By ERIC SCHMITT The New York TimesA high-level outside panel reviewing U.S. military detention operations has concluded leadership failures at the highest levels of the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which detainees were abused at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities, defense officials said Monday.
The report, to be released today, does not explicitly blame Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the misconduct or for ordering policies that condoned or encouraged it.
But it implicitly faults Rumsfeld and his top civilian and military aides for not exercising sufficient oversight over a confusing array of policies and interrogation practices at detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said. ..
In contrast to the half dozen military inquiries into aspects of the Abu Ghraib scandal, including the roles of military police and military intelligence officials, the four-member panel headed by James R. Schlesinger, a former secretary of defense, was appointed by Rumsfeld to identify gaps in the reviews. ..
In addition to Schlesinger, the panel members are Harold Brown, another former defense secretary; Tillie K. Fowler, former Florida Republican congresswoman and chairwoman of last year's investigation into sexual misconduct at the U.S. Air Force Academy; and Gen. Charles A. Horner, a retired four-star Air Force officer who led the air campaign in the 1991 Gulf War. ..The committee has held a series of hearings into the scandal, but none since May 19, as
many Republicans in the House and some in the Senate have voiced fears that keeping the issue alive on Capitol Hill could hurt President Bush's re- election prospects in November. Ride Don’t Drive * * It’s Global Cool