RUMSFELD RULES OUT ARAB PROFILING IN MILITARY
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ruled out the
prospect that Arabs and Muslims would be banned from sensitive positions
in the U.S. military.
Rumsfeld rejected the use of Arab or Muslim profiling among service
members as the Pentagon launched an investigation of whether Islamic
insurgency groups and their sponsors have infiltrated the U.S. military. The
focus of the probe has been Camp Delta, the U.S. naval detention center
for Al Qaida and Taliban members at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Raising the question you did about profiling is not a useful thing to
do," Rumsfeld told a news conference last week. "The fact of the matter is
that there are a variety of vetting procedures, and people who happen to be
of one religion -- I don't think one has to assume that they have a monopoly
on this type of activity."
Officials said the Pentagon has decided to take a low-profile approach
to the Camp Delta investigation. At least three U.S. military employees have
been arrested on charges of possessing and relaying classified information
from Guantanamo and another seven service members remain under
investigation.
One detainee, a senior airman, was accused of relaying classified data
to Syria. There are 70 military interpreters at Camp Delta, many of them
natives from the Middle East.
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon investigation
has prompted concern that the detained U.S. interpreters sabotaged
interviews with captured Al Qaida and Taliban insurgents. The investigation
was said to have found evidence that the interpreters mistranslated both the
questions of
the interrogators and the answers of the Guantanamo prisoners.
Pentagon investigators, sent last week to review security, were said
to believe that the information gathered at Guantanamo was not meant for
Syria. Instead, they raised the prospect that much of the classified data on
Camp Delta was meant for U.S. allies in the Middle East whose nationals have
been in detention.
"There's no doubt that there are people out there trying to turn our
people," Gen. Ralph Eberhart, head of U.S. Northern Command, responsible for
homeland security, said. "I'm sure there are people right now being worked
on as we speak, and it's not working, and they're reporting it."
Officials said the Pentagon does not plan to suspend or dismiss the
commander of Camp Delta, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. They cited
pressure to quickly hire Arabic translators who could help interrogate the
660 detainees at Camp Delta.
"It should not be a surprise that in a time of war people try to
infiltrate this way, and it wasn't," Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.
