Transcript : Taguba, Cambone on Abu Ghraib Report

ALLARD: So as far as we know, these were all related to those guidelines that generally -- you're complying with, as far as the military's concerned on how you handle prisoners?

TAGUBA: Sir, they were either classified as security detainees, or other detainees, criminals, things of that nature.

ALLARD: But no terrorist classification?

TAGUBA: None that we were given, no, sir.

ALLARD: Secretary Cambone or General Smith, in your estimation, why was anyone taking picture in the security detention facility at Abu Ghraib, and is there any explanation from a physical security or prisoner security or military intelligence perspective?

CAMBONE: Sir, the photographing of prisoners, especially with private cameras, is against...

ALLARD: Private cameras?

CAMBONE: Private cameras. Is against the rules.

ALLARD: And so these were taken by private cameras?

CAMBONE: Sir, I believe they were taken by digital cameras that belonged to the individuals. But I don't know that. Maybe General Taguba does.

TAGUBA: Sir, they were personal cameras.

ALLARD: They were personal cameras.

CAMBONE: This specifically says, "photographing, filming and videotaping of individual EPWCI, other than internal interment facility administration or intelligence, counterintelligence purposes, is strictly prohibited."

ALLARD: And so this doesn't have anything to do with the way you managed the prisoners or any of their interrogation or any physical security of the prison. This was taken on by individuals unknown to those in command at the time?

TAGUBA: That is my belief, but I don't know specifically.

CAMBONE: Sir, as far as we know, based on the evidence and the interviews and the statements, they were taken with personal cameras.

ALLARD: Individuals taking that on their own without any instruction from command.

SMITH: Yes, sir.

ALLARD: OK.

Now, General Smith, in General Taguba's report he recommended that a mobile training team be assembled and dispatched to your area of operations to oversee and conduct comprehensive training in all aspects of detainee and confinement operations. Were these teams dispatched as recommended?

SMITH: Sir, they were dispatched before the report was actually approved. About 50 percent of the training is complete and they will continue and have all of this completed by the end of June, although everybody that's out there is getting training weekly awaiting the mobile training team specifically getting down there. That will be followed by sustained required training every week in all of these rules.

Additionally, the Geneva Conventions are required to be briefed at every change of shift.

ALLARD: And your point is is that when you got General Taguba's report, even before it was finalized, you were beginning to take corrective action. And so, you were responding immediately to concerns about what was being reported in the camp of Abu Ghraib.

SMITH: That's correct, sir.

ALLARD: OK.

General Smith, General Taguba, I understand the necessity and significance of maintaining a strategic interrogation exploitation process. After all, our primary goal along these lines is to save the lives of Americans, Iraqis and other partners in the region.

Can you share with us whether or not your command is actually developing good intelligence based on your approved interrogation techniques? In other words, are we saving lives?

SMITH: Sir, my belief is that we are. We absolutely have built the networks and what they look like and who the players are based on intelligence information from human intelligence. A portion of that is this kind of activity.

And so, sir, I would say absolutely that there have been lives saved because of the people that we have been able to go out and pick up because of the human intelligence process.

WARNER: Thank you very much, Senator.

Senator Akaka?

AKAKA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

General Taguba, I want to commend you and your team for submitting a very -- what I consider -- candid and thorough report. Your task was not an easy one. However, your honesty and your integrity reflect the character we expect from soldiers in our military.

General Taguba, in your report, you referenced the lack of supervision over U.S. civilian contractor personnel, third country nationals and local contractors within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During your investigation, did you determine how many civilian contractor personnel were working there? Who supervised these individuals? And can you describe what you observed in terms of type of access these individuals had to the detainee areas?

TAGUBA: Sir, we did not make any determination of how many civilian contractors were assigned to the 205th M.I. Brigade and operating at Abu Ghraib.

I personally interviewed a translator and I also personally interviewed an interrogator, both civilian contractors. There was also a statement substantiated by the witnesses that we interviewed of another translator, a third country national, in fact, that was involved. And there was another third country national who was acting as a translator for the interrogators that was involved in one of the interrogation incidents where dogs were used.

TAGUBA: Their supervision, sir, from the best that we could determine or discern from the information that we gathered was they were under the supervision of the joint interrogation and debriefing center, the JIDC, who was then under the supervision of one -- a lieutenant colonel, who was also supervised by the brigade commander, the M.I. brigade commander. That was the chain, sir.

