May 25, 2004

Intelligence?

Posted by John Quiggin

From an NYT story on "ghost" prisoners in Abu Ghraib

The memorandum criticizing the practice of keeping prisoners off the roster was signed by Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and a James Bond, who is identified as "SOS, Agent in Charge." Military and intelligence officials said that they did not know of a Mr. Bond who had been assigned to Abu Ghraib, and that it was possible that the name was an alias.

Posted on May 25, 2004 04:18 AM UTC
Comments

All I wanted to torture the prisoners was sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads. Is that too much to ask?

Posted by Kieran Healy · May 25, 2004 04:45 AM

You know, if they had signed it ‘Austin Powers’, at least I could say that they had a sense of humor. Signing it James Bond suggests that they actually think there is an M out there to give them all the hi tech gadgets that will extricate them out of any situation, but the only thing they got was a crate of women’s underwear and latex gloves.

Posted by liberal japonicus · May 25, 2004 01:07 PM

Didn’t the Enron boys (and I use that word intentionally) give all sorts of stupid/clever names to their fake dummy corporations?

Posted by Tom Scudder · May 25, 2004 01:48 PM

The initials, always follow the initials

James Baker?
Jeb Bush?
Jessica Biel?

Posted by bob mcmanus · May 25, 2004 02:31 PM

Hm. Are there other memoranda from “Bond James”? Or even “Irvine Washington”?

Posted by Dan · May 25, 2004 03:05 PM

Josh Marshall says it might be Feith

Bond

Posted by bob mcmanus · May 25, 2004 08:56 PM

ya know, one would think that when the NYT discovers an unreleased memorandum signed by a fictional british spy, and authenticated by anonymous sources, one would consider the option of the memo being a fraud. Or, given that the NYT has had problems in the past with unsourced articles, it might even be made up. But thats just me.

Posted by pio · May 26, 2004 03:20 AM

SOS=SOS Interpreting, Ltd., a translation company which has gone big into the interrogation business. It is also the employer of John Israel, accused of involvement in the abuse in the Taguba report. I have several entries on my blog disccusing SOS:

John Israel, & James Bond, SOS, Agent in Charge.

Posted by Kathryn Cramer · May 26, 2004 04:01 PM

My favorite passage from the article:

“He went into the shower for interrogation and about an hour later he died on them,” said Specialist Kenner, whose account left unclear whether the detainee was He went into the shower for interrogation and about an hour later he died on them,” said Specialist Kenner, whose account left unclear whether the detainee was examined by a doctor or given any military treatment before he died.

Such journalistic scruple! I think we can probably infer that he was given adequate military treatment before he died.

Posted by SqueakyRat · May 27, 2004 05:09 PM

Oops, sorry for the garbled quote. Here it is again:

He went into the shower for interrogation and about an hour later he died on them,” said Specialist Kenner, whose account left unclear whether the detainee was examined by a doctor or given any military treatment before he died.

Posted by SqueakyRat · May 27, 2004 05:13 PM
Followups

→ Abu Ghraib: Ghost Prisoners.
Excerpt: I found this NYT article entitled "C.I.A. Bid to Keep Some Detainees Off Abu Ghraib Roll Worries Officials" through John Quiggin's Crooked Timber Post. Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, the Army officer who first investigated the prison abuses, concluded in...Read more at Publicspaces

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.