Ghost Detainees numbers unknown

[teryang]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/10/MNG368MNPF1.DTL

CIA had jailers conceal 'up to 100' Iraqi prisoners

Eric Schmitt, Douglas Jehl, New York Times

<Washington -- Army jailers in Iraq, acting at the CIA's request, kept dozens of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities off official rosters to hide them from Red Cross inspectors, two senior Army generals said Thursday. The total is far more than had been previously reported.

"The number is in the dozens, to perhaps up to 100," Gen. Paul Kern, the senior officer who oversaw the Army inquiry, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Another investigator, Maj. Gen. George Fay, put the figure at "two dozen or so," but both officers said they could not give a precise number because no records were kept on most of the CIA detainees.

The disclosure added to questions about the CIA's practices in Iraq, including why the agency took custody of certain Iraqi prisoners, what interrogation techniques it used and what became of the ghost detainees, including whether they were ever returned to military custody. To date, two cases have been made public in which prisoners in CIA custody were removed from Iraq for several months and held in detention centers outside the country.>