AKAKA: What access did these individuals have to the detainees?

TAGUBA: Sir, they had an open access to the detainees.

AKAKA: General Taguba, your report finds that two contractors were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Were either of these contracted personnel supervising soldiers or in a position to direct soldiers to take specific actions?

TAGUBA: Sir, they were not in anyway supervising any soldiers, M.P. or otherwise. However, the guards -- those who were involved -- looked at them as competent authority, as in the manner by which they described them -- as the M.I., or by name, or by function.

AKAKA: Secretary Cambone, what kind of training did the U.S. civilian contractors have prior to going to Iraq? I've been informed that the training for interrogators included training tactics and techniques used by other countries. Did such training occur, and if so, are these tactics and techniques approved by DOD intelligence officials?

CAMBONE: The only tactics and techniques that would be approved, sir, are those that are approved by the command for use in that situation.

As I said earlier, the recruitment -- and if you look at the advertisements for the recruitment, they look for people who have had the experience of being interrogators. And I am told that, in fact, some of the retired personnel and those who have since left the service are quite capable and are, in terms of the interrogators' art, better able to conduct those interrogations than the younger individuals who are new to that activity.

SMITH: Sir, most have gone through the 19 1/2 week training at Fort Huachuca, either while they were in the service or afterwards.

AKAKA: General Smith, who is keeping a record of all the employees that work for all the contracted firms in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is it the contracted firm or DOD?

SMITH: Sir, you're beyond my knowledge there except that the contracting officer who contracts with the company is responsible for ensuring that they comply with the contract. And by name, I suspect, he has who those contractors are, but I can't tell you that for sure.

AKAKA: Thank you for your response.

WARNER: Thank you very much, Senator Akaka.

Senator Sessions?

SESSIONS: First, I want to again state my appreciation for the superb work of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. In many, many instances, some of which we've seen on television, they demonstrate restraint day after day. They have, sometimes under very intense pressure, maintained their poise and their professionalism.

They've risked their lives, as we've seen a soldier going to the bridge to save an Iraqi woman under hostile fire. They have, on their off hours, built schools and hospitals and treated the sick.

SESSIONS: So this is particularly painful for all of us, to have this experience.

But I absolutely -- I have visited those soldiers there and I know them who've been there, they've told me of things that they've done and the relationships they've had with Iraqi citizens. It's interesting how many want to volunteer and go back because they believe in their work and they want to see this to be a healthy, stable country. And nothing we say today should denigrate that.

I have been somewhat concerned at the suggestion that there is a policy of abuse here. General Smith, I think you've read clearly that the explicit statements from every level of command are in existence that would absolutely prohibit this kind of behavior. Is that not correct?

SMITH: Sir, that's absolutely correct in many venues, in a number of times, where fragmentary orders have been republished for the purpose of doing that. And I would like to present those for the record. I know Senator Reed is very concerned about it and I would like to put those in the record.

SESSIONS: With regard, General Smith, of the Geneva Conventions, I was in the Army Reserve. I for a short time had a JAG slot, although I'm not like Colonel Lindsey Graham over here, who's an actual practicing JAG officer. But I remember in the transportation unit, I had to train the transportation soldiers, enlisted people, in the Geneva Conventions. Isn't that done throughout the Army, in the military?

SMITH: Sir, that continues to be a requirement.

SESSIONS: And in basic training, every soldier has been trained in the Geneva Conventions. Is that not correct?

SMITH: That's correct, sir.

SESSIONS: And I heard you say that they are briefing the Geneva Conventions at every shift change now in Abu Ghraib Prison?

SMITH: That's correct, sir.

SESSIONS: And before that occurred, one of the criticisms I think General Taguba mentioned was they were supposed to be briefing the Geneva Conventions periodically but perhaps it was not occurring. Are you familiar with that part of the report and what the requirement was?

SMITH: Sir, I'm familiar with the report...

SESSIONS: General Taguba, you made some reference to the fact that there was an established procedure to train periodically and it may not have been occurring?

TAGUBA: Yes, sir. It's required under AR-190-8 to post the Geneva Convention in the language of the detainee. So you have many detainees there of different languages; they have to post that. It's a requirement, especially for those units that are conducting internment and resettlement mission requirements. Those guards, in terms of discipline, were supposed to conduct by their own SOP (ph), guard mounts where you have shifts. You change in shifts and you have guard mount.

