Planning For Detainees Faulted (reusing needles in Iraq)

[Barrett808]

Planning For Detainees Faulted
July 9, 2005
By JOSH WHITE, Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Defense Department officials failed to plan adequately for the medical care of detainees captured during the Iraq war, according to an Army surgeon general's report released Friday.

Some medical personnel had to reuse needles and other medical supplies and did not receive guidance on how to treat detainees, the report said.

The 215-page report, parts of which were censored, was made public a day after Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army's surgeon general, announced that his office's assessment had found only isolated cases of detainee abuse involving medical personnel. In his Thursday briefing, Kiley also praised the U.S. military's worldwide care of detainees.

But Kiley did not mention that his office's inquiry found serious flaws with the early stages of detainee health care in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report details dozens of alleged cases of abuse, lack of care or questionable collaboration between medical personnel and interrogators who were working to extract information.

Maj. Gen. Lester Martinez-Lopez, who led the assessment team, recommended that the Defense Department stop using physicians and psychiatrists to aid interrogators, criticizing the lack of a doctrine or policy defining the role of such Behavioral Science Consultation Teams.

(more)

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-detain0709.artjul09,0,1236271.story?coll=hc-headlines-nationworld