WASHINGTON — In a reversal of Pentagon policy, the military for the first time is notifying the International Committee of the Red Cross of the identities of militants who were being held in secret at a camp in Iraq and another in Afghanistan run by U.S. Special Operations forces, according to three military officials.
The change will allow the Red Cross to track the custody of dozens of the most dangerous suspected terrorists and foreign fighters plucked off the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is a major advance for the organization in its fight to gain more information about these detainees.
The military had previously insisted that disclosing any details about detainees at the secretive camps could tip off other militants and jeopardize counter-terrorism missions.
Meanwhile, the CIA on Monday is to release a highly critical 2004 report on the agency's interrogation program by the CIA inspector general.
The long-awaited report provides new details about abuses that took place inside the agency's secret prisons, including CIA officers carrying out mock executions and threatening at least one prisoner with a gun and a power drill. It is a violation of the federal torture statute to threaten a detainee with imminent death.
Also, Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to decide in the next several days whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the interrogations of terrorism suspects after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The new Pentagon policy on detainees took effect this month with no public announcementfrom the military or the Red Cross.
A spokesman for the Red Cross in Washington, Bernard Barrett, declined to comment on the new notification policy, citing the organization's long-standing practice of refusing to talk about its discussions with the Defense Department about detention issues.
Unlike the secret prisons run by the CIA that President Barack Obama ordered closed in January, the military continues to operate the Special Operations camps, which it calls temporary screening sites, in Balad, Iraq, and Bagram, Afghanistan.
As many as 30 to 40 foreign prisoners have been held at the camp in Iraq at any given time, military officials said; they did not provide an estimate for the Afghan camp but suggested that the number was smaller.
The Red Cross is allowed access to almost all U.S. military prisons and battlefield detention sites in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Special Operations camps have been excluded.
Under Pentagon rules, detainees at the Special Operations camps can be held for up to two weeks.
Formerly, the military at that point had to release a detainee; transfer him to a long-term prison in Iraq or Afghanistan, to which the Red Cross has broad access; or seek one-week renewable extensions from Defense Secretary Robert Gates or his representative.
Under the new policy, the military must notify the Red Cross of the detainees' names and identification numbers within two weeks of capture, a notification that before happened only after a detainee was transferred to a longterm prison.
The option to seek custody extensions has been eliminated, a senior Pentagon official said.
Pentagon officials said the shift was insignificant, saying that most detainees at the camps had already been registered with the Red Cross within the initial twoweek period.
"The department makes every effort to register detainees with the ICRC as soon as practicable after capture," said Bryan Whitman, a Defense Department spokesman, who declined to comment specifically on the Special Operations camps. "There are certain instances where, for reasons of military necessity, this cannot be accomplished."
He added, "The department uses this two-week period to screen detainees for further detention, in accordance with U.S. and international law."
But human-rights advocates hailed the policy change, saying that Special Operations forces had often extended the custody ofdetainees, leaving them in a legal limbo for weeks on end.
"Any improvement in ICRC notification and access is a positive development because it not only accounts for the whereabouts of a person, but hopefully will expedite notification to the family who is left anxious wondering about the fate of his or her relative," said Sahr Muhammed Ally, a senior associate for law and security at Human Rights First, an advocacy group.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 08/23/2009