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"Military Intelligence Soldier Points Finger"
IceCat 17415 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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05-20-04, 05:20 AM (EST)
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"Military Intelligence Soldier Points Finger" |
Soldier says intelligence directed abuse
High-ranking intelligence officers allegedly involvedBy Josh White and Scott Higham Updated: 12:13 a.m. ET May 20, 2004Military intelligence officers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq directed military police to take clothes from prisoners, leave detainees naked in their cells and make them wear women's underwear, part of a series of alleged abuses that were openly discussed at the facility, according to a military intelligence soldier who worked at the prison last fall. Sgt. Samuel Provance said intelligence interrogators told military police to strip down prisoners and embarrass them as a way to help "break" them. The same interrogators and intelligence analysts would talk about the abuse with Provance and flippantly dismiss it because the Iraqis were considered "the enemy," he said. The first military intelligence soldier to speak openly about alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, Provance said in a telephone interview from Germany yesterday that the highest-ranking military intelligence officers at the prison were involved and that the Army appears to be trying to deflect attention away from military intelligence's role. Since the abuse at Abu Ghraib became public, senior Pentagon officials have characterized the interrogation techniques as the willful actions of a small group of soldiers and a failure of leadership by their commander. Provance's comments challenge that, and attorneys for accused soldiers allege that the techniques were directed by military intelligence officials.
In an interview, Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq at the time of the alleged abuse, claimed that military intelligence imposed its authority so fully that she eventually had limited access to the interrogation facilities. And an attorney for one of the soldiers accused of abuse said yesterday that the Army has rejected his request for an independent inquiry, which could block potentially crucial information about involvement of military intelligence, the CIA and the FBI from being revealed. Provance was part of that military intelligence operation but was not an interrogator. He said he administered a secret computer network at Abu Ghraib for about six months and did not witness abuse. But Provance said he had numerous discussions with members of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade about their tactics in the prison. He also maintains he voiced his disapproval as early as last October. 'In control' "Military intelligence was in control," Provance said. "Setting the conditions for interrogations was strictly dictated by military intelligence. They weren't the ones carrying it out, but they were the ones telling the MPs to wake the detainees up every hour on the hour" or limiting their food. The 205th Military Intelligence Brigade's top officers have declined to comment publicly, not answering repeated phone calls and e-mail messages. Provance, a member of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion's A Company, signed a nondisclosure agreement at his base in Germany on Friday. But he said he wanted to discuss Abu Ghraib because he believes that the intelligence community is covering up the abuses. He also spoke to ABC News on Sunday for a program that was to air last night. Provance was interviewed by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay -- who is looking into the military intelligence community's role in the abuse -- and testified at an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a pretrial hearing, for one of the MPs this month. But Provance said Fay was interested only in what military police had done, asking no questions about military intelligence. Gary R. Myers, a civilian lawyer representing one of seven MPs charged in the alleged abuse, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, said his client does not claim he was ordered to abuse detainees, just that military intelligence outlined what should be done and then left it up to the MPs. "My guy is simply saying that these activities were encouraged" by military intelligence, Myers said yesterday. "The story is not necessarily that there was a direct order. Everybody is far too subtle and smart for that. . . . Realistically, there is a description of an activity, a suggestion that it may be helpful and encouragement that this is exactly what we needed." Myers says he fears that officials are covering up the involvement of senior military officers, and that military officials have dissected the investigation into several separate inquiries run by people who have clear conflicts of interest. Earlier this month Myers asked Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of the Army's III Corps in Iraq, to order a special "court of inquiry" to offer an outside, unbiased look at the scandal, as was done when a U.S. Navy submarine collided with a Japanese fishing boat near Hawaii in 2001. In a short letter dated May 5, Metz refused. Provance said when he arrived at Abu Ghraib last September, the place was bordering on chaos. Soldiers did not wear their uniforms, instead just donning brown shirts. They were all on a first-name basis. People came and went. 'Gitmo-ize' the prison Within days -- about the time Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller paid a visit to the facility and told Karpinski, the commanding officer, that he wanted to "Gitmo-ize" the place -- money began pouring in, and many more interrogators streamed to the site. More prisoners were also funneled to the facility. Provance said officials from "Gitmo" -- the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- arrived to increase the pressure on detainees and streamline interrogation efforts. "The operation was snowballing," Provance said. "There were more and more interrogations. The chain of command was putting a lot of resources into the facility." Even Karpinski, who commanded the facility as the head of the 800th MP Brigade, had to knock on a plywood door to gain access to the interrogation wing. She said that she had no idea what was going on there, and that the MPs who were handpicked to "enhance the interrogation effort" were essentially beyond her reach and unable to discuss their mission. It was about that same time that Karpinski felt that high-ranking generals were trying to separate military intelligence away from Abu Ghraib and the military police operation, so it would be even more secluded and secret. Karpinski said in a recent interview that she visited three sites in and around Baghdad with military intelligence officials who were scouting a new compound. "They continued to move me farther and farther away from it," Karpinski said. "They weren't extremely happy with Abu Ghraib. They wanted their own compound." © 2004 The Washington Post Company
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PepeLePew13 26140 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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05-20-04, 06:44 AM (EST)
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1. "RE: Military Intelligence Soldier Points Finger" |
What a surprise. {sarcasm}It happens everywhere, not just in the military. The higher-ups all wear Teflon suits and it's the ones at the bottom of the rung who are usually hung out to dry and blamed.
 
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dabo 26942 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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05-20-04, 07:53 AM (EST)
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2. "RE: Military Intelligence Soldier Points Finger" |
Yup, that's the way it works!"The story is not necessarily that there was a direct order. Everybody is far too subtle and smart for that. . . . Realistically, there is a description of an activity, a suggestion that it may be helpful and encouragement that this is exactly what we needed." When will they learn not to leave it to amateurs? Still, one would think prison guards would be a bit familiar with the Geneva Convention and would want an actual order. "If all machines were to be annihilated at one moment, so that not a knife nor lever nor rag of clothing nor anything whatsoever were left to man but his bare body alone that he was born with, and if all knowledge of mechanical laws were taken from him so that he could make no more machines, and all machine-made food destroyed so that the race of man should be left as it were naked upon a desert island, we should become extinct in six weeks." (Samuel Butler, "Erewhon")
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udg 3381 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Car Show Celebrity"
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05-20-04, 09:49 AM (EST)
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3. "RE: Military Intelligence Soldier Points Finger" |
CHAIN OF COMMAND
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib.
