Detainee Affairs Office Created

With in-ternational criticism over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal still simmering and investigations into prisoner abuses underway, Pentagon officials on Friday announced the creation of an office to establish detainee policy and to respond to criticism by inspection groups such as the Red Cross.

The Office of Detainee Affairs will be in charge of setting policy and making recommendations to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the hundreds of POWs and enemy combatants detained in military prisons worldwide.

Defense officials did not say who would lead the new office, which will answer to Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy and the Pentagon’s third-ranking official.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon policy shop overseeing detainee issues has evolved from an ad hoc task force to a more established office answering to the Defense Department’s top official overseeing special operations and low-intensity conflict.

By creating an office that answers directly to Feith, Rumsfeld is elevating the importance of detainee affairs in the midst of a prison abuse scandal that has undermined U.S. credibility abroad and besmirched the reputations of several top U.S. commanders in Iraq.

The reorganization will change the system by which the U.S. government responds to reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Critics and military officials said that revelations of prisoner abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan have exposed deep flaws in the process of recognizing and responding to Red Cross reports.

Under the current system, most Red Cross reports on U.S. military prisons are handled by commanders in the field.

But top generals in the Middle East have testified that reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq never reached their desks.

“We have a real problem with the ICRC reports and the way that they’re handled, and the way that they move up the chain of command,” Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, told senators in May, adding, “This system is broken.”

With the new office, a senior civilian official will be in charge of receiving the reports, which defense officials said would allow the Pentagon to respond more quickly to Red Cross concerns.

“Under this new organization -- the deputy assistant secretary and the Office of Detainee Affairs -- they will be the single focal point in communicating with the ICRC on behalf of the department,” Christopher “Ryan” Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy, told reporters at a briefing.

Red Cross spokeswoman Amanda Williamson said the Pentagon had given the Red Cross advance word about the new office.

She said it would be an important forum for the Red Cross and U.S. government to “move forward from the Iraq controversy.”

The new office will be separate from the Pentagon group led by Navy Secretary Gordon R. England,which is charged with conducting combatant status reviews of every prisoner at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to determine whether they are properly being held as enemy combatants.

On Friday, England announced that every Guantanamo Bay detainee had been notified of his right to contest his status as an enemy combatant, and that status tribunals could begin next week.

“Most of the people who received this information listened, read and asked questions,” England said. “And their most commonly asked questions were: ‘When can I meet with my personal representative?’ and ‘When will the tribunal process begin?’ ”

Of the rest, the Navy secretary said, “about 5% of the people responded negatively, that is, crumpled up the notice and threw it on the floor, whatever.”

The goal, England has said, is to finish by late November. Detainees deemed to have been wrongly held will be released to their home countries.