FOREWORD

This inspection report responds to the Acting Secretary of the Army's 10 February 2004 directive to conduct a functional analysis of the Army's conduct of detainee and interrogation operations to identify any capability shortfalls with respect to internment, enemy prisoner of war, detention operations, and interrogation precedures and recommend appropriate resolutions or changes if required.

Based on this inspection:

1. – the overwhelming majority of our leaders and soldiers understand the requirement to treat detainees humanely and are doing so.

2. – we were unable to identify system failures that resulted in incidents of abuse. These incidents of abuse resulted from the failure of individuals to follow known standards of discipline and Army Values and, in some cases, the failure of a few leaders to enforce those standards of discipline.

3. – the current operational enviroment demands that we adapt' our soldiers are adapting, so we must also adapt our doctrine, organization, and training.

We examined the two key components of detainee operations: the capture, security and humane treatment of the detainees; and the conduct of interrogation operations in order to gain useful intelligence. While we did not find any systemic failures that directly led to the abusive situations we reviewed, we have made recommendations to improve the effectiveness of detainee operations.

We found that soldiers are conducting operations under demanding, stressful, and dangerous conditions against an enemy who does not follow the Geneva Conventions.