Issue of 2004-05-17
Posted 2004-05-09In his devastating report on conditions at Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq, Major General Antonio M. Taguba singled out only three military men for praise. One of them, Master-at-Arms William J. Kimbro, a Navy dog handler, should be commended, Taguba wrote, because he “knew his duties and refused to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure from the MI”—military intelligence—“personnel at Abu Ghraib.” Elsewhere in the report it became clear what Kimbro would not do: American soldiers, Taguba said, used “military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.” Taguba’s report was triggered by a soldier’s decision to give Army investigators photographs of the sexual humiliation and abuse of prisoners. These images were first broadcast on “60 Minutes II” on April 28th. Seven enlisted members of the 372nd Military Police Company of the 320th Military Police Battalion, an Army reserve unit, are now facing prosecution, and six officers have been reprimanded. Last week, I was given another set of digital photographs, which had been in the possession of a member of the 320th. According to a time sequence embedded in the digital files, the photographs were taken by two different cameras over a twelve-minute period on the evening of December 12, 2003, two months after the military-police unit was assigned to Abu Ghraib.
An Iraqi prisoner and American military dog handlers. Other photographs show the Iraqi on the ground, bleeding. One of the new photographs shows a young soldier, wearing a dark jacket over his uniform and smiling into the camera, in the corridor of the jail. In the background are two Army dog handlers, in full camouflage combat gear, restraining two German shepherds. The dogs are barking at a man who is partly obscured from the camera’s view by the smiling soldier. Another image shows that the man, an Iraqi prisoner, is naked. His hands are clasped behind his neck and he is leaning against the door to a cell, contorted with terror, as the dogs bark a few feet away. Other photographs show the dogs straining at their leashes and snarling at the prisoner. In another, taken a few minutes later, the Iraqi is lying on the ground, writhing in pain, with a soldier sitting on top of him, knee pressed to his back. Blood is streaming from the inmate’s leg. Another photograph is a closeup of the naked prisoner, from his waist to his ankles, lying on the floor. On his right thigh is what appears to be a bite or a deep scratch. There is another, larger wound on his left leg, covered in blood. There is at least one other report of violence involving American soldiers, an Army dog, and Iraqi citizens, but it was not in Abu Ghraib. Cliff Kindy, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a church-supported group that has been monitoring the situation in Iraq, told me that last November G.I.s unleashed a military dog on a group of civilians during a sweep in Ramadi, about thirty miles west of Fallujah. At first, Kindy told me, “the soldiers went house to house, and arrested thirty people.” (One of them was Saad al-Khashab, an attorney with the Organization for Human Rights in Iraq, who told Kindy about the incident.) While the thirty detainees were being handcuffed and laid on the ground, a firefight broke out nearby; when it ended, the Iraqis were shoved into a house. Khashab told Kindy that the American soldiers then “turned the dog loose inside the house, and several people were bitten.” (The Defense Department said that it was unable to comment about the incident before The New Yorker went to press.) When I asked retired Major General Charles Hines, who was commandant of the Army’s military-police school during a twenty-eight-year career in military law enforcement, about these reports, he reacted with dismay. “Turning a dog loose in a room of people? Loosing dogs on prisoners of war? I’ve never heard of it, and it would never have been tolerated,” Hines said. He added that trained police dogs have long been a presence in Army prisons, where they are used for sniffing out narcotics and other contraband among the prisoners, and, occasionally, for riot control. But, he said, “I would never have authorized it for interrogating or coercing prisoners. If I had, I’d have been put in jail or kicked out of the Army.” The International Red Cross and human-rights groups have repeatedly complained during the past year about the American military’s treatment of Iraqi prisoners, with little success. In one case, disclosed last month by the Denver Post, three Army soldiers from a military-intelligence battalion were accused of assaulting a female Iraqi inmate at Abu Ghraib. After an administrative review, the three were fined “at least five hundred dollars and demoted in rank,” the newspaper said. Army commanders had a different response when, on January 13th, a military policeman presented Army investigators with a computer disk containing graphic photographs. The images were being swapped from computer to computer throughout the 320th Battalion. The Army’s senior commanders immediately understood they had a problem—a looming political and public-relations disaster that would taint America and damage the war effort. One of the first soldiers to be questioned was Ivan Frederick, the M.P. sergeant who was in charge of a night shift at Abu Ghraib. Frederick, who has been ordered to face a court-martial in Iraq for his role in the abuse, kept a running diary that began with a knock on his door by agents of the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division (C.I.D.) at two-thirty in the morning on January 14th. “I was escorted . . . to the front door of our building, out of sight from my room,” Frederick wrote, “while . . . two unidentified males stayed in my room. ‘Are they searching my room?’” He was told yes. Frederick later formally agreed to permit the agents to search for cameras, computers, and storage devices. On January 16th, three days after the Army received the pictures, Central Command issued a blandly worded, five-sentence press release about an investigation into the mistreatment of prisoners. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said last week that it was then that he learned of the allegations. At some point soon afterward, Rumsfeld informed President Bush. On January 19th, Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the officer in charge of American forces in Iraq, ordered a secret investigation into Abu Ghraib. Two weeks later, General Taguba was ordered to conduct his inquiry. He submitted his report on February 26th. By then, according to testimony before the Senate last week by General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, people “inside our building” had discussed the photographs. Myers, by his own account, had still not read the Taguba report or seen the photographs, yet he knew enough about the abuses to persuade “60 Minutes II” to delay its story. At a Pentagon news conference last week, Rumsfeld and Marine General Peter Pace, the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted that the investigation into Abu Ghraib had moved routinely through the chain of command. If the Army had been slow, it was because of built-in safeguards. Pace told the journalists, “It’s important to know that as investigations are completed they come up the chain of command in a very systematic way. So that the individual who reports in writing up to the next level commander. But he or she takes time, a week or two weeks, three weeks, whatever it takes, to read all of the documentation, get legal advice make the decisions that are appropriate at his or her level. . . . That way everyone’s rights are protected and we have the opportunity systematically to take a look at the entire process.”In interviews, however, retired and active-duty officers and Pentagon officials said that the system had not worked. Knowledge of the nature of the abuses—and especially the politically toxic photographs—had been severely, and unusually, restricted. “Everybody I’ve talked to said, ‘We just didn’t know’—not even in the J.C.S.,” one well-informed former intelligence official told me, emphasizing that he was referring to senior officials with whom such allegations would normally be shared. “I haven’t talked to anybody on the inside who knew—nowhere. It’s got them scratching their heads.” A senior Pentagon official said that many of the senior generals in the Army were similarly out of the loop on the Abu Ghraib allegations. Within the Pentagon, there was a spate of fingerpointing last week. One top general complained to a colleague that the commanders in Iraq should have taken C4, a powerful explosive, and blown up Abu Ghraib last spring, with all of its “emotional baggage”—the prison was known for its brutality under Saddam Hussein—instead of turning it into an American facility. “This is beyond the pale in terms of lack of command attention,” a retired major general told me, speaking of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. “Where were the flag officers? And I’m not just talking about a one-star,” he added, referring to Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commander at Abu Ghraib who was relieved of duty. “This was a huge leadership failure.” The Pentagon official told me that many senior generals believe that, along with the civilians in Rumsfeld’s office, General Sanchez and General John Abizaid, who is in charge of the Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, had done their best to keep the issue quiet in the first months of the year. The official chain of command flows from General Sanchez, in Iraq, to Abizaid, and on to Rumsfeld and President Bush. “You’ve got to match action, or nonaction, with interests,” the Pentagon official said. “What is the motive for not being forthcoming? They foresaw major diplomatic problems.” Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are defining characteristics of Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, and shaped its response to the reports from Abu Ghraib. “They always want to delay the release of bad news—in the hope that something good will break,” he said. The habit of procrastination in the face of bad news led to disconnects between Rumsfeld and the Army staff officers who were assigned to planning for troop requirements in Iraq. A year ago, the Pentagon official told me, when it became clear that the Army would have to call up more reserve units to deal with the insurgency, “we had call-up orders that languished for thirty or forty days in the office of the Secretary of Defense.” Rumsfeld’s staff always seemed to be waiting for something to turn up—for the problem to take care of itself, without any additional troops. The official explained, “They were hoping that they wouldn’t have to make a decision.” The delay meant that soldiers in some units about to be deployed had only a few days to prepare wills and deal with other family and financial issues. The same deliberate indifference to bad news was evident in the past year, the Pentagon official said, when the Army conducted a series of elaborate war games. Planners would present best-case, moderate-case, and worst-case scenarios, in an effort to assess where the Iraq war was headed and to estimate future troop needs. In every case, the number of troops actually required exceeded the worst-case analysis. Nevertheless, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and civilian officials in the Pentagon continued to insist that future planning be based on the most optimistic scenario. “The optimistic estimate was that at this point in time”—mid-2004—“the U.S. Army would need only a handful of combat brigades in Iraq,” the Pentagon official said. “There are nearly twenty now, with the international coalition drying up. They were wildly off the mark.” The official added, “From the beginning, the Army community was saying that the projections and estimates were unrealistic.” Now, he said, “we’re struggling to maintain a hundred and thirty-five thousand troops while allowing soldiers enough time back home.” In his news conference last Tuesday, Rumsfeld, when asked whether he thought the photographs and stories from Abu Ghraib were a setback for American policy in Iraq, still seemed to be in denial. “Oh, I’m not one for instant history,” he responded. By Friday, however, with some members of Congress and with editorials calling for his resignation, Rumsfeld testified at length before House and Senate committees and apologized for what he said was “fundamentally un-American” wrongdoing at Abu Ghraib. He also warned that more, and even uglier, disclosures were to come. Rumsfeld said that he had not actually looked at any of the Abu Ghraib photographs until some of them appeared in press accounts, and hadn’t reviewed the Army’s copies until the day before. When he did, they were “hard to believe,” he said. “There are other photos that depict . . . acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman.” Later, he said, “It’s going to get still more terrible, I’m afraid.” Rumsfeld added, “I failed to recognize how important it was.” NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and ‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.” No amount of apologetic testimony or political spin last week could mask the fact that, since the attacks of September 11th, President Bush and his top aides have seen themselves as engaged in a war against terrorism in which the old rules did not apply. In the privacy of his office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of senior Pentagon generals and admirals to act aggressively. By mid-2002, he and his senior aides were exchanging secret memorandums on modifying the culture of the military leaders and finding ways to encourage them “to take greater risks.” One memo spoke derisively of the generals in the Pentagon, and said, “Our prerequisite of perfection for ‘actionable intelligence’ has paralyzed us. We must accept that we may have to take action before every question can be answered.” The Defense Secretary was told that he should “break the ‘belt-and-suspenders’ mindset within today’s military . . . we ‘over-plan’ for every contingency. . . . We must be willing to accept the risks.” With operations involving the death of foreign enemies, the memo went on, the planning should not be carried out in the Pentagon: “The result will be decision by committee.” The Pentagon’s impatience with military protocol extended to questions about the treatment of prisoners caught in the course of its military operations. Soon after 9/11, as the war on terror got under way, Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly made public his disdain for the Geneva conventions. Complaints about America’s treatment of prisoners, Rumsfeld said in early 2002, amounted to “isolated pockets of international hyperventilation.” The effort to determine what happened at Abu Ghraib has evolved into a sprawling set of related investigations, some of them hastily put together, including inquiries into twenty-five suspicious deaths. Investigators have become increasingly concerned with the role played not only by military and intelligence officials but also by C.I.A. agents and private-contract employees. In a statement, the C.I.A. acknowledged that its Inspector General had an investigation under way into abuses at Abu Ghraib, which extended to the death of a prisoner. A source familiar with one of the investigations told me that the victim was the man whose photograph, which shows his battered body packed in ice, has circulated around the world. A Justice Department prosecutor has been assigned to the case. The source also told me that an Army intelligence operative and a judge advocate general were seeking, through their lawyers, to negotiate immunity from prosecution in return for testimony. The relationship between military policing and intelligence forces inside the Army prison system reached a turning point last fall in response to the insurgency against the Coalition Provisional Authority. “This is a fight for intelligence,” Brigadier General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, told a reporter at a Baghdad press briefing in November. “Do I have enough soldiers? The answer is absolutely yes. The larger issue is, how do I use them and on what basis? And the answer to that is intelligence . . . to try to figure out how to take all this human intelligence as it comes in to us turn it into something that’s actionable.” The Army prison system would now be asked to play its part.Two months earlier, Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the task force in charge of the prison at Guantánamo, had brought a team of experts to Iraq to review the Army program. His recommendation was radical: that Army prisons be geared, first and foremost, to interrogations and the gathering of information needed for the war effort. “Detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation . . . to provide a safe, secure and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence,” Miller wrote. The military police on guard duty at the prisons should make support of military intelligence a priority. General Sanchez agreed, and on November 19th his headquarters issued an order formally giving the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade tactical control over the prison. General Taguba fearlessly took issue with the Sanchez orders, which, he wrote in his report, “effectively made an MI Officer, rather than an MP officer, responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that facility. This is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agenda assigned to each of these respective specialties.” Taguba also criticized Miller’s report, noting that “the intelligence value of detainees held at . . . Guantánamo is different than that of the detainees/internees held at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq. . . . There