The Virtual Office of Congresswoman Jane Harman
Official web site for Representative Jane Harman (D - CA).

http://www.house.gov/harman/
http://www.house.gov/harman/harman/index.html
CONTACT:
http://www.house.gov/harman/emailJane.html
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The Abu Ghraib Scandal Cover-Up? -
Newsweek The War on Iraq ...
Nor did Rice try to make the case that by razing Iraq's Abu
Ghraib ... In a May
21 letter to Miller, Rep. Jane Harman chastised the general for
"gaps and ...
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Abu Ghraib
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The Abu Ghraib Scandal Cover-Up?
Bush insists that 'a few American troops' dishonored the
country. But prisoner abuse was more widespread, and some
insiders believe that much remains hidden
By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
June 7 issue - The meeting was small and unpublicized. In a room
on the third floor of the Old Executive Office Building last
week, Condoleezza Rice grittily endured an hour's worth of
pleading from leading human-rights activists who want to see a
9/11-style commission created to investigate the abuse of
detainees in the war on terror. According to participants, the
president's national-security adviser didn't repeat the line
that George W. Bush had delivered to the American people in a
speech two days before: that the scandal was the work of "a few
American troops who dishonored our country." Nor did Rice try to
make the case that by razing Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison—a Bush
proposal that took even his Defense secretary by
surprise—administration officials would put the scandal behind
them. "I recognize we have a very grave problem," Rice said,
according to Scott Horton, a New York lawyer at the meeting
whose account was corroborated by another participant. "There
are major investigations going on right now to fully understand
the scope and nature of it."
Story continues below ↓ advertisement
But numerous critics—not just in the human-rights community, but
in Congress and the U.S. military as well—insist that the
current probes are still too limited to bring full
accountability. Some critics say Donald Rumsfeld's Defense
Department is doing its best to stop potentially incriminating
information from coming out, that it's deflecting Congress's
inquiries and shielding higher-ups from investigation. Documents
obtained by NEWSWEEK also suggest that Rumsfeld's aides are
trying hard to contain the scandal, even within the Pentagon.
Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, who is in charge of
setting policy on prisoners and detainees in occupied Iraq, has
banned any discussion of the still-classified report on Abu
Ghraib written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, which has circulated
around the world. Shortly after the Taguba report leaked in
early May, Feith subordinates sent an "urgent" e-mail around the
Pentagon warning officials not to read the report, even though
it was on Fox News. In the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained
by NEWSWEEK, officials in Feith's office warn that the leak is
being investigated for "criminal prosecution" and that no one
should mention the Taguba report to anybody, even to family
members. Feith has turned his office into a "ministry of fear,"
says one military lawyer. A spokesman for Feith, Maj. Paul
Swiergosz, says the e-mail warning was intended to prevent
employees from downloading a classified report onto unclassified
computers.
More worrisome, critics say, is that the Pentagon is
investigating itself. Maj. Gen. George Fay, the No. 2 in Army
Military Intelligence, is in charge of the probe into whether
his own intel officers directed the MPs to abuse prisoners. But
so far Fay has questioned no one above the rank of colonel,
military and other sources say. Among those critical of Fay is
Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was formerly in military intelligence
at Abu Ghraib and has told reporters in recent weeks that the
Army is engaged in a cover-up. "I had to volunteer more
information than was being asked of me [by Fay]. It was like I
was adding to his burden," Provance told NEWSWEEK last week.
"There are so many soldiers directly involved who haven't been
talked to."
Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse: A Who's Who
• PFC. LYNNDIE ENGLAND | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
• CPL. CHARLES GRANER JR. | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
• SPC. SABRINA HARMAN | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
• SGT. JAVAL DAVIS | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
• SPC. JEREMY SIVITS | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
• S/SGT. VAN FREDERICK II | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
• SPC. MEGAN AMBUHL | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
• A MAN OF CONSCIENCE:
SPC. JOSEPH DARBY | 372d MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
AP
She is the grinning, pixieish face of the current scandal, the
anti-Jessica Lynch who, by coincidence, grew up in another small
town in a different part of the same state. And until last week,
Ft. Ashby, W.Va., was equally proud of England, who had bagged
groceries and worked in a chicken plant before joining the
Reserves to earn money for college. (Her dream, reportedly, was
to become a storm-chasing meteorologist.) Her parents fled the
onslaught of reporters, but at a press conference her best
friend, Destiny Goin, described England as "a caring person" who
adopted a stray cat in Iraq. She was also, at 21, divorced after
a two-year marriage to a high-school boyfriend, and four months
pregnant by another soldier who has been charged in the case,
Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. (below). England's lawyer acknowledged a
"relationship" with Graner but, under questioning, refused to
call it a romance--and reminded reporters that Graner was her
supervisor. England's sister, Jessica Klinestiver, insists that
in her guard work she "was following orders, and that's what
people in the military are supposed to do."
