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Report: Lt. Gen. Sanchez Ordered Prisoner Hidden from Red Cross

US News and World Report says there is now evidence that Gen. Richard Sanchez was directly involved in hiding prisoners from the Red Cross:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, issued a classified order last November directing military guards to hide a prisoner, later dubbed "Triple X" by soldiers, from Red Cross inspectors and keep his name off official rosters. The disclosure, by military sources, is the first indication that Sanchez was directly involved in efforts to hide prisoners from the Red Cross, a practice that was sharply criticized by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in a report describing abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

....The disclosure of Sanchez's involvement may focus more attention on him. There have been reports that his top Army lawyers sought to curb Red Cross access to Abu Ghraib, only weeks after the humanitarian agency uncovered abuses and sexual humiliation at the prison late last year. Some Army officers, including Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of the 800th MP Brigade, have blamed Sanchez's staff for refusing to release security detainees from Abu Ghraib even when they were believed to pose no threat to coalition forces.

Karpinski says Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who is Sanchez's top intelligence officer, was a major obstacle to releasing detainees. Fast, she says, served with her and a third officer on a detainee release board and vetoed recommendations to release inmates from the overcrowded facility, even after determining that they were of no intelligence value. "She did not want to release the next Osama bin Laden," Karpinski says. "She had a certain kind of paranoia." Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top military spokesman in Iraq, denies that Fast had veto authority and says most board decisions were unanimous.

There's that name again, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast. More here.

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