NEW YORK, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A new book by a prominent journalist claims senior Bush administration officials were warned in 2002 and 2003 that military prisoners were being abused.
Seymour Hersh, magazine writer for The New Yorker who was among the first to report the prisoner abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, made the charges in his book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib," The New York Times reported Saturday. The book will be released Monday.
Hersh's book claims a CIA analyst who visited the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center in 2002 filed a report of abuses there that was noticed by Gen. John Gordon, deputy to White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. However, when Gordon allegedly called the matter to Rice's attention and she discussed it with officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, no action was taken.
Hersh's book concludes that "the roots of the Abu Ghraib scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists" who have been charged so far, "but in the reliance of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on secret operations and the use of coercion -- and eye-for-eye retribution -- in fighting terrorism."