Source: Newsweek • Print this
The Army has tried to silence Provance. In a May 21 disciplinary
order, a copy of which was shown to NEWSWEEK, battalion
commander Lt. Col. James Norwood notifies Provance that he has
lost his security clearance and is being "flagged" for violating
a previous order to keep quiet. That means he is ineligible for
promotions, awards or security clearance. Norwood appears to
threaten Provance with prosecution, saying, "There is reason for
me to believe that you may have been aware of the improper
treatment of the detainees at Abu Ghraib before they were
reported by other soldiers." General Fay's conclusions, Norwood
warns, "may reveal that you should face adverse action for your
failure to report."
Yet no officer above General Fay's rank is likely to have to
worry about the conclusions of his investigation. Under military
doctrine, Fay, as a two-star general, "can only hold a one-star
accountable," says an Army general familiar with such
investigations. "He can say someone higher up is the proximate
cause, but he can't actually have a finding that says, 'I
recommend Maj. Gen. so-and-so be relieved of command.' And if
somebody tells him it came from the CIA, what can Fay do?
Nothing. He can only say it's outside the jurisdiction of his
investigation." Because Fay was appointed by Iraq commander Lt.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, he is also effectively limited from taking
his probe beyond Sanchez's command, says Scott Silliman, a
former Air Force lawyer who is now a law professor at Duke. "It
would be difficult for Fay even to question Sanchez," says
Silliman. In fact, none of the five investigations the military
itself is now conducting is aimed higher up the chain of command
than Sanchez.
Pentagon officials said last week that Sanchez would be replaced
as commander of Joint Task Force-7 in Iraq. Formally, Sanchez's
recall is unrelated to the scandal. But military sources
acknowledge that an increasing body of evidence indicates his
command has not been forthright about when it learned of the
abuses or what it did—and failed to do—about them. The Red Cross
first warned Joint Task Force-7 of the kind of abuses seen in
the prison photos last November, fully two months before Sanchez
launched an investigation. The general says he didn't find out
about the abuses until January. But two military sources say his
deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, was present at a meeting
in late November to discuss a response to the Red Cross. Also at
the meeting was Col. Mark Warren, Sanchez's top legal adviser.
In mid-May Warren denied in reply to a NEWSWEEK question that
his office had drafted the command's response, which brushed off
the Red Cross allegations. But Warren later acknowledged under
oath to the Senate Armed Services Committee that his JAG team
had drafted the command's response.
NEWSWEEK ON AIR | 5/30/04
Iraq: Cover-Up?
Rod Nordland, NEWSWEEK Baghdad bureau chief, and Michael Hirsh,
NEWSWEEK senior editor
• Listen to the audio
• Listen to the complete On Air show
The White House insists the president wants to conduct a "systemwide"
probe of the detainee issue. Administration officials point to a
new "independent panel" formed by Rumsfeld. A top Bush aide says
the panel—consisting of four members of Rumsfeld's Defense
Policy Board, including former Defense secretaries James
Schlesinger and Harold Brown—will address "the totality" of all
the investigations. But Rumsfeld himself, in his letter
appointing the panel, indicates that his interest is mainly in
looking at future issues like interrogation, force structure and
training. "Issues of personal accountability will be resolved
through established military justice and administrative
procedures," Rumsfeld says, "although any information you may
develop will be welcome." (Former Rep. Tillie Fowler, a member,
says the group is now "putting together a timeline of who knew
what when.")
