02-16-2005

Guest Column: Maj. Gen. Fast’s Footwork



By Edward L. Svezetec



Just last week, the news broke that another junior enlisted Army soldier had been whisked off to prison for his low-level involvement in alleged prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. The real news, however, was that the senior U.S. Army intelligence officer in Iraq at the time of the scandal once again successfully evaded accountability for her professional failures.



Sgt. Javal S. Davis, of the ill-fated 372nd Military Police Company, pleaded guilty in court-martial proceedings at Fort Hood, Tex. His admitted crime was that in November 2003, he stepped on the toes and feet of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison while they were piled up on the floor. Subsequently, he admitting lying to investigators who were pursuing the allegations against him.



Davis received a six-month prison sentence and a bad conduct discharge.



While Davis put himself at the mercy of a military court-martial, his civilian attorney, Paul Bergrin, did some figurative “stepping-on-of-toes” in his own right. Bergrin’s attempt to defend his military client by seeking testimony from Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast was summarily quashed and prohibited by the presiding military judge, Col. James Pohl.



Bergrin tried to speak, argue, and prove the truth as to just who is directly responsible for “almost a state of lawlessness” at the prison, according to one of the staff officers who worked at Abu Ghraib.



Maj. David DiNenna ought to know. In self-indicting testimony, he testified how civilian contractors working for the CIA routinely paraded nude detainees through the hallways of Abu Ghraib. This in turn created a perception to Davis and other MPs that this was the approved procedure for helping to psychologically break the detainees and induce them to provide information on the bloody street fighting across Iraq. In his testimony at Davis’ trial, DiNenna related that he himself had been was powerless to stop what he was seeing.



But someone else was not so powerless to correct this “Animal House” environment, as described by the Schlesinger independent report on abuses at Abu Ghraib. That someone is exactly who Bergrin tried to bring into the record just before his client was led off to prison. However, the judge blocked Bergrin’s attempt.



To this observer, the Army court’s action confirms that senior Military Intelligence officials are intent on a whitewash of the true facts behind the scandal.



Bergrin attempted to argue that Maj. Gen. Fast, the senior U.S. Army intelligence officer in Iraq at the time of the scandal, knew of the abuse and condoned it. Fast, a former deputy commander of Fort Huachuca, has been selected to command the Arizona fort and the U.S. Army Intelligence Command, but her appointment has been on hold for five months because of the scandal allegations.



Fast returned from Iraq to Fort Huachaca last summer in a difficult position: As the senior intelligence officer under Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in 2003, being unaware of the ongoing scandal – in which MI units were directly involved – constituted a major leadership failure. On the other hand, knowing about the abuse and not stopping it could be termed criminal negligence.



So what is the general’s defense? This is how it was presented by Fort Huachaca spokeswoman Angela Moncur in a letter to the editor of The Arizona Republic on Feb. 11:



“[I]t is important to emphasize [newspaper reporter] Joseph A. Reaves’ reporting of the fact that Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast ‘has never been accused of wrongdoing in any of the several military investigations into the abuse.’ It is also important to note that Fast was not a commander in Combined Joint Task Force 7, nor was she in the chain of command of the units at Abu Ghraib. Her principal role in the task force, as documented in the Faye/Jones report, was to establish an intelligence system to support U.S. forces.”



As a retired MI professional, I find this to be tiring claptrap!



In her statement to the newspaper, Moncur represented the Army and Fort Huachuca. She is therefore a de-facto mouthpiece of Maj. Gen. Fast. So, through Moncur, Fast continues to tap-dance and evade her overall responsibility for the scandal.



After all, the letter responded to allegations in the earlier news article reporting on Davis’ attorney’s attempt to establish the truth. Bergrin stated, “General Fast was putting pressure on Colonel Thomas Pappas, the Abu Ghraib Commander, who was putting pressure down the line to break the detainees and get as much information any way possible.” The attorney went on, “Everyone knows that, and I can’t believe that Fast is still in the military.”



I find myself in amazement and agreement with Bergrin.



This responsibility-evasion theory does not hold water any more than a cop on the beat, seeing a robbery happen across the street and doing nothing to stop it. The sad and unfortunate truth is that this is simply a collective level of irresponsibility by senior U.S. Army officers who, for one reason or another, refuse to admit that they failed the soldiers on the ground.



The senior leadership’s ambiguous orders and directives constituted their failure to provide the tools and adequate amount of personnel that the soldiers needed to do their jobs. In their preferred ignorance of ground truth, it was the generals who created the reality of Abu Ghraib. Now the lower enlisted soldiers are marched off to jail as senior military leaders stolidly assert their “plausible deniability.”



Evidence defeating the argument that Fast has not been found at fault for Abu Ghraib can be found in the Schlesinger report, which concluded that as commanding officer of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, Pappas (who worked for and reported directly to Fast), was a “weak and ineffectual leader.” The report also concluded that either Pappas knew, or should have known, that abuses were taking place and he should have taken measures to prevent them.



In clear English, Pappas knew of the ongoing abuse. In fact, investigators revealed that he hatched a plan to smuggle a dead Iraqi, who died from a beating, out of Abu Ghraib with a false I.V. drip in the corpse’s arm to avoid causing alarm among other prisoners. Pappas, whom the Schlesinger panel concluded was complicit in the scandal, is still in command of a military intelligence brigade in Wiesbaden, Germany. The 205th MI Brigade is now in the early stages of deployment planning for a return tour in the Southwest Asian theater, according to one of the battalion Commanders, Lt. Col. James Norwood.



The lengthy Schlesinger report further implicated Fast and other senior Army officers by faulting the unclear command structure at Abu Ghraib and the confused command relationship up the chain. The report found, “At the same time, intelligence personnel at Abu Ghraib reported through the CJTF-7 C-2 (Maj. Gen. Fast) the Director for Intelligence and that these arrangements had the damaging result that no single individual was responsible for overseeing operations at the prison.” The report also noted the responsibility of staff officers “for providing oversight and counsel to their commanders.”



“Staff oversight of the Abu Ghraib detention and interrogation operations for the combined joint task force was dispersed among the principal and special staff,” who reported to and were supposed to advise the combined Joint Task Force Commander, the panel concluded. This included Fast, who was both serving on the special staff as the CJTF-7 C-2.



The report specifically found fault with the Fast for failing “to advise the commander properly on directives and policies needed for the operation of the Joint Interrogation Detention Center, for interrogation techniques, and for appropriately monitoring the activities of Other Government Agencies (OGAs, which include the CIA) within the Joint Area of Operations.” In plain English, her failures and omissions enabled Abu Ghraib to become what it became and Fast did not correct the problem.



Maj. Gen. Fast today, is the prospective commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence School and Fort Huachaca pending completion of all of the prisoner abuse investigations. She has been cooling her heels at the Southern Arizona Army post since August 2004, waiting for the Abu Ghraib scandal to blow over or for investigators to formally clear her of complicity.



Some local politicians defend Fast. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-AZ (whose father, retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Gene Renzi, once served at Fort Huachaca), publicly praised Fast and said he hopes she gets the top position soon. “She will be a commander of excellence.” Renzi said of Fast. “The Army needs to get Abu Ghraib behind them.”



Frankly, I could not agree more.



However, Abu Ghraib cannot be resolved by sweeping criminal malfeasance and serious military leadership flaws under the proverbial carpet.



The Army needs full accountability for Abu Ghraib, even if it means the ignominious end of Gen. Fast’s career.



Guest Contributor Edward J. Svezetec is the pen name for a retired tactical military intelligence officer. He can be reached at BigEdSvezetec@yahoo.com. Send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.

Ellie