Local general takes
control of prisons inside Iraq

WASHINGTON » The two-star Army general who ran the U.S. military prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and later took over the U.S. military prison system in Iraq has been reassigned to a senior staff job in the Pentagon.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller will be the Army's assistant chief of staff for installation management, with responsibility for the housing, environmental and other support operations at Army bases.

Replacing Miller in Iraq will be Maj. Gen. William Brandenburg, who has been deputy commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, based in Hawaii, since August 2003. He served much of his career in the infantry, mostly in Europe and the United States. He also was chief of staff of the Army's 5th Corps, its largest organization in Europe.

Miller ran Guantanamo Bay from October 2002 to March 2004 and has been credited by Pentagon officials with improving the amount of useful intelligence gleaned from terror suspects held there.

In August 2003, Miller was sent to Iraq to provide advice on the screening of detainees, their interrogations and the collection of intelligence. Among his recommendations was that military police be actively involved in "setting the conditions" for successful interrogations.

The prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib that exploded into an international scandal in spring 2004 took place mainly in October and November 2003, shortly after Miller's visit. He has not been blamed for the abuse. In March, he was sent back to Iraq as deputy commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq with responsibility for detainee operations.