PERISCOPE

U.S. Military

Clearer Rules for Gitmo

Since the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal broke, former Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain has grown increasingly angry over the Pentagon's failure to state clearly what its rules of interrogation are, especially at Guantanamo Bay. McCain got tough recently with Army Gen. Bentz Craddock, the head of U.S. Southern Command (under which Gitmo falls), and said U.S. policy on the treatment of prisoners was still a "morass."

Now McCain and his fellow Senate Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, with the help of Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, are drafting a bill that will take the matter out of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's hands and set clear rules for wartime detention, interrogation and prosecution. McCain is discussing legal language that would make a revised Army Field Manual 34-52--the main guide for interrogations before Rumsfeld authorized new approaches--the rulebook. Such an approach would conform with anti-torture laws and treaties. Graham wants to clarify rules for Gitmo tribunals, says spokesman Kevin Bishop. No one at Gitmo has yet been charged, and Graham "wants to see people prosecuted," says Bishop.

McCain and Graham are trying to draft the bill quietly. They are wary of alienating the Bush administration--and their party--according to Capitol Hill sources who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject. At a recent Senate hearing--held to address the Pentagon's latest report on alleged prisoner abuses--other Republicans publicly defended the Pentagon. Pentagon officials, meanwhile, are trying to outflank McCain's and Graham's efforts. Army Field Manual 34-52 is already "being revised," said Defense Department spokesman Flex Plexico.

But the scandal still festers. Craddock repudiated the conclusion of Southcom's report when he declined to follow the recommendation of its main author, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, and admonish former Gitmo commander Geoffrey Miller. And Schmidt himself defended methods used in late 2002 against Qaeda suspect Mohammad al Qatani that included forcing him to wear lingerie and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash. Such approaches, Schmidt said, were "authorized" under a Field Manual technique known as "pride and ego down." The new report, says Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, a former Army officer, is just "another justification for, I think, terrible mistakes."