TAGUBA: Sir, those we found evidence that that was not being done. They did, kind of, a replacement, so to speak, during their shift time because they were not conducting guard mounts by which they were to reinforce tenets of the Geneva Convention or make clear that the postings of the Geneva Convention were to be made available not only to the detainees in the language from which they come from but also where they could see them.

SESSIONS: And that was never challenged or rejected by General Abizaid, General Sanchez or anyone else in authority in Iraq? I mean, those policies were in effect and it amounted to a violation of the established Army policy when that did not occur. Is that correct?

TAGUBA: Sir, I cannot speak for General Abizaid or General Sanchez, but that's the responsibility of the battalion commander and also those personnel that are conducting internment and resettlement of detention operations. It's clear. It's in their doctrine. It's in the regulation.

SESSIONS: And, of course, General Smith, military police have more of this training than others and the soldiers, I'm assuming, in how to handle prisoners.

SMITH: Sir, I can't speak to that. But my assumption would be that certainly they have more training than the average soldier would.

SESSIONS: Well, I would thank you for your comments and will note that the time is expiring.

But this Gitmoize issue, I think, really misses the point. Yes, we want to use some of the procedures that were working in Guantanamo and try to share that information to get it up to the people in authority so we could save lives, get it out to the people who could use it to identify who these attackers and terrorists were. But I don't think there's any indication that General Miller would in any way suggest this kind of behavior was legitimate.

SMITH: Sir, you're absolutely right in both counts. In a counterinsurgency like this, intelligence is critical, in that if you want to go find the guys that are making the IEDs or the ones that are shooting down our helicopters with SA-7s or folks that are fomenting the insurgency, then you have to use human intelligence to do that. You can't do that by technical means alone. So it is a critical...

WARNER: Thank you very much, Senator.

SMITH: ... piece of the process.

And clearly, time and time again, we are told humane treatment in concert with the Geneva Conventions.

WARNER: Thank you, Senator.

That's a very important inquiry and response, and I appreciate that, General.

Senator Nelson?

BILL NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I don't think General Miller is where the problem lies, Senator Sessions. I think it lies elsewhere.

General Taguba, on page 16 of your report, you state, "I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts," and you list a whole number of those acts.

Among them, videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; forcing groups of male detainees -- and I will insert -- paraphrasing here -- certain sexual acts while being photographed and videotaped; a male M.P. guard having sex with a female detainee; using military dogs without muzzles to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick; using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting the detainee.

BILL NELSON: Is that your report?

TAGUBA: Yes, sir.

BILL NELSON: All right.

Mr. Secretary, when did you become aware of the nature of these prisoner abuses and the existence of the photographic and video evidence? That's two questions.

CAMBONE: The photographic evidence -- to be clear, that there were photographs associated with this inquiry, I knew early, in the change of the year. The nature...

BILL NELSON: I'm sorry, I didn't understand...

CAMBONE: We did not give...

(CROSSTALK)

CAMBONE: I'm sorry. I understood at the beginning of this year that there were photographs associated with the criminal investigative inquiry...

BILL NELSON: Did you know about these acts?

CAMBONE: I did not know about these acts, and learned of them in specificity when I read the report when I was exposed to some of those photographs.

BILL NELSON: And you read the report when?

CAMBONE: It's got to be in the last week, sir. It was not out of the command until the end of last month.

BILL NELSON: Now, the secretary of defense told us last Friday that he learned about these abuses in the middle of January.

CAMBONE: That we had abuses, true. The nature of them, I was not aware of.

BILL NELSON: Did you know they were horrific?

CAMBONE: No, sir. I received a report that there was an inquiry under way -- a number of six or seven, by the way, this being one of them -- under way, in which there were people implicated in abuses of prisoners in Iraq. The character of it, the scope, the scale I was not aware of.

BILL NELSON: Specific to this prison, what was your role in alerting others that you work for, such as the secretary of defense?

CAMBONE: Yes, sir. Again, as the secretary testified, corporately we were aware, and I was one of those who told him so, that there were investigations under way with respect to this facility, and ultimately the report that General Taguba's done, in the February time frame.

CAMBONE: And so it was a report of an investigation about acts of abuse.

BILL NELSON: And what was your role in alerting the secretary to the danger posted to our theater strategy and the general perception around the world?

