JAG CENTRAL

From the NY Times, a follow up on yesterday's dead-body photo scandal entitled Army Inquiry Finds No Evidence G.I.'s Gave War Photos to Web:

An Army inquiry has found no evidence to prove that American military personnel sent graphic photographs of Iraqi war dead to an Internet site in exchange for online pornography, Army officials said Wednesday.

Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said investigators from the Army's Criminal Investigation Command could continue their inquiry if more evidence came to light, like the identities of any American service personnel who actually provided the photographs.

Notice that the Army isn't saying it didn't happen; rather, that there is no evidence to pin on any particular soldier or unit. Apparently, many groups are dismayed by this conclusion:

An official of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the organization that wrote Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld demanding an inquiry into the matter, expressed frustration that the military had concluded that no felony occurred.

"I think the military's conclusion is premature and it unfortunately will send the message that they are not taking this case seriously," said Ibrahim Hooper, the council's spokesman.

From the Washington Post, this snippet about an abuse trial in Fort Bliss ("An Army interrogator was sentenced to five months in prison Wednesday for assaulting a detainee in Afghanistan who later died. Army Sgt. Joshua R. Claus was the sixth soldier to be convicted of or plead guilty to abusing detainees after the deaths of two prisoners at the Bagram airfield detention center. In all, 14 were charged. Claus pleaded guilty to charges of maltreatment and assault involving a detainee known as Dilawar, and to forcing another inmate to kiss his and another soldier's boots. His sentence included a bad-conduct discharge from the military. Dilawar died at the detention center in 2002. No one has been charged in his death."), and Army Investigating Web Postings of Grisly War Photos.

NOTE: I will be on a field training exercise this weekend, so no postings until Sunday night.

Categories: Afghanistan, Detainee+Abuse, Newspapers