12 September 2004	Sunday	26 Rajab 1425

WASHINGTON: Pentagon investigators believe the CIA has held as many as 100 "ghost detainees" in Iraq without disclosing their identities or locations, many times more than previously disclosed , a senior Defence Department official told Congress on Thursday.

However, the precise number of undisclosed prisoners and the conditions in which they have been held remains a mystery, said Gen Paul Kern, because CIA officials have refused to cooperate with Pentagon investigators, denying repeated requests for documents and information on the detainees.

The CIA apparently has held between a dozen and three dozen unregistered prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad since the war began in March 2003, and others elsewhere in Iraq, said Kern, who is overseeing the investigations of prisoner abuse. Pentagon officials had previously cited only eight cases of failure to account for prisoners, which is an apparent violation of international law under the Geneva Conventions. "If they fall under the category of ghost detainees, there are no records," Kern told reporters after addressing members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Members of the panel expressed surprise over the number of detainees and disbelief and outrage over the lack of CIA cooperation.

"The situation with CIA and ghost detainees is beginning to look like a bad movie," said Sen John McCain, R-Ariz. "This needs to be cleared up rather badly."

Sen Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's ranking Democrat, said the panel should take further action on the CIA's stance, a recommendation the committee's chairman, Sen John Warner, R-Va., said would be considered. "It's totally unacceptable that the documents that are requested from the CIA have not been forthcoming," Levin said.

The revelations about the CIA's refusal to cooperate with Pentagon investigators came amid demands for a new inquiry into prison abuses by a panel patterned after the Sept. 11 commission. One member of the Senate panel, Sen. Jack Reed, R- R.I., supports such an inquiry.

Both the Pentagon and the CIA's inspector general's office are independently investigating the practice, spokesmen for both agencies said, but Defence officials lamented what they described as an utter lack of cooperation from the CIA, which simply did not respond to a series of requests of for information. "That needs to be investigated," Kern said.

A CIA spokesman would not address whether the agency hid prisoners from international monitors, but insisted that the agency supports thorough investigations into the alleged abuses.

"The CIA's inspector general has been conducting a comprehensive review of the agency's involvement in detention and interrogation activities in Iraq," agency spokesman Mark Mansfield said.

"US intelligence officials in the past have denied Pentagon findings of widespread wrongdoing by CIA agents. At least three Iraqis have died while in CIA custody, one of them at Abu Ghraib, based on earlier Pentagon investigations.

"Maj-Gen George R. Fay, who led a portion of a Pentagon investigation, said prisoners were identified to military police by names such as "OGA 1" and "OGA 2". The acronym, used by Defence officials use to describe the CIA, stands for "other government agency."

As the probe into the Bush administration's handling of the prison abuse scandal focused scrutiny on the US spy agency, several senators also pressed investigators to hold individual Defence Department officials accountable.The failure of investigations to date to implicate senior Bush administration and Pentagon officials for fostering an aggressive interrogation environment that might have led to abuses has rankled Democrats on Capitol Hill and other critics.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., urged attention to the roles played by Lt-Gen Ricardo Sanchez, who as top ground commander in Iraq ultimately oversaw prisons; U.S. Central Command chief Gen John P. Abizaid; Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard B. Myers; Deputy Defence Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; and Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Kennedy recounted the reassignment of a Navy captain last month whose aircraft carrier collided with a small boat, one of 11 naval officers he said have been removed from their posts this year.

"For the military officers in the Navy, the message is clear: if you fail, you're fired," Kennedy said. "Who is accountable? Who should be fired? Should it be Sanchez? Abizaid? Myers? Wolfowitz? Rumsfeld? The president? The buck has to stop somewhere."- Dawn/The LAT-WP News Service (c) The Los Angeles Times.