Gitmo Goat or Hero?

By Adam Zagorin, SALLY B. DONNELLY

Did Major General Geoffrey Miller--commandant at Guantanamo Bay and a top adviser on interrogations at Abu Ghraib-- do wrong? No, says a new report by Lieut. General Stanley Green, the Army Inspector General (IG), that TIME obtained last week. An investigation recommended last summer that Miller be reprimanded for poor oversight of a high-value prisoner at Gitmo. But Green told TIME that the evidence is not there to back charges against Miller of dereliction and lying to Congress about his role in the scandal. The report concludes that at Gitmo Miller was unaware a canine had been used to intimidate alleged "20th hijacker" Mohammed al-Qahtani, or that al-Qahtani was forced to don women's underwear and perform dog tricks--even though Miller was intimately involved in planning al-Qahtani's interrogation. The report even lavishes praise on Miller, noting the "strength, energy and effectiveness of [his] leadership." Miller's military lawyer told TIME: "The IG is entirely correct in fact and law."

Miller's exoneration may only inflame his critics. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, chairman John Warner pointedly suggested to one of Miller's superiors that he "go back over this entire matter," warning that Miller will be recalled before the panel to explain himself. Sources close to the powerful committee say that anger at Miller has escalated sharply since he invoked his right to avoid self-incrimination and refused to testify in the detainee-abuse trial of an Abu Ghraib dog handler. In that case, defense lawyers argued that their client was following guidelines from Abu Ghraib military-intelligence chief Colonel Thomas Pappas, who in turn has said under oath that Miller advocated using dogs to "get information" from prisoners.

Green, the Army IG, says that people need in the abuse-scandal investigations to find a "donkey to pin the tail on." But he insists "Miller is not the one." Which leaves the question: Who is?