On Capitol Hill, legislators on both sides of the aisle complain
testily that the Pentagon has turned into an informational black
hole. Some 2,000 out of 6,000 pages were missing from the copy
of the Taguba report delivered from the Pentagon to the Senate
Armed Services Committee. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita last
week called this merely an "oversight." But among the missing
pages were key documents, including the final section of
Taguba's lengthy questioning of Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of
the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, the unit that actually
ran the interrogations in Abu Ghraib Block 1A when the abuses
occurred. Sources say Pappas gave Taguba a detailed account of
why he believed that "policies and procedures" at Abu Ghraib
"were enacted as a specific result" of recommendations made by
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo.
Miller denies that he exported to Iraq techniques used on Qaeda
and Taliban suspects at Gitmo. But Pappas even had some
documents to buttress his case, sources say, including one
titled "Draft Update for the Secretary of Defense."
Some senators say the Pentagon has so far obscured two issues:
who ordered Miller to Abu Ghraib in the first place, and who in
the Pentagon knew of the interrogation practices put in place
there. Steve Cambone, Rumsfeld's under secretary for
intelligence, merely said at a May 7 hearing of the Armed
Services Committee that Miller had gone to Iraq "at my
encouragement." But neither Sanchez nor CENTCOM commander, Gen.
John Abizaid, would tell a later hearing if they knew of
involvement by civilian higher-ups at the Pentagon. As one
committee member, Sen. Robert Byrd, told NEWSWEEK: "I was
stunned that the two top generals [in the Gulf] hemmed and hawed
and claimed they had no idea whether the secretary of Defense or
the civilian leadership of the Defense Department played any
role."
Miller himself has been accused of being less than forthright in
a classified briefing before Congress. In a May 21 letter to
Miller, Rep. Jane Harman chastised the general for "gaps and
discrepancies in your presentation" and for selectively
withholding information in a classified session the day before.
Harman, the ranking minority member on the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, added that she now questions Miller's
"candor." (A spokesman for Miller, Barry Johnson, told NEWSWEEK
that Miller "is drafting a response and providing additional
facts.")
Even Bush's Republican allies, like Armed Services Committee
chair John Warner, want to know more. And now the White House
seems to be constructing a legal moat around the president. Its
argument is that Bush's orders were simply disobeyed. Rice told
the human-rights lawyers last week that the president's clear
directives on observing the Geneva Conventions and anti-torture
laws were not followed. She also allowed that she didn't know
yet the full scope of the scandal, which seemed to conflict with
Bush's insistence that a few bad MPs were to blame. A senior
administration official insists there is no contradiction: "When
the president talks about Abu Ghraib in that specific,
particular way ... I just don't think anybody believes you're
going to find it that widespread across the system." But until
all of the facts of the prisoner-abuse scandal come out, nobody
will be able to make a sound judgment about who is ultimately
responsible.
With Stefan Theil in Berlin, Tamara Lipper and Mark Hosenball in
Washington and Melinda Liu in Amman
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
==================
NPR : Abu Ghraib, One Year Later
One of many photos from Abu Ghraib prison that stunned the
nation and the world.
... Representative JANE HARMAN (Democrat, California): I still
have not ...
HTTP://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4617138
Harman pushes House bill prohibiting prisoner abuse
Daily Breeze, CA - Oct 8, 2005
WASHINGTON -- US Rep. Jane Harman and a bipartisan group of
House lawmakers Friday introduced ... The bill introduced by
Harman, a South Bay lawmaker who is the ...
SOURCE:
The Abu Ghraib Scandal Cover
Nor did Rice try to make the case that by razing Iraq's Abu
Ghraib Prison ...
In a May 21 letter to Miller, Rep. Jane Harman chastised the
general for "gaps ...
HTTP://www.ccmep.org/2004_articles/iraq/060504_Newsweek.htm
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Wilson, Plame, Cooper... Don't Forget the Back Story!
* Listen to the MP3 Audio - Segment 3 (9.30 MB) 10/11/05
http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-10-11-Charles-03.mp3
IS CHENEY GOING TO BE INDICTED?...BUSH HAD TO KNOW!!!!
Guest: Jane Hamsher
http://firedoglake.blogspot.com knows more than most about
why.
AUDIO: APROX 45 MINUTES.... OF WOW! WOW!!
http://www.charlesgoyette.com/archive/media/2005-10-13-Charles-03.mp3
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FREE Lynndie ENGLAND!!!!!!!!!!!

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