Abu Ghraib Investigator Says He Was Forced to Retire

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MICHELE NORRIS, host:

The U.S. Army general responsible for investigating abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison is now saying he was forced into an early retirement because his inquiry was too aggressive.

In his first interview since leaving the military, Major General Antonio Taguba also challenges former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's congressional testimony that he was not aware of the extent of the abuse until months after the investigation began.

General Taguba tells his story to reporter Seymour Hersh in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine. Hersh says that soon after Taguba started his investigation in January of 2004, he came across private e-mails between senior officers detailing the abuse.

Mr. SEYMOUR HERSH (Investigative Reporter, New Yorker Magazine): There's a huge back channel in the military. Generals like to talk to each other about this and that sometimes - it's for golf dates. But a lot of times, it's a very serious stuff.

The e-mails, the back channel, within two days of the first report about Abu Ghraib, the back channel is humming - three-star generals working for Rumsfeld, his senior military assistant are getting messages from the field, from Baghdad, Wolfowitz' deputy, the chairman of Joint Chiefs, Myers, Pace - they're all in this mail. Guys, we got a bad one here.

And the second e-mail sent two days around the 15th of January described completely and fully what the photographs showed. And so the point that Taguba understood was when he listened to Rumsfeld say what he say, I never saw the photographs. You didn't have to see the photographs to know what's going on. Here's this traffic meant for you. It's putting - a head's note. There were a lot of e-mails about. This is big stuff inside.

NORRIS: Was Donald Rumsfeld actually receiving these e-mails?

Mr. HERSH: No. Donald Rumsfeld's - his chief military assistant, a general named Craddock was receiving them.

NORRIS: So was it possible that no one ever took this information to him?

Mr. HERSH: Oh, no. Are you kidding? No, that's one of the first obvious questions you ask is what happens. Well, no. He's receiving it because that's the way you get it to the secretary. One, of course, everything is possible.

But more than that, General Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also testified. And during one of his appearances, he did say, finally, he said, look, we were getting messages as early as - from very early days we are getting traffic about it. So we all knew it. I discussed it with the secretary. He's clearly - he's not talking about anything else but the back channel messages. And they are really vivid and concise.

One message around the 20th of January, just sort of summarized everything. Did it happen? Yeah, all in capital letters. Are there photographs? Yeah, in capital letters. Are they really bad? Really, really, really bad? Yes. We got a problem here. Maybe we should go public with this. What do we do?

And then it was only after that was Taguba brought in. He wasn't brought in until the end of January. He does his report and it sits, like, for a couple of months, somebody leaks me a copy. Of course, they blamed Taguba. You always blame the messenger. And Rumsfeld complained about it publicly. Here I am, he said to the Senate, the secretary of Defense, and nobody tells me anything. I didn't know anything. Here's the report that I never read about it and was given to the press before me.

NORRIS: So General Taguba, a two-star general, was tasked with investigating the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib. At some point, did he realize that he was producing information that the Pentagon was not necessarily - had an appetite for hearing?

Mr. HERSH: Pretty quickly. And first of all, he was proscribed. He was told you're only going to talk about the military policemen in the photographs. You can't do anything else. When he began to get out - outside of that box, at one point, General John Abizaid - who is the commander and I think a very decent guy, he was then Taguba's boss - Abizaid says to Tony very early in April, he says, you know, Tony, the only victim of this report could be you if you don't do this report right. And he said to me, I remember thinking how crushed I was. I'd been in the Army for 32 years as a major general. It was the first time I thought I was in the mafia.

NORRIS: Why would Donald Rumsfeld downplay his knowledge of these photographs?

Mr. HERSH: Because the president of the United States responded to the reports of this incident by doing nothing. The president of the United States was briefed, certainly, we know from his testimony by late January, whatever he told them...

NORRIS: That explains the president, though. Why would the secretary of Defense?

Mr. HERSH: Because he's protecting - because it's very important to protect your president. And by - if Donald Rumsfeld never saw photographs and doesn't -don't know much about nothing, and the president never saw the photographs and don't know much about nothing, you now, that's an out. They both never - my God, if I'd only known.

NORRIS: But if you stand before a congressional committee and raise your right hand and say one thing, yet the e-mail traffic suggests that you know something else, that doesn't make sense.

Mr. HERSH: Nobody's going to see the e-mail traffic. It's just traffic between officers. This is not traffic that's designed to ever get in the public area. There's no way they ever conceived it would get shown, I don't believe. I don't know because Rumsfeld, we sent - I sent him, I was talking to his office a month ago and sent very detailed memos about what I'm saying, and basically saying, you know, I know you don't like the press, you don't want to talk to us about things you don't like, but this is really serious, so you really ought to take time. And everybody in his office is very courteous, and he said, no, I'm - he's just not going to do it.

NORRIS: So is General Taguba basically saying that Donald Rumsfeld stood before the congressional committee and lied? Or is he saying that he was very careful not to cross that line?

Mr. HERSH: He's saying that what he said is very hard for Taguba to credit. He's saying, I found it hard to believe. He is saying, based on everything I knew, that testimony was not truthful. Does that mean he knows that Rumsfeld is lying, that's a state of mind.

NORRIS: Sy Hersh, thanks for coming in to talk to us.

Mr. HERSH: Glad to be here.

NORRIS: That was Sy Hersh. He's a reporter for the New Yorker magazine. He was speaking to us about a story that appears in this week's issue.

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