General denies OK'ing Abu Ghraib torture

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Army Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast has denied allegations by the former chief of Iraq's military prison system that she knew about and approved harsh interrogation methods at the Abu Ghraib prison.

An international human rights scandal exploded around Abu Ghraib in April 2004, when the CBS news program "60 Minutes II" aired photos showing inmates in sexually degrading poses. Subsequent investigations concluded that American guards had beaten, humiliated, threatened with attack dogs and otherwise mistreated some Iraqi inmates.

Fast, a Belleville native, was at the time the intelligence chief for the U.S. command in Baghdad. She has denied fresh claims by retired Army Reserve Col. Janis Karpinski — Iraq's ex-prison chief — that the Army ignored the role she and other top commanders played at Abu Ghraib. Karpinski was in St. Louis last week to take part in the Veterans for Peace convention.

In her first detailed interview since the scandal broke, Fast, 53, said interrogators under her command followed the Geneva Conventions, as well as protocols approved by lawyers and the U.S. command's top general.

"So we had what I think was a policy that had withstood the scrutiny of what you'd expect to be responsible review," Fast said last week. "But uses of torture were not approved, they were not encouraged, and it wasn't tolerated by the command."

As the top intelligence officer in Iraq, Fast in the late summer of 2003 played a key role in trying to find the leaders of the swiftly mounting anti-U.S. insurgency.

In that job, Fast passed orders and information between Army Col. Thomas Pappas, the prison's intelligence chief, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander for Iraq.

Desperate to obtain more and better information from Iraqi prisoners, the Pentagon in September 2003 sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller — the commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison — to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib, said Karpinski, a former brigadier general who commanded the Army Reserve 800th Military Police Brigade.

The first Army probe of the scandal harshly criticized Miller for urging prison guards to "soften up" inmates for interrogation.

Miller has denied misconduct. Miller later was given control of detainee operations in Iraq.

But in Karpinksi's view, the atmosphere changed at Abu Ghraib after Miller's two-week visit.