are a large number of Iraqi criminals held at Abu Ghraib. These are not believed to be international terrorists or members of Al Qaeda.” Taguba noted that Miller’s recommendations “appear to be in conflict” with other studies and with Army regulations that call for military-police units to have control of the prison system. By placing military-intelligence operatives in control instead, Miller’s recommendations and Sanchez’s change in policy undoubtedly played a role in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. General Taguba concluded that certain military-intelligence officers and civilian contractors at Abu Ghraib were “either directly or indirectly responsible” for the abuses, and urged that they be subjected to disciplinary action. In late March, before the Abu Ghraib scandal became publicly known, Geoffrey Miller was transferred from Guantánamo and named head of prison operations in Iraq. “We have changed this—trust us,” Miller told reporters in early May. “There were errors made. We have corrected those. We will make sure that they do not happen again.” Military-intelligence personnel assigned to Abu Ghraib repeatedly wore “sterile,” or unmarked, uniforms or civilian clothes while on duty. “You couldn’t tell them apart,” the source familiar with the investigation said. The blurring of identities and organizations meant that it was impossible for the prisoners, or, significantly, the military policemen on duty, to know who was doing what to whom, and who had the authority to give orders. Civilian employees at the prison were not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but they were bound by civilian law—though it is unclear whether American or Iraqi law would apply. One of the employees involved in the interrogations at Abu Ghraib, according to the Taguba report, was Steven Stefanowicz, a civilian working for CACI International, a Virginia-based company. Private companies like CACI and Titan Corp. could pay salaries of well over a hundred thousand dollars for the dangerous work in Iraq, far more than the Army pays, and were permitted, as never before in U.S. military history, to handle sensitive jobs. (In a briefing last week, General Miller confirmed that Stefanowicz had been reassigned to administrative duties. A CACI spokeswoman declined to comment on any employee in Iraq, citing safety concerns, but said that the company still had not heard anything directly from the government about Stefanowicz.) Stefanowicz and his colleagues conducted most, if not all, of their interrogations in the Abu Ghraib facilities known to the soldiers as the Wood Building and the Steel Building. The interrogation centers were rarely visited by the M.P.s, a source familiar with the investigation said. The most important prisoners—the suspected insurgency members deemed to be High Value Detainees—were housed at Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, but the pressure on soldiers to accede to requests from military intelligence was felt throughout the system. Not everybody went along. A company captain in a military-police unit in Baghdad told me last week that he was approached by a junior intelligence officer who requested that his M.P.s keep a group of detainees awake around the clock until they began talking. “I said, ‘No, we will not do that,’” the captain said. “The M.I. commander comes to me and says, ‘What is the problem? We’re stressed, and all we are asking you to do is to keep them awake.’ I ask, ‘How? You’ve received training on that, but my soldiers don’t know how to do it. And when you ask an eighteen-year-old kid to keep someone awake, and he doesn’t know how to do it, he’s going to get creative.’” The M.I. officer took the request to the captain’s commander, but, the captain said, “he backed me up. “It’s all about people. The M.P.s at Abu Ghraib were failed by their commanders—both low-ranking and high,” the captain said. “The system is broken—no doubt about it. But the Army is made up of people, and we’ve got to depend on them to do the right thing.” In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A few months after General Miller’s report, Taguba wrote, General Sanchez, apparently troubled by reports of wrongdoing in Army jails in Iraq, asked Army Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a major general, to carry out a study of military prisons. In the resulting study, which is still classified, Ryder identified a conflict between military policing and military intelligence dating back to the Afghan war. He wrote, “Recent intelligence collection in support of Operation Enduring Freedom posited a template whereby military police actively set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews.” One of the most prominent prisoners of the Afghan war was John Walker Lindh, the twenty-one-year-old Californian who was captured in December, 2001. Lindh was accused of training with Al Qaeda terrorists and conspiring to kill Americans. A few days after his arrest, according to a federal-court affidavit filed by his attorney, James Brosnahan, a group of armed American soldiers “blindfolded Mr. Lindh, and took several pictures of Mr. Lindh and themselves with Mr. Lindh. In one, the soldiers scrawled ‘shithead’ across Mr. Lindh’s blindfold and posed with him. . . . Another told Mr. Lindh that he was ‘going to hang’ for his actions and that after he was dead, the soldiers would sell the photographs and give the money to a Christian organization.” Some of the photographs later made their way to the American media. Lindh was later stripped naked, bound to a stretcher with duct tape, and placed in a windowless shipping container. Once again, the affidavit said, “military personnel photographed Mr. Lindh as he lay on the stretcher.” On July 15, 2002, Lindh agreed to plead guilty to carrying a gun while serving in the Taliban and received a twenty-year jail term. During that process, Brosnahan told me, “the Department of Defense insisted that we state that there was ‘no deliberate’ mistreatment of John.” His client agreed to do so, but, the attorney noted, “Against that, you have that photograph of a naked John on that stretcher.” The photographing of prisoners, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, seems to have been not random but, rather, part of the dehumanizing interrogation process. The Times published an interview last week with Hayder Sabbar Abd, who claimed, convincingly, to be one of the mistreated Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib photographs. Abd told Ian Fisher, the Times reporter, that his ordeal had been recorded, almost constantly, by cameras, which added to his humiliation. He remembered how the camera flashed repeatedly as soldiers told to him to masturbate and beat him when he refused. One lingering mystery is how Ryder could have conducted his review last fall, in the midst of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, without managing to catch it. (Ryder told a Pentagon press briefing last week that his trip to Iraq “was not an inspection or an investigation. . . . It was an assessment.”) In his report to Sanchez, Ryder flatly declared that “there were no military police units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.” Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as an agent of the C.I.D., told me that Ryder was in a bureaucratic bind. The Army had revised its command structure last fall, and Ryder, as provost marshal, was now the commanding general of all military-police units as well as of the C.I.D. He was, in essence, being asked to investigate himself. “What Ryder should have done was set up a C.I.D. task force headed by an 0-6”—full colonel—“with fifteen agents, and begin interviewing everybody and taking sworn statements,” Rowell said. “He had to answer questions about the prisons in September, when Sanchez asked for an assessment.” At the time, Rowell added, the Army prison system was unprepared for the demands the insurgency placed on it. “Ryder was a man in a no-win situation,” Rowell said. “As provost marshal, if he’d turned a C.I.D. task force loose, he could be in harm’s way—because he’s also boss of the military police. He was being eaten alive.” Ryder may have protected himself, but Taguba did not. “He’s not regarded as a hero in some circles in the Pentagon,” a retired Army major general said of Taguba. “He’s the guy who blew the whistle, and the Army will pay the price for his integrity. The leadership does not like to have people make bad news public.” UDG
"So when the audience speaks, so to speak, they're speaking." ~Jeff Probst
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IceCat 17415 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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05-21-04, 05:22 AM (EST)
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10. "Secret Prison-Where it All Started?" |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5024068/New front in Iraq detainee abuse scandal?
