INVESTIGATIVE METHODOLOGY

• IN EXCESS OF 9,000 DOCUMENTS COLLECTED, CATALOGUED AND ARCHIVED • OVER 170 INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED • 8 INVESTIGATIVE VISITS TO IRAQ

• INVESTIGATIVE TEAMS CONSISTED OF 28 PERSONNEL TO INCLUDE INVESTIGATORS, ANALYSTS, SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS AND LEGAL ADVISORS

• INDEPENDENT REVIEW TEAM CHARTERED BY APPOINTING AUTHORITY

First, we did not go back and redo the previous assessments and investigations, but we used them as part of our assessment, our investigation, and our evaluation. So the Ryder report, which focused on our military police and detention operations, was part of that and the Department of the Army Inspector General report, which you referred to. We both reviewed their entire report and listened to their comments. The Miller report, which is an assessment of how we could learn from the detention operations at Guantanamo and the integration of detention and interrogations was part of our assessment. We spent a great deal of time studying and discussing with Major General Taguba his previous assessment of Abu Ghraib with the Military Police Brigade. All of these were inputs and are contained in many excerpts to our investigation.

Additionally, we shared all of our information with the Schlesinger panel, whom you will hear from this afternoon, and they were fully briefed on all of our findings as we developed our investigation.

Admiral Church, who is the Inspector General of the U.S. Navy, was appointed to fill the gaps. His report is still due. We expect it towards the end of this month. He also has been apprised of all of the information which we have provided and his personnel have been part of our team as we went through our review of the investigation.

I would like to summarize quickly the methodology which we used. We believe it was thorough. We believe it was well-documented. This investigation took part under what is called a Procedure 15, which is the method by which we review intelligence operations. It was done in accordance with an Army regulation 15-6, which prescribes that for a formal investigation, we have substantial legal review to ensure that all of our recommendations are substantiated so that when we hand them off for further actions for commanders and other organizations, that the information there is

usable, for whatever action they may deem appropriate. All of that has been part of our review.

We conducted, primarily by Major General Fay's efforts, 170 interviews. We looked at more than 9,000 documents and these were all collected and collated using state-of-the-art intelligence tools which allowed us to cross reference information, identify places where there were disconnects, and identify information which required further interviews so that we could fill in those

gaps.

The team, as noted there, consisted of numerous personnel who were both subject matter experts and experts in investigations and review. I should point out that General Fay not only is a military intelligence officer but in his civil duties, works in the investigative part of insurance operations. He has brought both those talents as a Reserve officer with him to this effort, as well as the capabilities within our Intelligence Community.

Finally, after the reports were assimilated, we conducted an independent review using DOD, Department of the Army personnel, to look at the information which we had accumulated, specifically to ensure that all of our recommendations were on point and substantiated by the information which we had collected.

I know this is very difficult to see, and I will try to describe this for you in terms of what the picture is meant to say. This is a map of Iraq, a country about the size of Texas and a country that has been beset by the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, which is no longer present today. The charts show you detention facilities in two different colors: blue and red.

[The chart referred to follows:]

The blue facilities are primarily those facilities which were maintained by the Iraqis. Each of them, however, had U.S. presence as the operation that overthrew the Saddam-Baath regime took on the responsibility as the governor of Iraq. So Lieutenant General Sanchez's role with Ambassador Bremer included oversight of all of those facilities.

The red indicates those which were dedicated to U.S. operations, and you will note that Abu Ghraib is shown in both red and blue on the outskirts of Baghdad. That in itself points to the fact that there were civil detainees held by the Iraqis; murderers, looters, and rapists who were held in that facility. This is a violation of our own regulations and policy that says we should not co-mingle military detainees with civil detainees, but it was a clear decision made by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), that this was the only facility available that we could use. It did contain a facility, which I will talk about in a minute, with a capability to hold about

12,000 detainees, the way it was designed. Lieutenant General Sanchez made the decision that we would also use it for the military detainees. So, it was designed to keep them separate from the civil detainees. But, that in itself, is a problem with the way our own regulations require us to operate.

If I could look specifically at the next chart of Abu Ghraib. This is an overhead photograph of the facility. I think most of you are generally familiar with it, but I think it is important to note a few points.

First, the facility is a detention facility for 12,000 people, but most of it had been destroyed during the previous months of war. It had been destroyed both by attacks but also by a significant amount of looting by the Iraqi citizens after the fall of Baghdad. Much of the facilities, as detention facilities, were not usable.

What is shown in the lower left, as you are looking at the picture, is the tent area where the detainees were housed. This plays a role in the way operations took place because during the summer period, it was hot and most of that tentage had the sides rolled up, so one could see what was occurring inside it. There are very few reports of any abuse or any other irregular activities that took place during that time.

However, it was under mortar attack, and so people were vulnerable to those attacks living in those tents. A decision was made to rebuild and use the hard sites, 1A and 1B. Those facilities provided protection and also where the military intelligence high-value detainees were to be held and interrogations were to be held. It is in these hard-site facilities, which were not visible from the outside

and for which no cameras were present inside to observe, that the majority of the abuses take place. So that has a bearing clearly on the facilities that were used and what happened.

If I could talk about the next point. The expectation, when Lieutenant General Sanchez was given command of CJTF-7, was that we were in a transition period. Specifically, the orders called for moving from a period of hostilities, which were declared ended in May, to a period of stability and support in phase 4 when he took command. General Sanchez entered the theater as a division commander, a Major General, and commanded the 1st Armored Division, and in June he was promoted to Lieutenant General and given command of the U.S. 5th Corps, the corps which had conducted the attack into Baghdad. The corps then was quickly converted to a Combined Joint Task Force, CJTF-7. In the process, as noted in our report, the manning documents took until December to be finally approved for the Combined Joint Task Force as opposed to the U.S. Army's 5th Corps. During this period, we found that the resources of the personnel in the brigade were about 40 percent of the final agreed-to strength, which was not made available at the time and was not agreed upon until December 2003.

There was also an expectation, in stability and support operations, that the number of detainees would decrease, not increase. Our chart here points out to you that during this period of transition, that is not what occurred. In fact, the number of detainees increased over the entire period, and shown in the dark purple at Abu Ghraib they increased consistently during that period, even after they decreased throughout the country as we collapsed detention facilities and eliminated some of them, so that those personnel were brought into Abu Ghraib.