A classic example

Of a non-denial denial, that is. A new book by Seymour Hersh, to be released tomorrow, charges that

Senior military and national security officials in the Bush administration were repeatedly warned by subordinates in 2002 and 2003 that prisoners in military custody were being abused,

says Saturday's New York Times.

Mr. Hersh asserts that a Central Intelligence Agency analyst who visited the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the late summer of 2002 filed a report of abuses there that drew the attention of Gen. John A. Gordon, a deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser.

But when General Gordon called the matter to her attention and she discussed it with other senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, no significant change resulted.

But here's the part that I like.

Mr. Hersh also says that a military officer involved in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq learned of the abuses at Abu Ghraib in November and reported it to two of his superiors, Gen. John P. Abizaid, the regional commander, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith.

"I said there are systematic abuses going on in the prisons," the unidentified officer is quoted as telling Mr. Hersh. "Abizaid didn't say a thing. He looked at me - beyond me, as if to say, 'Move on. I don't want to touch this.'"

But Capt. Hal Pittman, a Central Command spokesman, said in a statement Saturday, "General Abizaid does not recall any officer discussing with him any specific cases of abuse at Abu Ghraib prior to January 2004, nor do any of the officers of the Centcom staff who travel with him."

Did you catch it? Personally, I love it. It should be framed, preserved in amber, kept under glass, recorded in all future textbooks as one of the best examples of a non-denial denial you'll every come across. The technique come to prominence during Watergate and it consists of trying to sound like you're denying a charge by actually denying something else.

Never mind the weasel phrase "doesn't recall." That's amateur night. And jump over the fact that a "spokesman" made the denial rather than the General himself, giving the latter a measure of "plausible deniability" if the story has to be changed later. That's kid stuff. No, check out the actual response: The General doesn't recall "any officer discussing with him any specific cases of abuse."

But Hersh's source didn't say he discussed "specific cases," he said he referred to "systematic abuses" but the General clearly didn't want to hear more. By denying knowledge of particular cases of abuse, they're trying to look like they're denying knowledge of abuses, period. But in fact they're not.

And the very slipperiness of that answer, once it's noticed, makes me suspect they did know, that the General was told. Otherwise, why not deny the actual charge instead of one that wasn't made?