NBC News exclusive: Delta Force subject of investigation; Pentagon official denies abuse By Campbell Brown
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 8:10 p.m. ET May 20, 2004BAGHDAD - With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees.
The target is a top-secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos. According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists — but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards. These sources say the prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug prisoners, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation. In Washington Thursday evening, a senior Pentagon official denied allegations of prisoner abuse at Battlefield Interrogation Facilities operated by Delta Force in Iraq. And he said the tactics described in this report are not used in those facilities. All of those practices would be violations of the Geneva Conventions. The conventions do not apply to stateless terrorists — the so-called non-enemy combatants like al-Qaida suspects caught by the United States in Afghanistan. But as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has made clear, the Geneva Conventions do apply in Iraq. “Iraq's a nation. The United States is a nation. The Geneva Conventions applied. They have applied every single day from the outset,” Rumsfeld has said. So, does Rumfeld know about the BIF and what goes on there? Several top U.S. military and intelligence sources say yes, and that he, through other top Pentagon officials, directed the U.S. head of intelligence in Iraq, Gen. Barbara Fast, and others to bring some of the methods used at the BIF to prisons like Abu Ghraib, in hopes of getting better intelligence from Iraqi detainees. The Pentagon’s top spokesman in Iraq says the military will not comment on the BIF or what goes on there. He was unwilling to even confirm or deny its existence. Gen. Fast declined our request for an interview due to the ongoing prison abuse investigation, one that has so far yielded charges against only the military’s lowest ranks. © 2004 MSNBC Interactive Timeline Prisoner abuse in Iraq
Key dates in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal Aug. 31-Sept. 9, 2003
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who runs the military prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, conducts an inquiry on interrogation and detention procedures in Iraq. He suggests that prison guards can help set conditions for the interrogation of prisoners. October-December
Many of the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib take place during this time period.
Oct. 13-Nov. 6
Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, provost marshal of the Army, investigates conditions of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. He finds problems throughout the prisons. Some units, including the 800th Military Police Brigade, did not receive adequate training to guard prisons, he notes. He also says military police (MPs) should not assist in making prisoners more pliable to interrogation, as their job is to keep prisoners safe. Nov. 19
The 205th Military Intelligence Brigade is given responsibility for Abu Ghraib prison and authority over the 800th Military Police Brigade. November
Two Iraqi detainees die in separate incidents that involved CIA interrogation officers. Jan. 13, 2004
Army Spc. Joseph M. Darby, an MP with the 800th at Abu Ghraib, first reports cases of abuse at the prison. Jan. 16
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez orders a criminal investigation into reports of abuse at the prison by members of the brigade. The military also announces the investigation publicly. Jan. 19
Sanchez orders a separate administrative investigation into the 800th MP Brigade. Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba is appointed to conduct that inquiry on Jan. 31. Late January - early February
President Bush becomes aware of the charges sometime in this time period, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, although the spokesman has not pinpointed a date. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld tells Bush of the charges, McClellan has said. Feb. 23
Seventeen U.S. soldiers suspended from duties pending outcome of investigation. Feb. 24
International Committee of the Red Cross provides the Coalition Authority with a confidential report on detention in Iraq. Portions of the report are published without ICRC consent by the Wall Street Journal on May 7. March 3-9
Taguba presents his report to his commanders. He finds widespread abuse of prisoners by military police and military intelligence. He also agrees with Ryder that guards should not play any role in the interrogation of prisoners. March 20
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt tells reporters six military personnel have been charged with criminal offenses. Mid April
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asks CBS-TV to delay airing photographs it has obtained of abuse at Abu Ghraib. Myers says the photos would exacerbate an intense period of violence under way in Iraq. CBS delays its program for two weeks. April 28 Rumsfeld meets with senators in a closed briefing on the war in Iraq. Rumsfeld neglects to mention the issue of prisoner abuse or the coming disclosure of photos. CBS “60 Minutes II” airs the photos, setting off an international outcry. Bush first learns about these photos from the television report, his aides say.
Early May
CIA confirms that some of its officers hid Iraqi prisoners from watchdog groups like the Red Cross. May 1
An article by Seymour Hersh, published on The New Yorker magazine's Web site, reveals contents of Taguba's report. May 2
Myers admits on ABC’s "This Week" that he has not yet read the Taguba report issued in March. May 3
Officials say the Army has reprimanded seven soldiers in the abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib. May 4
U.S. Army discloses that it is conducting criminal investigations of 10 prisoner deaths in U.S. custody in Afghanistan and Iraq - beyond two already ruled homicides - plus another 10 abuse cases. (The number grows by two on May 5, when the CIA says it is investigating more cases.) May 5
President Bush appears on two Arab television channels to address the scandal but does not apologize for the abuse of iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops. The following day Bush does apologize. May 6 The Washington Post publishes four additional photos. President Bush privately admonishes Rumsfeld for not keeping him informed about the issue.
May 7
Rumsfeld testifies before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees on the issue of prisoner abuse in Iraq. Separately, Army Pfc. Lynndie England, shown in photographs smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, is charged with assaulting detainees and conspiring to mistreat them. May 19
Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits receives the maximum penalty -- one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge -- in the first court-martial stemming from mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.
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KeithFan 7422 desperate attention whore postings
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05-20-04, 10:15 AM (EST)
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4. "RE: Military Intelligence Soldier Points Finger" |
LAST EDITED ON 05-20-04 AT 10:16 AM (EST)If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!!! It seems funny to me that so many are willing to drink the Kool Aid and take whatever these soldiers attorneys say as the gospel truth, not spun to put their clients in the best possible light. Did more people know what was going on there than was originally thought? Probably. Does that excuse these soldiers behavior? No, not traditionally.
