National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE- July 5, 2006
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
http://www.nswbc.org and Project On Government Oversight http://www.pogo.org
Contact:
Sibel Edmonds, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, sedmonds@nswbc.org
or Beth Daley, Project On Government Oversight, beth@pogo.org 202-347-1122
SUBPOENA TO RUMSFELD FROM HOUSE GOVT
REFORM COMMITTEE --
Answers Demanded Re: Abu Ghraib
In an unusual bi-partisan act, the House
Government Reform Committee issued a subpoena on Friday to Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld concerning the case of Army Specialist Samuel Provance. In
2004, Spc. Provance blew the whistle on detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq, including the use of prisoner’s children to “break” them. An alert from
the Committee follows below.
“Congress has inherent authority pursuant
to its oversight responsibilities to receive information of waste, fraud, and
abuse. We applaud Congressmen Davis and Waxman for taking the step towards
preserving this institutional authority,” said Sibel Edmonds, President of the
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
In February 2006, Samuel Provance
testified before the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security,
outlining his many attempts to alert his chain of command and Defense
Department investigators about abuses at Abu Ghraib. His testimony can be
viewed here: http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Provacne%20Testimony.pdf
According to his testimony: “They [the
investigations] seemed to me to be designed to shut people up, not to reveal
the truth about what happened and punish all the wrongdoers. In particular,
they seemed focused on trying to shut off the responsibility of those who were
higher up the chain of command.”
Three days after his May 18, 2004
interview on ABC News about the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Provance “was administratively
flagged” and had his “top-secret clearance suspended.” Under questioning from
House National Security Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Shays, Provance said
that as of February 2006: “I still haven't received my clearance back or any
official word as far as where it stands and so the only thing I've been doing
since being demoted is picking up trash and guard duty and things of that
nature.”
At a Committee hearing on Friday, Ranking
House Government Reform Committee Minority Member Henry Waxman delivered a
statement concerning the subpoena to Rumsfeld. Representative Waxman stated:
“rather than investigate Sergeant Provance's claims, the military ignored him,
told him he could be prosecuted for not coming forward sooner, and then demoted
him and pulled his security clearance.”
Rep. Waxman also described the failure of
the Pentagon to respond to the Committee’s request for documents: “To this day,
and after more than three months, there has been no substantive response from
the Department, and no documents have been provided. To their credit, the majority staff followed-up nearly a dozen
times with telephone calls and e-mails, without success.”
Among the many incidents, Provance
described in his testimony was his interview with General Fay in March 2004,
and his resistance to listening to Provance’s allegations concerning military
intelligence abuses. After telling General Fay about these abuses, Provance
testified: “He then said he would recommend administrative action against me
for not reporting what I knew sooner than the investigation. He said if I had
reported what I knew sooner, I could have actually prevented the scandal.”
At the February 2006 hearing, Chairman
Christopher Shays commended Spc. Provance: “I just want to say to you, Specialist
Provance, it takes a tremendous amount of courage with your rank to tell a
general what they may not want to hear and people like you will help move our
country in the right direction and so this full committee thanks you for what
you've done.”
In 2005, POGO issued “Homeland and
National Security Whistleblowers: the Unfinished Agenda,” examining the failure
of the federal government the protect whistleblowers from retaliation
(seehttp://www.pogo.org/p/government/go-050402-whistleblower.html. In February
2006, POGO’s Beth Daley testified before the House National Security
Subcommittee urging Congress to strengthen protections (see http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Daley%20Testimony.pdf)
Also testifying at the hearing was the
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (http://www.nswbc.org), “an
independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to
address our nation’s security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security
vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and
weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation’s borders and ports; to
uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct.” In
recent months, the Coalition has worked with the Congress toward legislation to
protect whistleblowers in the FBI, CIA and other national security agencies
from retaliation.
Founded in 1981, the Project On Government
Oversight (POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes
corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more accountable federal
government.
# # # #