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May 12, 2004
Vice Admiral Church’s Brief
Vice Admiral Albert T. Church III’s
briefing on his investigation into allegations of abuse of prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
United States Department of Defense News Transcript, May 12, 2004
United
States Department of Defense News Transcript
Presenter: Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, III,
Naval Inspector General
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Media Availability with Vice Admiral Church
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I'm Vice Admiral
Albert T. I usually go by Tom Church, I'm the Naval Inspector
General. Okay, let's start. I was directed by the Secretary of
Defense last week to go down to Guantanamo Bay, and my specific
direction task was to ensure that his orders, DoD orders with
respect to detainees at GTMO and Charleston were being carried out.
Let me emphasize a couple things as I start out here. As I told the
secretary, this was a review. We were on the ground for about two
days. So this was not an inspection, either by length of time or by
scope. Neither was it an investigation because we had no allegation
for investigating any incident or any person. On second thing was
this -- this was a snapshot of current existing conditions. There was
insufficient time to do what I'll call reach-back, which is to look
at all the things that might or might not have happened since 9-11.
And I'll talk to you about most of the large for example, we've been
here nine or 10 months. So, this is just a snapshot. I think I did
enough to give him a high degree of confidence of what I found.
What I also told him is you can't be
100% confident of what your findings are when you have that little
time to do the job. Finally, this is a compliance look I did not, it
was not my charter to look at Geneva as it applies to GTMO and try
to determine how that applies. It was not my idea to review all the
interrogation phone calls and see if those were wrecked [phonetic].
My job was to see if the orders specific, specifically directed to JTF Commander in GTMO and to Charleston were being carried out. So,
having listened to the previous conversation, I think it's important
you understand that what this is and what it was not.
Okay, the [inaudible] line was
received by direction the night of 3 May. I assembled a team of
about 15 on Tuesday, the 4th of May. We traveled onto Wednesday the
5th. Got a command brief. I was on station Thursday/Friday 6 to 7. My
military assistant Brigadier General Dwayne Deeson [phonetic] drove
up on Thursday, went into Charleston to take a look at the brig
there. We got back on Saturday and started analyzing the results of
our visit.
MALE VOICE: You didn't go to prison
[inaudible].
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I did not have, we
just didn't have the time to [inaudible]. I did talk about the team
compositions. Had a number of lawyers, I had a doctor, I had some
folks to take foreign testimony. I had some folks who served there
before from the previous X.O., a member of Naval Criminal
Investigative Service, I had a former interrogator. So I had a as
good a cross- section of folks I could get to [inaudible]. Here's
what we did our two days. We observed interrogations, we watched the
detainee movements, we observed the M.P. force and their procedures.
We reviewed as much documentation as we could absorb, including the
standard operating procedures. All incident reports, all unit
punishment logs. We got a hold of some ICRC reports and records of
meetings with General Miller, during the outbriefs. We looked very
closely at all detainee medical records -- excuse me -- 100 detainee
medical records to see if that would shed any light on any potential
abuse. We did over 100 interviews, and we did 43 selected at random
testimonies under oath. Forty-three under oath testimonies,
including interrogators, guards, military civilians, contractor, and
we asked them a pretty full range of questions. Have you seen any
abuse, have you heard of any abuse, do you know anybody who has seen
abuse, would you report abuse if you saw it, would you feel free to
come forward if you see anything that doesn't look right. So that's
the nature of the questions that we asked those 43 people.
MALE VOICE: [Inaudible] military
civilians.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: We did a range of
some military civilians, contractors, some analysts, I think there
were nine interrogators and nine military police if I remember. I'm
not sure of those numbers exact but they're approximate. This is a
summation of what I told the Secretary I found. There is a very, we
have a very professional organization in place. With very detailed
and understood roles and responsibilities. Strong leadership, strong
chain of command, and a very positive command climate. The
directions to the Secretary of Defense with respect to humane
treatment of detainees and the interrogation techniques were being
carried out as best we could determine. We found minor infractions
involving contact with detainees, and we documented eight of those.
