[JURIST] The US House Committee on Government Reform [official website] is waiting for the US Defense Department and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to comply with a subpoena [press release] seeking to compel the Pentagon to turn over several documents, including all drafts of a key report in the Abu Ghraib [JURIST news archive] abuse investigation. In March, the Pentagon failed to respond to an initial request to turn over the documents, most importantly all drafts of the August 2004 Fay report [JURIST report; text, PDF] and all communications relating to information provided by Army Spc. Samuel Provance. Provance testified before a subcommittee [JURIST report] of the Government Reform Committee in February, claiming that top military officials were aware of the abuse taking place at Abu Ghraib, but that investigators ignored his information and later retaliated against him for providing unclassified information to the media.

In the hearing, Provance alleged that Maj. Gen. George Fay [Wikipedia profile] purposefully questioned him about the role of military police and avoided questioning him on intelligence units. Provance also claimed that US troops had captured and imprisoned the teenage son of a detained Iraqi general to coerce the general to cooperate with interrogators. Provance served at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 with the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion and was one of the first intelligence specialists to alert the media to the abuse scandal [JURIST report]. The rare legislative subpoena against the Defense Department issued late last week gives the Pentagon until July 14 to deliver the unredacted statement that Provance gave to Fay, along with other requested materials. AFP has more.