CAMBONE: Yes, sir. And let me draw gradations here.

There are instances of people having been mistreated in their apprehension, transportation and interrogation. A level of poor performance and behavior on the part of our people was understood, but it was understood at a fairly low level of abuse and incidents -- rate of incidents.

The scale of this was unknown to any of us, and had we known its scale, scope -- the earlier we would have known, the sooner we would have been able to come to you, to the president and to others to talk about it.

BILL NELSON: And you're saying you didn't know about that until last week?

CAMBONE: Scope, scale -- until the pictures began appearing in the press, sir, I had no sense of that scope and scale. I knew of the problem, that there was abuse, that there was a criminal investigation, that there was an investigation being done by General Taguba, but I had no sense of it, sir.

BILL NELSON: OK. Given that fact, why was the secretary of defense unprepared when he came before us in the secure room in the Capitol on April 28th? Why was he unprepared to share the information that he knew of with members -- probably some 35 or 40 members of the U.S. Senate?

CAMBONE: Sir, I don't -- I can't answer for the secretary on that question.

He was here. He spoke with this committee and gave his answer, as I recall. I can't speak for him on why he did not raise it that evening. I don't know.

BILL NELSON: You had not discussed that with him?

CAMBONE: That day I had not discussed it with him, no, sir.

BILL NELSON: Had you discussed it with him any time before after you had learned in mid-January about these abuses?

CAMBONE: Again, I informed him that there were investigations under way, of which this is one of six or seven that I was informed of. And again, I did not understand scope and scale. If I had, I assure you, Senator, I would have told him.

WARNER: Thank you very much, Senator.

Senator Talent?

TALENT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Cambone, very quickly, one of the things I've wondered about, when you say you didn't recognize scope and scale, is it possible that, not having seen the pictures, you didn't recognize what the significance of the pictures would be in terms of the impact of this internationally?

CAMBONE: Yes, sir.

TALENT: General Taguba, your report, I think if we summed it up, would say that the unit at the prison was underdisciplined, undermanned and poorly led. Is that a fair summation?

TAGUBA: Sir, very fair.

TALENT: And in the middle of an Army that I think all of us would agree is very well-disciplined and very well-led, and so the question in my mind is, well, how? Why is this particular unit so below the standards and performance of the rest of the United States Army?

And I'm going to make a comment and you can comment on it if you want. I was in the other body all throughout the '90s, during which time the highest civilian authorities, here and on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, were cutting the size of the Army and in my judgment not funding adequately the end-strength that we had remaining.

And what I saw consistently was the Army, in order to keep the tip of the spear sharp, if you will, allowing some of the rest of the spear to go rusty. And, you know, sooner or later, those chickens come home to roost. You get a poor commander. You don't have enough people. The guys you've got are not trained up adequately because you don't have the money for it. And then something like this happens.

And I'll just say I wish we'd had the interest nationally through the '90s about funding the Army adequately and maybe we wouldn't all be sitting here.

TALENT: General Smith, let me ask you a question. I had a phone call, actually, from a constituent who raised an issue that might help in one aspect of this.

As I understand it, one of the difficulties of getting this up to the very highest civilian levels is the concern about command influence, because the same people that you'd want to report this through and to are the people who would be involved in passing on any courts-martial that may emerge from this. And I know this is a problem; my wife used to be in the JAG corps.

Well, a constituent let me know that there is an office in the Air Force, the Reporting Office on Special Interest Cases, which is evidently designed to deal exactly with this.

Are you aware of that office?

SMITH: Sir, I'm not aware of this -- of that office. And this was in basically Army channels.

TALENT: Right. And what I'm wondering, and maybe to recommend to the secretary, this office exists for, as I'm told -- and we're checking this out in my office -- in the Air Force to deal with cases like this.

So you can -- if you think something is of special significance you can get it up to higher authority but through a separate, specially created chain of command so you don't compromise the command influence. And then you can get it to somebody who then has the discretion, if they want to, to go directly to the secretary or deputy secretary.

And we're certainly going to be looking -- and I'd recommend it to you if you're not aware of it, because evidently it functions pretty well in the Air Force.

You're not aware of it, though, as of now, I take it.

SMITH: Now that you mention that office, yes, I recall that there is one. And I can tell you that the secretary has more than that on his list of ideas -- or will have more than that on the list of his ideas.

