WASHINGTON — The CIA is seeking to determine whether its operatives had a role in the imprisonment of so-called ghost detainees, Iraqi prisoners who were held without names, charges or other documentation at U.S.-run detention facilities across their homeland, intelligence officials said Tuesday.
A little-noticed portion of the military's classified report on the abuse of prisoners in Iraq says that a number of jails operated by the 800th Military Police Brigade "routinely held" such prisoners "without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention."
In one case, the report says, U.S. military police at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad shifted six to eight undocumented prisoners "around within the facility to hide them" from a visiting delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"This maneuver was deceptive, contrary to Army Doctrine and in violation of international law," the report adds.
Human rights groups said the practice of keeping prisoners off written lists and physically concealing them from humanitarian aid groups and independent monitors has been well known over the years in dictatorships from Guatemala to Sudan.
The CIA, which had the military bring some detainees into the prisons for questioning, has launched an internal review into what an agency official called "not enough accountability" by its operatives or contract employees. "This isn't part of agency doctrine regarding handling of prisoners," the official said.
"We have looked into ghost detainees," the official, who asked not to be identified, said Tuesday. He declined to say whether the agency had taken any disciplinary action or changed policies or procedures so far.
The military report does not name the CIA, noting only that undocumented prisoners were brought by "other government agencies." But the official said the CIA had the military detain Iraqi suspects at several facilities, including about two dozen prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"The vast majority of people were not of interest to us," he said. "There were a small number we had asked the military to bring in, then we conducted questioning of that small number."
Human rights groups said the expression "ghost detainees" is new but the practice is old.