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IceCat 17415 desperate attention whore postings
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05-20-04, 12:36 PM (EST)
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5. "The Adversarial System at Work" |
The military prosecutors will do everything they can to make the enlisted people look bad so as to protect the generals and politicians. The attorneys for the enlisted men will do everything they can to prove that the orders came from on high.The article that I quoted is separate from that dynamic, however, as the soldier who is the subject of the story is not being charged. He is a member of the military intelligence battalion and is acting as a whistle blower. This man has nothing to gain from bringing his information to light - in fact he has a lot to lose as organizations like the military tend to attack whistle blowers rather viciously. That alone makes me pay very close attention to what this man has to say. If you are going to put the privates on trial then put the generals who gave the orders on trial too.
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KeithFan 7422 desperate attention whore postings
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05-20-04, 01:19 PM (EST)
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6. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
This man has nothing to gain from bringing his information to light - in fact he has a lot to lose as organizations like the military tend to attack whistle blowers rather viciouslyI'm no psychic, but I can see into the future here rather clearly. Oprah now has his home phone number, and a book deal is not too far off. I'm not saying he's wrong, just that other motives could be in play here. I don't think he needs to worry about his safety, with the anal microscope the military is currently under I think his safety is assured. The article that I quoted is separate from that dynamic, however He hasn't been charged, yet, but there are several quotes from the defense of both the general and the guards used to back him up. What I took out of this is that they were beginning to paint themselves as victims as much as the terrorist/detainees are. Where does it stop? They were pressured by the military intelligence, the millitary intelligence was pressured by Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld was pressured by Cheaney with his patsy the President, the President was pressured by the military idustrial complex, industry was pressured by stockholders, stockholders are pressured by the spending habits of their wives/husbands. See how silly it gets? Here is what I think happened in a nutshell. MI is getting pressure from above for results, they start putting the screws to people. Reports start coming in about abuse, higherups say knock it off, but probably try to keep it quite because a) they are trying to correct it so it will no longer be an issue and b) we are in a war for the hearts and minds of these people and having it get out will do no good for our cause. Maybe these isolated incidents were put on the back burner (after all, there is a war going on) and these things tend to boil over if you're not watching them. I just don't see how all the hand wringing does anybody any good, unless you're a Democrat running for office.
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desert_rhino 10087 desperate attention whore postings
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05-20-04, 03:07 PM (EST)
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7. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
I just don't see how all the hand wringing does anybody any good, unless you're a Democrat running for office...besides, it's just a bunch of sand n*****s anyhow. There's really no point in looking to assign blame where it actually belongs.
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KeithFan 7422 desperate attention whore postings
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05-21-04, 09:50 AM (EST)
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13. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
I can't tell if you're joking or not here JV, I'll give you the benefit and assume you are.I think my post clearly shows that I want all those responsible to be held accountable for their actions (after all, that's part of being a conservative). What I don't like seeing is the automatic bashing of Bush based on conjecture and wishful thinking; and, by hand wringing I mean the entire situation as a whole, and we get the resposes (to paraphrase) "Oh, we are a horrible people, us Americans, if we only understood why they hate us they won't hate us anymore". Wrong. They will hate us no matter what, so we have to do what's in our best interest, within bounds of what is right. Now, I will say that if Bush approved illegal torture, he should step aside. If Bush knew it was going on and didn't tell the chain of command to stop he should step aside (the second part will be hard to prove).
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geg6 14941 desperate attention whore postings
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05-20-04, 04:01 PM (EST)
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8. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
"See how silly it gets?""I just don't see how all the hand wringing does anybody any good, unless you're a Democrat running for office." Sorry, Keithfan, but substitute the word "Republican" for "Democrat" and you have my argument against the impeachment of the Clenis. Except...nobody got hurt in that incident, no one died, and no international agreements were broken. When lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense and not taking responsibility as Commander in Chief for the actions of your appointees and their subordinates that occurred during a dubiously justified war against a country which never attacked nor was a danger to the U.S. is not...see how silly it gets indeed.
--wonders what ever happened to that fine old motto "The buck stops here."
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KeithFan 7422 desperate attention whore postings
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05-21-04, 09:35 AM (EST)
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11. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
When lying about an extramarital affair*sigh*
Note: I didn't bring this into the conversation. Lying, when done under oath, is called "perjury" or according to Webster "The deliberate, willful giving of false, misleading, or incomplete testimony under oath". No, there are not any damaged parties by Clenis' actions, just our Constitution. Most of us who are still bugged by the situation couldn't give a rip about the "extramarital affair" part, that's between him and Ms "Stand by Your Man (as long as you still help me politically)" --wonders what ever happened to that fine old motto "The buck stops here." The buck is stopping there. It is his responsibility to deal with it, and he is, thus the "buck is stopping". If the Commander in Chief is held personally responsible for every crime committed by soldiers, there would be no Commader in Chief in history that would be immune. That's not saying that soldiers are bad people, I have the highest respect for them, just that there are always a few bad apples.
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KeithFan 7422 desperate attention whore postings
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05-21-04, 09:52 AM (EST)
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14. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
Bad intelligence is not the same as lying, and cannot be claimed when defining "is".
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geg6 14941 desperate attention whore postings
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05-21-04, 10:32 AM (EST)
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16. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
LAST EDITED ON 05-21-04 AT 10:33 AM (EST)Okay, we'll leave the Clenis out of it. Completely. Sorry, I haven't noticed the buck stopping anywhere higher than some low-level MPs. I have noticed a lot blaming the MPs for bad behavior. I have noticed that he only began to "deal with it" when the press, who saw no action being taken, began reporting the information that they had held back (at the administration's request, mind you). I have noticed that there seems to be a bit of trampling on the Constitution by this administration when it suits them (violating the 5th and 6th Amendment rights of American citizens, violating Section 7 by covertly redirecting funds to secret planning for the Iraq war that had been apportioned by Congress specifically to the war in Afghanistan). I have seen the President praising an appointee who didn't do his job (read the report that had been available to him since January or, if he did, take action or inform his superior). I, too, support our troops. I have many family, friends, and students who are currently serving in Iraq. I have heard from several that they believe that their superiors have not done them any favors by, first, enabling this type of behavior to occur through inadequate staffing, planning, and training; and, second, by condoning a mindset regarding the local population that they are all potential terrorists, especially if they object to what they perceive to be an American occupation. They say that morale is not very high. This is the exact opposite of those I know who are serving in Afghanistan say. They say they are superbly trained (if understaffed) and led and that they have come into the country with a mandate to respect the locals and help them learn to govern themselves by modeling good democratic ideals. Morale among them is high. What is the difference between these two fronts in the "War on Terror?" I think that the main difference was the motive behind going into each country. One had a high moral and strategic purpose, had a concrete provocation to justify it, and international support. The other had some moral purpose, no strategic purpose, no provocation to justify it, and was opposed by the international community (a few banana republics and just two or three NATO allies do not the international community make). I'd just like someone to take responsibility for putting our troops into a position where something like this could even happen. I have yet to see the buck stopping anywhere that counts.