TALENT: OK.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SMITH: Because you're right, some way has got to be found to do this.

TALENT: Yes, I'm -- we clearly have a defect in this. Command influence is a problem and when you think everybody involved in this probably wishes they just said, "The heck with command influence, we've got to pick up the phone and call and let people know."

SMITH: Yes, sir. And, indeed, you know, at least to the extent that the sergeant delivered the disk to the Criminal Investigative Division, he put in train, at least, a process that has brought all this to light.

TALENT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

WARNER: Thank you very much.

BEN NELSON: I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the witnesses today as well for your very strong statements about your opinions, as well as the nature of the investigations.

I'm going to ignore some of the partisan sniping that's been going on from the other side today because I don't think it's particularly helpful.

Having said that, General Taguba, in your opinion this is not a top-down problem. I think what you're saying is that this was something that may have been spontaneous, but an abuse involving only a handful -- last week, the operative word was few individuals -- but I think that right now I think that perhaps it's a limited number of people. Is that accurate?

TAGUBA: Yes, sir. Based on the interviews and the statements that were given to us by both the detainees, M.P. personnel, and those that we examined. There were others, but we just could not track them down.

BEN NELSON: Well, what's the highest ranking officer you interrogated?

TAGUBA: My interview, sir? Brigadier General Janis Karpinski.

BEN NELSON: You didn't talk to General Sanchez or...

TAGUBA: No, sir.

BEN NELSON: Did you talk to Colonel Pappas?

TAGUBA: Yes, sir, I did.

BEN NELSON: What's the highest ranking official -- not officer -- official you may have talked to?

TAGUBA: Sir, none. I stopped at General Karpinski.

BEN NELSON: So what may have happened above General Karpinski is an open book? In other words, it's not -- or is a closed book. No one knows what may or may not have occurred above that level, is that accurate insofar as your investigation is concerned?

TAGUBA: Yes, sir. She did intimate to me other officials from the Coalition Provisional Authority that she interacted with in terms of the prison system -- the Iraqi prison system, but I did not go after that. I did do a mid-course brief to General Sanchez and General McKiernan, but only in that we were proceeding on the time line without any great detail.

BEN NELSON: But General Karpinski says that her command was severed by the infusion of military intelligence dealing with certain detainees. Is that accurate or an approximation of her statement?

TAGUBA: Sir, I don't understand where her command authority, her command was severed from Abu Ghraib.

BEN NELSON: Well, because others were put in and she was given the instruction. Colonel Pappas appeared on the scene and military intelligence, not under her command, were there as well. Is that accurate?

TAGUBA: Sir, as contained in my report, that when I asked her if she had known about the FRAGO 1108 dated 19 November, the first time -- or the only time I interviewed her, she had no knowledge of that until about two days afterwards, of which I asked her, what did she do after that and then she wanted clarification from her chain of command of which she was told that, you know, the FRAGO was, indeed, in effect and that the M.I. brigade commander was the commander, the forwarding operating base commander.

BEN NELSON: Well, under those circumstances, if her command wasn't severed, was it at least interfered with, in your judgment?

TAGUBA: Sir, truthfully, she challenged that.

BEN NELSON: She challenged. In what way...

TAGUBA: She challenged the authority that was given to Colonel Pappas.

BEN NELSON: And what was the result of the challenge?

TAGUBA: Sir, it created a confusion and friction between those two commanders.

BEN NELSON: So what we have now is confusion, a lack of clarity of command. We've got a handful at least of spontaneous abusers as it relates to detainees.

Do we know whether in that prison or in other prisons where there were criminal prisoners as well, not detainees, whether there was any abuse that carried over into their lives?

TAGUBA: Sir, the fragmentary order only affected Abu Ghraib. Camp Bucca was still under the 800th M.P. Brigade exclusively, so was Camp Cropper and Camp Ashraf.

BEN NELSON: Well, were the abuses there anywhere similar, were there photographs there as in the case of Abu Ghraib?

TAGUBA: None that we gathered in terms of evidence, no, sir.

BEN NELSON: And those other prisons were under her command, is that correct?

TAGUBA: Yes, sir. There were, you might consider abuse, but that was in terms of slapping a prisoner and they were dealt with.

BEN NELSON: But not similar type of abuses as we have here?

TAGUBA: Not to the gravity that was exposed, no, sir.

BEN NELSON: And not photographs?

TAGUBA: Not photographs, no, sir.