MALE VOICE: Physical contact?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Some with physical
contact. Let me come back to that in the Q & A. Cover that and make
sure I get that correct. And we found some of minor items that
require some follow-on resolution, and I think it's supposedly a
matter of interpretation primarily. We looked at the training
records in depth. And I said we looked at standard operating
procedures. And I found those to be in my view, very effective. I
covered the eight minor infractions, as I like to call them. I also
asked the JTF GTMO commander to tell me what the amount of abuse
that the guards were taking, and he told me there were about an
average of 14 a week. Abuse against the guards, incidents against a
guard, verbal harassment, throwing of excrement, that type of thing.
We noted that there are a number of outstanding ICRC issues. I also
noticed General Miller seemed to take those seriously and appeared
to be working on those.
MALE VOICE: General Miller?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Previously General
Miller, General Hood currently.
MALE VOICE: Who is General Hood?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: General Hood, Jeff
Hood is -- I'm sorry, Jay Hood, is currently the JTF GTMO commander.
That's a good question. He was wearing one star. He may be a
selectee, I don't know. We found no evidence of current abuse in our
underlying currents because the people we talked to had been there
nine, 10 months. They're ending their rotations. Specifically we
recommend areas of follow-up based on the fact that we really didn't
have a great deal of time on station. The first of those would be
the reach-back, if you want better assurance that there were no
incidents early on, you need to probably go back in and look at the,
talk to people who have since rotated out. But based on what I saw,
the people who were currently there, I wasn't able to [inaudible].
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] abuse
[inaudible] administrative punishment there have been two, there
were two prison guards [inaudible].
ADMIRAL CHURCH: [inaudible] the
eight. There's actually more than two.
MALE VOICE: Who actually were
punished and reduced in rank and what-not.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: There's more than
eight. There's more than two.
MALE VOICE: How many?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Well, let's do that
now. There was documented eight, eight minor infractions going back
as far as we can get the records, I think to 2002. The, as I
remember, four were, involved guards, three involved interrogators,
and one involved a barber. Those numbers are from my memory. They're
roughly correct.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: A barber. And, the
specific incident was an unauthorized haircut. To a detainee.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]. A haircut?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: It was, it was a
haircut. Now. What I know Secretary's...
MALE VOICE: [interposing]
[inaudible].
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I think it was a
Mohawk. I guess I'm on the record, so I don't have that in front of
me.
FEMALE VOICE: Unauthorized haircut?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I would phrase it as
an unauthorized haircut. Now I characterized this to the Secretary
as generally good news, because it was clear to me that the
incidents are being reported, number one. Number two, the chain of
command was taking swift and effective action. And in every case,
the punishments ranged from admonishment to reduction in rate, and
some cases maybe more. In fact, one individual went to
Court-Martial.
MALE VOICE: So all eight have been
acted on already?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: All eight were acted
on very swiftly.
MALE VOICE: Inaudible.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I'm not sure. But all
of these were reported through the chain of command.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Oh yeah, I'd say, you
know, roughly two years. A year and a half to two years.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]
ADMIRAL CHURCH: No, and in fact,
that's what gives me a great deal of confidence in my findings, is
the 43 people taken under oath and specifically asked the kinds of
questions we asked them, given that combined with the reports, the
incidents we've seen reported and acted on, I'm pretty confident
that there's no abuse currently going on, or that there's been any
in recent past that has gone unreported.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] allegations
[inaudible).
ADMIRAL CHURCH: With a high level of
confidence, but I'll take you back to my initial statement. When you
interview 43, there's still a low probability that something's
slipped through the cracks.
MALE VOICE: Clearly, you didn't
interview 100 detainees, you looked at their medical records.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: We looked at over
just over 100 medical records.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: We did not interview
detainees, no. No.
MALE VOICE: Did you say that you
recommended it to the Secretary that a more in depth look be looked,
be taken as to what happened [inaudible].
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I made, I said he
should consider several things for follow-up. Should he decide to do
that, one would be to look a little bit more at the ICRC reports.
Apparently there's a new one forthcoming we tried to get. We were
not able to get that. And the resolution process for that, that they
might go back and take some more sworn testimony, in case there were
some gaps. Although we feel pretty confident that with 43, we hit a
pretty wide range of personnel. And the third thing that he might
want to reach back and talk to people who were there at the earlier
stages of Task Force 160 and 170, before they combined them into JTF
GTMO, see if there may have been prior incidents that either did or
did not go reported. We just didn't have the capabilities to talk to
them, to re-track that far.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] characterize
in some way.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I'll give you one. I
think this was in the press. We had a guard, they had to do what
they call an IRF, Immediate Response Force for a disturbance in a
cell, one of the guards was bitten. In order to free himself, he hit
the detainee with his walkie-talkie. They were able to free him.
