From an NYT story on “ghost” prisoners in Abu Ghraib
The memorandum criticizing the practice of keeping prisoners off the roster was signed by Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and a James Bond, who is identified as “SOS, Agent in Charge.” Military and intelligence officials said that they did not know of a Mr. Bond who had been assigned to Abu Ghraib, and that it was possible that the name was an alias.
“SOS, Agent in Charge”
Surely they meant – ‘OHMSS, Agent on Top of Things’
Goodbye, Mr Bond.
Josh Marshall notes that Douglas Feith is known to have used that as a pseudonym in the field.
If you think about it, this is really sinister. They pick you up on the street, put you into the interrogation system under a false name, and no-one can ever find you again..
Like a misfile in a busy office. Kafka would know the feeling..
One of the reasons I’m concerned is that I myself am a victim of faulty data matching. When Quadrant wrote in favour of ID cards I wrote a (published) letter pointing out some of the flaws of centralising error. I even used a current example of someone who had just been deported because of mistaken identity. There’s no way of knowing how many such errors weren’t caught before the plane landed the way that one was.