Pentagon still investigating prison abuses-Schmitz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon’s chief internal
watchdog said on Thursday his agency continues to investigate
the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad,
although he declined to give details.

Defense Department Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, who
leaves his job next week to join a private defense contractor,
said his comments last year about the prison abuses having been
caused by a few “bad eggs” were taken out of context.

Schmitz made the comment after returning from a trip to
Iraq in June 2004, when he also said, “I’m not aware of any
illegal orders that came from any leaders.”

Asked if he still stood by that assessment, Schmitz told
Reuters in a telephone interview that the matter of
accountability was still under investigation.

“The next sentence in my comment was, ‘We are still
investigating and we will hold people accountable,’ and
unfortunately, we are still looking at some of those issues so
I can’t really get into that,” said Schmitz.

Human rights activists have sharply criticized the
Pentagon’s failure to take action against top Army officials
and others for any role in the abuses.

Publication of photographs showing U.S. forces sexually
humiliating and physically abusing Iraqi prisoners at the jail
on the outskirts of Baghdad, first made public in April 2004,
triggered international criticism of the United States. Since
then, numerous other cases of detainee abuse have surfaced.

The U.S. Army in April exonerated Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez,
the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, of wrongdoing in the Abu
Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. An Army investigation found
Sanchez and three other senior officers had not committed
dereliction of duty and they are not facing criminal or
administrative punishment.

But the Army relieved of her command Army Reserve Brig.
Gen. Janis Karpinski, who headed the military police brigade at
the prison, and demoted her. It also relieved of command Col.
Thomas Pappas, the former top intelligence officer at the
prison. The Army said both had committed dereliction of duty.

Schmitz leaves his Pentagon job on September 9 to become
chief operating officer and general counsel of McLean,
Virginia-based Prince Group, which manufactures items on
contract and owns Blackwater USA, a security consultant working
in Iraq.