Subsequent to that, the detainee was cuffed. After he was cuffed,
the detainee-I'm sorry, the military police punched the detainee. He
was taken to Article 15. Not the first incident, which was
determined to be self-defense, but the follow-on incident, which was
a violation of standard operating procedures, and a standard
operating procedures are unambiguous and adhered to. And he was
reduced in rate.
MALE VOICE: Rate? Or rank?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Rank.
MALE VOICE: Rank.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Rating, or rank.
MALE VOICE: Oh, I see, sorry.
[inaudible].
ADMIRAL CHURCH: There was, I don't
know if I'd characterize it as more serious. That was probably about
as serious I could think.
MALE VOICE: Is there a way to
characterize the pending issues with the first ICRC report? What are
the things that need to be solved from the first one?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: The reason I said
that they need to do little more in depth look at the ICRC, we
didn't have the time. Really to get that involved in it, or to, I
mean I read, I read the transcripts of the minutes that General
Miller had the last two visits. It was clear to me that they're
working on the issues. But there's a wide range of issues dealing
with, you know, the relatively, let's say lesser important from the
speed of which mail was processed, up to the more lasting issues,
which are things like the whole legal framework, the long-term and
uncertain duration of the [inaudible], some of which we talked about
earlier today, and some of which, obviously I wasn't involved. I
think the, I think the Secretary may already be looking at a
process.
FEMALE VOICE: [inaudible] parameters
on these eight incidences. I mean, is that haircut, is that a
violation because the detainee was humiliated, or does this run from
humiliation to minor physical abuse but that didn't result in severe
injuries?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: [interposing] That's
a good characterization. Humiliation to mild physical contact. There
is one issue ...
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] humiliation
described by [inaudible]?
FEMALE VOICE: That is a clear
violation of [inaudible].
STAFF MALE VOICE: I know, but in the
current context, humiliation has a new standard, and it's important
to see description that Admiral will provide and the context was
understood at the time.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Not in the last 35
years.
MALE VOICE: What about another
incident where a guard had sprayed a detainee with a water hose?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Well, [inaudible]
coming back to me, that was, as I, I won't recall the details
exactly, but as I remember, the guard was passing through, and I'm
not certain what was thrown on him, whether it was toilet water or excretement (phonetic), and he did a shot of pepper spray, which was
determined to be premature and in violation to standard operating
procedures, and military justice was swift.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] military
police and military intelligence, and what is the [inaudible]?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: What I saw was...
MALE VOICE: Did you investigate this
incident or element?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I looked at the
organization. It's very clear to me that CJTF GTMO, who is General
Hood, previously General Miller, as a very tight organization where
everybody reports to and through him. So military police, it's
called JDOG, Detention Operations Group, and the Joint Intelligence
Group must report directly to him, for all matters relating to what
goes on in the camp.
MALE VOICE: Sorry. I wanted to get
his name for, and his name and rank?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Brigadier General Jay
Hood. He was [inaudible].
MALE VOICE: J-A-Y?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: J-A-Y? Like
[inaudible]. He was our -- I'm sorry. There may have been a second
part to the question.
MALE VOICE: As far as the
organization [inaudible] at the top, but if there's any interaction.
what's the organizational interaction between the MPs and
[inaudible]?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: They, they do what I
would call a coordinating role. Military police, it's very clearly
laid out in standard operating procedures. It's all passive. They
monitor the detainees, they monitor their behavior, they monitor who
the leaders are, who the followers are, they monitor what is said
and they ask for an interpreter it there's a lot of conversation
going on. They'll know eating habits, and they'll record this in a
management information system, which could be useful to the
intelligence group, during the interrogations. The only physical
thing they do is they escort the detainees to the interrogation.
They escort them back, and they monitor the interrogations in a side
room. So you have interrogators, the analysts, linguists, the guards
are monitoring outside the room what's going on, in case they need
to get in there.
MALE VOICE: All [inaudible]
interrogation [inaudible] present, sir?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I was inside the
room. I watched [inaudible].