WARNER: Thank you very much, Senator.

BEN NELSON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

WARNER: Senator Chambliss?

CHAMBLISS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

General Taguba, it's refreshing to those of us who deal with the military every day not only to look at your report but to see your frankness here today. And I think every military officer can certainly walk a little taller and a little straighter because of the work that all of you gentlemen are doing, but particularly, General, with respect to the way you have handled yourself and being willing to be critical where you need to be critical.

Now, General Smith, you've made the comment earlier that this particular unit, the 800th M.P. Brigade, they were trained -- their job was this sort of stuff.

CHAMBLISS: Now, I'm assuming you mean from that that their job was to go over there and run this prison.

SMITH: Sir, and maybe General Taguba can jump in on this a little bit. But I believe there are only one or two organizations of its type in the United States Army, and it is an internment and resettlement brigade.

CHAMBLISS: And, General Taguba, while General Schoomacher took exception to a comment I made the other day relative to the lack of training of this unit that just happened to be a reserve unit, the fact of the matter is there were a few dysfunctional individuals within this unit that, according to your report, was a very poorly- trained unit that didn't have knowledge of what they were supposed to do.

In fact, as I read your statement here, "There's a general lack of knowledge, implementation and emphasis of basic, legal, regulatory, doctrinal and command requirements within the 800th M.P. Brigade and its subordinate units."

Do you still stand by that statement?

TAGUBA: Yes, I stand by that statement.

CHAMBLISS: In fact, your report is replete with comments relative to the lack of training of this particular unit that was supposed to be highly specialized and trained to do exactly what they were sent there to do. Isn't that correct?

TAGUBA: Sir, when I interviewed the company commander and asked him to outline for me what training he received at the mob station, he basically gave me the typical basic requirements only: marksmanship, things of that nature. When I asked him, "Did you get any additional training prior to your deployment and into deployment with regards to internment or resettlement, or anything that has anything to do with detention operations," he said he did not.

TAGUBA: I did not interview the battalion commander -- the 320th M.P. Battalion commander, because he invoked his rights. However, those that we interviewed within that chain of command also concluded that.

CHAMBLISS: OK. General, there's something that has puzzled me throughout this process that's has evolved over the last -- or been made public over the last 10 days or so. And one thing is the fact that Major General Ryder went in there in October and November of 2003 and did a report.

And his report, according to your report -- his objective was to, "observe detention and prison operations, identify potential systemic and human rights issues, and provide near-term, midterm and long-term recommendations to improve operations in Iraqi prison system."

Yet he -- during the time that he was there in Abu Ghraib, some of these instances were occurring. I think your report confirms that. Certainly, when he testified the other day in the Intelligence Committee that was obvious.

I have asked the question, privately and publicly: Why didn't somebody come forward and tell Major General Ryder about this during the time that he was there when these incidents were going on?

Do you have any -- can you shed any light on that particular question?

TAGUBA: Sir, I read General Ryder's report. I did not discuss it with him. I know that in -- within the content of his report, he visited quite a bit of the detention centers, not just exclusively Abu Ghraib.

You know, the results, of course, with his recommendations, I agreed with, in terms of put things under a single command and control, things of that nature.

And I don't want to speculate about anything about with regards to any knowledge of detainee abuse having not been reported or being reported up the chain of command.

TAGUBA: It was apparent in our investigation that these things were happening, but we were puzzled also at the fact, sir, that none of this stuff was going above the battalion commander level. And that's what we concluded that none of this stuff was going above the battalion commander level.

CHAMBLISS: Thank you, General.

WARNER: Thank you very much.

The committee will continue right through the first vote. And if there's a second likewise, until every senator has had their opportunity to ask a question.

Next week we have our bill on the floor, according to the current schedule. So in all likelihood, we'll have to suspend the series of hearings until after the bill has been considered.

(UNKNOWN): Will we be continuing with a second round?

WARNER: No, Senator, because I think we would be infringing on the policy councils for both parties.

Thank you very much.

Senator Dayton?

DAYTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's hearings and for your resolve to face these atrocities. You're an honorable man and would that everyone shared your resolve to find the truth rather than to deny it or deflect it.

Unfortunately, we in this committee were overshadowed yesterday by President Bush's words and actions traveling to the Pentagon with the vice president to tell the secretary of defense, the country and the world, quote, "You're doing a superb job."