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udg 3381 desperate attention whore postings
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05-23-04, 05:43 AM (EST)
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22. "RE: The Adversarial System at Work" |
Sorry to dredge this up from page 2. My computer totally died Thursday night, and I just got back up and mostly running.I have noticed a lot blaming the MPs for bad behavior. I have noticed that he only began to "deal with it" when the press, who saw no action being taken, began reporting the information that they had held back (at the administration's request, mind you). I just wanted to say that internally, the MPs were dealing with the situation prior to the $#!+ hitting the fan in the media. The MP units that were scheduled to take over at Abu Ghraib in Feb/March were training at local military prisons, because they knew there had been problems & investigations, and they needed to do things "by the book." Regular MP training involves very little by way of prison training, unless you are actually assigned a prison duty station. MPs are not trained in prison procedures in basic training. In general, MPs are way over worked and under trained. When my husband's platoon deployed to Macedonia back in 2002, they were thrilled that they'd actually have time to do TRAINING! They had way more free time and training time WHILE DEPLOYED than they ever had/have while "home" in Germany. In fact, prior to 9-11, my husband was working 80-100 hours per week as an MP Platoon Leader (O1). Your average MP law enforcement soldier works 52.5 hours per week in a NORMAL week! In times of low staffing (and keep in mind that staffing is never optimal on bases here in Europe) or increased security concerns, those numbers can easily increase to 72.5 hours or more! UDG
"So when the audience speaks, so to speak, they're speaking." ~Jeff Probst
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IceCat 17415 desperate attention whore postings
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05-20-04, 06:10 PM (EST)
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9. "The search for..." |
... the truth of the matter is what best serves the people of your country. The most efficient process by which the truth will be found is by using the adversarily process of your legal institutions.Each side gets a chance to put forth their case and then each case is judged by its merits. If the soldier was ordered to commit the abuse then part of the defence attorney's case will have to prove that the order was given which would include some discussion of the source of that order. Now, as each court martial occurs it is possible that information will come to light that implicates someone up the chain of command. That information may prove to be of sufficient import that it leads to new charges against against this supervisor. This process may lead to a similar defence which leads to more information implicating another person even higher in the chain of command. As long as the process is conducted fairly, which each side in each trial having to prove its own case, then the process should cease at the level where no further culpability exists up the chain of command. The truth is what must be served here... that is what will do everybody good.
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KeithFan 7422 desperate attention whore postings
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05-21-04, 09:58 AM (EST)
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15. "RE: The search for..." |
No arguement here, but that isn't what is happening. People, are being tried, convicted, and executed politically when they may not deserve it. Certain people only have to keep doubt in peoples minds until November, and then they couldn't care less about the truth, which sickens me.
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desert_rhino 10087 desperate attention whore postings
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05-21-04, 03:57 PM (EST)
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17. "RE: Military Intelligence Soldier Points Finger" |
Even Karpinski, who commanded the facility as the head of the 800th MP Brigade, had to knock on a plywood door to gain access to the interrogation wing. She said that she had no idea what was going on there, and that the MPs who were handpicked to "enhance the interrogation effort" were essentially beyond her reach and unable to discuss their mission.This? Is a huge sign to me that someone between Karpinski and Shrub wanted to break the chain of command in order to engage in illegal interrogation without interruption.
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IceCat 17415 desperate attention whore postings
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05-22-04, 05:36 AM (EST)
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18. "Whistle blower punished" |
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/abu_ghraib_cover_up_040521-1.htmlContinuing the Cover-Up?
By Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon May 21, 2004 — A witness who told ABCNEWS he believed the military was covering up the extent of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison was today stripped of his security clearance and told he may face prosecution because his comments were "not in the national interest."
Sgt. Samuel Provance said in addition to his revoked security clearance, he was transferred to a different platoon, and his record was officially "flagged," meaning he cannot be promoted or given any awards or honors. Provance said he was told he will face administrative action for failing to report what he knew at the time and for failing to take steps to stop the abuse. "I see it as an effort to intimidate Sgt. Provance and any other soldier whose conscience is bothering him, and who wants to come forward and tell what really happened at Abu Ghraib," said his attorney Scott Horton. Provance Alleges Cover-Up A key witness in the military investigation into prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, Provance told ABCNEWS earlier this week that dozens of soldiers — in addition to the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at the prison, and he said there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it. "There's definitely a cover-up," Provance said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet." Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his commanders not to. "What I was surprised at was the silence," said Provance. "The collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something."
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desert_rhino 10087 desperate attention whore postings
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05-22-04, 11:18 AM (EST)
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19. "RE: Whistle blower punished" |
So let me get this straight...He came forward, and is now being punished for not coming forward? Hmmmmmmmm... I guess Military Intelligence really *is* an oxymoron.