FEMALE VOICE: [interposing]
[inaudible] one-way glass?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Yes, there's a, on
the one-way glass.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]
ADMIRAL CHURCH: That wasn't my
charter.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible]
ADMIRAL CHURCH: [inaudible] the
Secretary of Defense go down to see if my orders are being carried
out. I don't need to interview detainees to do that in my view.
MALE VOICE: What's the approximate
number of hours in a week that a detainee might get interrogated?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I don't know that. It
varies. I know the interrogation protocol varies based on what their
intelligence value is. It's all laid out in a plan. Here's a good
point of clarification. I didn't look at the plan. It wasn't my job
to see whether I agree or disagree with the plan. I wanted to make
sure the plans were done, they were approved by proper authority
procedures involved.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] taped
incidents?
MALE VOICE: Most are hall guards, not
interrogators.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: No. As I remember,
there were four guards, three interrogators, and a barber.
MALE VOICE: Oh, I'm sorry. You went
through that.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Yeah, it may be three
or four the other way, but it's split about even.
MALE VOICE: What does it say about
this critical Red Cross report that the Secretary referred to?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Not much because
first of all, it's classified as far as I know. Secondly, I haven't
seen it. We tried to get it when we were down there, and we couldn't
get it.
MALE VOICE, What do you mean you
couldn't get it?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Well, it hadn't, it
hadn't been made available to us.
STAFF MALE VOICE, [interposing]
[inaudible] recently, it was our understanding that they've been
provided to some officials of the State Department. State Department
officials shared it just last night, yesterday, and there's been no
opportunity to get it this way.
FEMALE VOICE: Total number of guards
on the staff, total? Do you have a ballpark [inaudible]?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Well, there's,
depends on how you define staff.
FEMALE VOICE, Well, I was told that
you interviewed 43 out of how large a sample?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Oh, actually, that's
a very small sample. There are six MP companies there are probably
close to 600 guards. There is a battalion guarding the exterior
perimeter, but they're not involved in the process. The number of
interrogators I have to get back to.
MALE VOICE, A hundred?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I have to get back
you. I don't think it's quite that high.
FEMALE VOICE: [inaudible]?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I learned it on
Monday night. I think he learned of it, about the same time I did.
[inaudible] we arranged travel [inaudible].
MALE VOICE: Eight guards have
received reductions in rank? There were two guards that. ..
ADMIRAL CHURCH: [interposing] No, no,
no, no.
MALE VOICE: How many guards
received...
ADMIRAL CHURCH: I documented
eight minor infractions during my visit, all of which have been
reported to higher authority.
MALE VOICE: Over a period of time.
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Over a period of
between 18 months and two years. As I remember there were four
guards, three interrogators, and a barber. All were investigated.
Disciplinary action was taken quickly. All were reported through the
chain of command. And in my view, that was good news because
obviously people felt free to report, which is what I was looking
for. And there was swift disciplinary action taken by a strong chain
of command, which is another thing I was looking for.
MALE VOICE: It ranged from reprimands
[inaudible].
ADMIRAL CHURCH: [inaudible].
MALE VOICE: Yeah. Reprimands to
reductions in rank. [inaudible]
ADMIRAL CHURCH: [interposing] Yeah,
there were reductions in rank to admonitions. Let's say that.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] Court-Martials
[inaudible] Court-Martial result?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: He was acquitted.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] punish
[inaudible].
ADMIRAL CHURCH: [inaudible] yeah, but
you see the, you see the stress regards work under and the
discipline and the whole procedures down there, I think I was very
impressed, particularly when you look at the other side, the 14
incidents against the guards weekly.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] recommend any
substance [inaudible] Secretary in treatment or procedure?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: No. It wasn't my job
to do that. I did recommend some follow-up areas where he might
consider looking into. My job was to see that his orders were being
carried out. I did that to the best of my ability.
FEMALE VOICE: You feel that they are?
ADMIRAL CHURCH: Yes. With a high
level of confidence, based on what I was able to do in 48 hours.
MALE VOICE: [inaudible] with respect
to ...
ADMIRAL CHURCH: With respect to
specific areas of interrogation, orders on humane treatment that
were passed down, as you mentioned, reviewed by the lawyers and
passed down to the commander on the scene.
MALE VOICE: Thanks a lot [inaudible].
MALE VOICE: Thank you.
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