Former Abu Ghraib lead investigator to speak at UTPA

EDINBURG — The lead investigator into the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse case will speak at the University of Texas-Pan American on Monday for the first Global Security Leadership Speaker series event for the fall semester.

Retired U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Gen. George R. Fay is expected to talk about that investigation, as well as global security issues and the role of leadership in global security, according to the university.

The speech will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the university’s Student Union Theatre, 1201 W. University Drive, Edinburg.

Fay was the assistant deputy chief of staff of intelligence at the Headquarters of the Department of Army in Washington, D.C. From April to September 2004, he was the lead investigating officer into the military intelligence involvement in the detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

His report blamed the abuses at Abu Ghraib on oversight lapses of the American leadership in Iraq, including by the theater commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, a native of Rio Grande City.

Fay will also be meeting with students in the university’s Army ROTC program earlier in the day, said Nick Weimer, manager of the university’s Integrated Global Knowledge and Understanding Collaboration (IGkNU), which sponsors the speaker event.

The collaboration was formed about three years ago with a federal grant from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and is under the university’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Its role is to educate students and promote critical thinking and other skills needed to become leaders in national security, intelligence and all other sectors of the global economy, according to the university.