Excerpts from Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Iraqi prisoner abuse, transcribed by eMediaMillWorks:

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.: An order to soften up a detainee would not be a lawful order. Is that correct?

Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy director of U.S. Central Command: Sir, that’s correct.

Roberts: What legal basis, then, would a soldier have for following that order?

Smith: Sir, none, and especially if you’re an organization of that type and have read any of the regulations — all of them are replete with guidance on humane treatment, as well as the number of fragmentary orders that were put out through General Sanchez telling them they could not do many of these — take actions that were inhumane.

Roberts: Secretary Cambone … some accused of the abuses at the prison claim they were acting under orders from intelligence officers. Do any of the Department of Defense regulations or policies encourage, condone or permit such actions?

Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense intelligence: No, sir.

Roberts: In your review of this matter, have you learned of any local or unit level policies — I emphasize the word policies — that encourage or condone or permitted these abuses?

Cambone: No, sir. …

Roberts: Was your encouragement to Major General Miller to inspect the prison in any way prompted or otherwise linked concerns about any abuse at the prison?

Cambone: No, sir, to the contrary. It was the desire to make certain that we had the proper conditions within those places in order for the information to be gathered.

Roberts: When you learned of the abuse, and knowing of the intelligence activities at the prison, did you have any concern about a possible link to the intelligence units?

Cambone: I understood, it’s probably in February, that there were military intelligence personnel who were implicated. I did not know the nature of that implication, the extent or scope of the abuse that had taken place, so I didn’t make a connection in the sense that there was a significant issue here until we moved down the path and realized exactly what was taking place.

Furthermore, I still don’t know that there is a significant issue here.

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.: Secretary Cambone or General Smith, in your estimation, why was anyone taking pictures in the security detention facility at Abu Ghraib, and is there any explanation from a physical security or prisoner security or military intelligence perspective?

Full texts of Senate and House hearings The Taguba report

Cambone: Sir, the photographing of prisoners, especially with private cameras, is against…

Allard: Private cameras?

Cambone: Private cameras. Is against the rules.

Allard: And so these were taken by private cameras?

Cambone: Sir, I believe they were taken by digital cameras that belonged to the individuals. But I don’t know that. Maybe General Taguba does.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba: Sir, they were personal cameras.

Allard: They were personal cameras.

Cambone: This specifically says photographing, filming and videotaping of individual EPWCI, other than internal interment facility administration or intelligence, counterintelligence purposes, is strictly prohibited.

Allard: And so this doesn’t have anything to do with the way you managed the prisoners or any of their interrogation or any physical security of the prison. This was taken on by individuals unknown to those in command at the time?

Taguba: That is my belief, but I don’t know specifically.