US: US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld yesterday admitted that he ordered military officials to hold a suspected Iraqi terrorist at a detention centre near Baghdad without notifying the Red Cross. This was in violation of international agreements.
At a press conference in the Pentagon, Mr Rumsfeld also acknowledged that he had ordered the secret detention of an unspecified number of other "ghost" prisoners. He had taken the action at the request of the CIA director, Mr George Tenet, for classified reasons, and denied that the person had been treated inhumanely.
His admission for the first time links the improper treatment of prisoners in Iraq with a senior member of the Bush administration. It contradicts Mr Rumsfeld's repeated claims that the Geneva Conventions applied to all US military activities in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
Maj Gen Antonio Taguba, who investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in February, criticised the holding of unregistered detainees as "deceptive, contrary to army doctrine and in violation of international law". By refusing to give the prisoner an identification number and by not informing the International Committee of the Red Cross, the military violated two requirements of the Geneva Accords on treatment of prisoners.
Officials said the prisoner, believed to have been associated with the radical Ansar al-Islam group, was only questioned once at his place of detention, known as Camp Cropper, where the Red Cross has reported that some detainees have been held for 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in cramped cells.
Mr Rumsfeld attempted to minimise the significance of his order, saying "people do not have to be registered in 15 minutes".
The Abu Ghraib photographs "depict activities that are inhumane and improper, there's no doubt about that, but that's quite a different thing", he said.
Asked if it was the intention to hide this prisoner from the Red Cross, he replied: "Not on my part." Pressed if there were more such cases, he said there was one other he could think of but he did not known how many in total.
Earlier Mr Bush was asked by a reporter after a cabinet meeting, with Mr Rumsfeld sitting beside him, if he was disappointed with his Secretary of Defence over the prisoner issue. "I'm never disappointed in my Secretary of Defence," Mr Bush replied.
"He's doing a fabulous job, and America is lucky to have him in the position he's in." Mr Rumsfeld said the reason for the CIA request was classified but a request not to register a prisoner could be to prevent an interrogation from being interrupted.
The Pentagon's first-ever admission of "ghost" prisoners coincides with a report from New York-based Human Rights First that the administration was violating US and international law by refusing to notify all detainees' families or give names, numbers and locations of all prisoners to the Red Cross. "The official secrecy surrounding US practices has made conditions ripe for illegality and abuse," it said.
Mr Rumsfeld indignantly complained about the use of the word "torture" by the US media to describe abuse in US prisons around the world. It was not true that the US government had "ordered, authorised, permitted or tolerated, torture", he said. US enemies "will use that as an excuse to torture our people".
Mr Rumsfeld's action was first acknowledged by Pentagon spokesman Mr Bryan Whitman who said the Defence Secretary ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have the prisoner secretly detained on the day last October when Mr Tenet made the request. The prisoner will be given a number and the Red Cross will be formally notified soon, he said.