Abuse by secret special ops group

The ACLU released some documents yesterday (fruit of its ongoing FOIA requests) that shed more light on the behavior of a secretive special forces group called "Task Force 6-26." This group is known to have been used to secretly detain and interrogate "high level" members of the Iraqi resistance.

In July 2004, after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, a document was leaked alluding to TF-6-26, and abuses observed by Defense Intelligence Agency officials.

The documents released yesterday by the ACLU are the first "publicly" available documents confirming the existence of this group. ACLU Attorney Amrit Singh is quoted as saying, "These documents confirm that the torture of detainees and its subsequent cover-up was part of a larger clandestine operation, in all likelihood, authorized by senior government officials."

A memorandum included in the report states that “fake names were used by the 6-26 members” and that the unit claimed to have a computer malfunction which resulted in the loss of 70 percent of their files. The memorandum concludes, “Hell, even if we reopened [the investigation] we wouldn’t get any more information than we already have.”