Ghost Detainees

ABC News:

Congress may keep up the focus on the prison abuse scandal following the disclosure that the military has concealed as many as 100 "ghost detainees" from the Red Cross. The presence of prisoners held by the CIA outside of the military's usual system of registration and care was an important finding of an Army investigation completed last month. Defense officials had previously only acknowledged eight such prisoners. But on Thursday, Gen. Paul Kern, who oversaw the Army investigation of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the number was "in the dozens, perhaps up to 100."

This is troubling, and certainly has the potential to lead to abuses, although the main Abu Ghraib scandal was definitely unrelated to any ghost detainees. I can certainly see good reason for keeping the identity of people you have captured secret for a time, as an attempt to preserve the usefulness of any knowledge you may gain from them. I think though that clear directives of when such a procedure is to be invoked as well as some procedures designed to prevent abuses needs to be in place. Clear time limits as to how long someone can be held in secret need to be a part of this. There was another sentence in the article that caught my attention because, to me at least, it makes absolutely no sense.

McCain said President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, Republican Rep. Porter Goss of Florida, should be asked about the matter.

What exactly are you going to ask him? Other than, "Given all this new info do you still want this shitty job?" Goss wasn't the head of the CIA then, he isn't the head of the CIA now, he has no direct authority over the CIA, and certainly less power and influence than McCain. Weird statement.