In June, she relinquished command of Fort Huachuca to Brig. Gen. John Custer, formerly at Central Command in Tampa, and became deputy head of an Army agency that coordinates with other services.

Although Fast was once expected to become only the second three-star female general, a promotion now might have opened her - and the Army - to more scrutiny than they wanted.

"I'd say it's a lateral move," Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, said of Fast's new job. "If you go from two star to three star, you would have to go up for Senate confirmation, and they would have to ask her a lot of questions."

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 24, 2007, 13:18:49]