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AZ_Leo 3526 desperate attention whore postings
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05-22-04, 01:11 PM (EST)
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21. "Today's He said.....She said" |
Someone (wonder who) released the documents from Darby's January 15 report. Doesn't clear up the mystery but it does have statements from the defendants pre-lawyer. Sounds like some bad people who were given immoral orders that then created an atmosphere that encouraged them to act on their own. It might be interesting to know if Garner acted this same way when he was a prison guard or if it must came out in Iraq.http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=1&u=/washpost/20040522/ts_washpost/a46523_2004may21 Punishment and Amusement
Sat May 22,10:10 AM ET
By Scott Higham and Joe Stephens, Washington Post Staff Writers Prisoners posed in three of the most infamous photographs of abuse to come out of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) were not being softened up for interrogation by intelligence officers but instead were being punished for criminal acts or the amusement of their jailers, according to previously secret documents obtained by The Washington Post. Several of the photographs taken by military police on the cellblock have become iconic, among them the naked human pyramid, the hooded man standing on a box hooked up to wires, and the three naked prisoners handcuffed together on the prison floor. The documents show that MPs staged the photographs as a form of entertainment or to discipline the prisoners for acts ranging from rioting to an alleged rape of a teenage boy in the prison. -----------------------
For instance, they contain tantalizing hints about the role of military intelligence officers who operated in the shadows of Tier 1A at the prison. One military police officer said in a sworn statement that civilian and military intelligence officers frequently visited Tier 1A at night, spiriting detainees away for questioning out of sight of the MPs inside a "wood hut" behind the prison building. The documents also offer the first detailed account of how the abuse scandal unraveled. Spec. Joseph M. Darby told investigators that he returned to Abu Ghraib from leave in November and heard about a shooting at the prison's "hard site," which contains Tier 1A. He said that he asked the MP in charge of the tier's night shift, Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., if he had any photographs of the cell where the shooting took place. Darby said Graner handed him two CDs of photographs. "I thought the discs just had pictures of Iraq, the cell where the shooting occurred," Darby told investigators. Instead, Darby viewed hundreds of photographs showing naked detainees being abused by U.S. soldiers. "It was just wrong," Darby said. "I knew I had to do something." He said that he asked Graner, a Pennsylvania prison guard in civilian life, about the photographs. Graner replied: "The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.' " In the newly obtained documents, the MPs who gave statements describe Graner and Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II as the leaders and organizers of the abuse. Frederick was the enlisted man in charge of Tier 1A and worked as a prison guard in Virginia. ------------------------
Davis, one of the MPs, said he lied when he was initially confronted by military investigators about his role in the abuse, according to the documents. He gave a second statement on Jan. 15. "It bothers me that I did not tell the truth," he said. "When I was asked about it today, I decided I needed to be honest and maintain my integrity and admit my fault." Davis said that civilian and military intelligence personnel frequently visited Tier 1A and took detainees to a wood hut outside for interrogations. Portions of Davis's statement were included in an investigative report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. But his full statement contains fresh details about what took place on the cellblock. There were different rules and procedures on Tier 1A, he said. "I never saw a set of rules or SOP for that section -- just word of mouth," Davis said. "I did see paperwork provided by the MI soldiers regulating sleep and meals for some of the MI-hold prisoners." He said he was asked by Graner to help prepare the detainees for interrogation. MPs or their attorneys have said that Graner served as the liaison on the cellblock between the MPs and the intelligence officers, who had taken control of Tier 1A by the fall of 2003. Davis said Graner told him "the agents and MI soldiers would ask him to do things, but nothing was ever in writing, he would complain." Special visitors frequented the wing at night, Davis said. They included representatives from the military's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and other government agencies (OGA), a common expression for the CIA (news - web sites). "On the night shift, FBI (news - web sites), OGA, CID, MI would be in and out of the wing interrogating prisoners, bringing them in, or taking them away to the wood hut behind the hard site or away period," Davis said. "Someone was always there from the other agencies or military personnel, it seemed." He said he was disgusted by the treatment of the detainees. "You mentioned you saw various things you thought were immoral," one investigator asked him. "What things are you referring to?" "The sleep and food plan that was the majority of the crap," Davis said. "You see inmates stand all day and not get food until they are scheduled to sleep. They stand for three to four hours. . . ." "Why did you not inform your chain of command about this abuse?" "Because I assumed that if they were doing anything out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone would have said something," Davis said. "Also, the wing belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the abuse." Davis said Graner and Frederick encouraged him to participate in the incidents. "The MI staffs, to my understanding, have been giving Graner compliments on the way he has been handling the MI holds," Davis said. "Example being statements like 'Good job, they're breaking down real fast'; 'They answer every question'; 'They're giving out good information, finally'; and 'Keep up the good work' -- stuff like that." Investigators asked if he had heard military intelligence officers directing the guards to abuse detainees. "Yes," he said. Davis said the intelligence officers told Graner and Frederick: "Loosen this guy up for us. Make sure he has a bad night. Make sure he gets the treatment." "What is the name of the MI staff member who made the previously stated comments?" investigators asked. "I don't know the name because they often don't wear uniforms, and if they do they don't have name tapes," Davis said. Harman also hinted that military intelligence officers were orchestrating events on Tier 1A. She described a number of abuses, including soldiers letting a dog bite a detainee on both legs. She said that an interpreter practiced karate kicks to the head of another detainee, nicknamed the "Taxicab Driver." She said he was hit so hard he required stitches. "MI, CID, OGA, etc., have all been involved," she told investigators. England also told investigators that "MI had told us to 'rough them' up to get answers from the prisoners." All the MPs who provided statements also described abuses that appeared to have little to do with intelligence gathering. Instead, they said detainees were beaten and sexually humiliated as punishment or for fun. On Oct. 24, the MPs decided to punish three detainees suspected of raping a teenage boy at the prison. To make the men confess, the MPs stripped them and handcuffed them together. "They started to handcuff the two rapists together in odd positions/ways," England told investigators. "Once the two were handcuffed together, the third guy was brought over and handcuffed between the other two. Then they were laying on the floor handcuffed together, so all the other prisoners could see them. CPL Graner and SSG Frederick then asked me to start taking pictures with the camera." The resulting images, which show several soldiers other than Graner and Frederick, have been cited by Graner's attorney as evidence that such practices were condoned by military intelligence officers. Several of the worst abuses photographed took place on a single day, Nov. 8. In one of the most striking images to surface, a detainee jokingly referred to as "Gilligan" by the MPs was forced to stand on a box of food, with wires connected to his fingers, toes and penis. Harman said she attached the wires to "Gilligan" and told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box. "Why did you do this to the detainee 'Gilligan'?" a military investigator asked. "Just playing with him," Harman said. Also that day, MPs punished seven detainees they said were instigating a riot in a part of the prison outside Tier 1A. The detainees were stripped and forced to the floor of the cellblock. "Graner was placing them into position," Harman told investigators. "How long did the human pyramid last?" an investigator asked her. "The pyramid lasted about 15 to 20 minutes," she said. At one point, David jumped onto the pile of naked men, Sivits said. "That is when Sergeant Davis ran across the room and lunged in the air and landed in the middle of where the detainees were," Sivits said. "I believe Davis ran across the room a total of two times and landed in the middle of the pile of detainees. A couple of the detainees kind of made an 'ah' sound."
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desert_rhino 10087 desperate attention whore postings
DAW Level: "Playboy Centerfold"
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05-26-04, 09:19 AM (EST)
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23. "Who's surprised?" |
That even the military's own investigations are finally starting to agree with what the Red Cross has been saying for 2-3 YEARS now...More and more whistle-blowers are finally coming forward, too. WHY did the administration try so hard to downplay/deny/bury this when they HAD to know it would come out eventually? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/politics/26ABUS.html?pagewanted=2&th Abuse of Captives More Widespread, Says Army Survey
By DOUGLAS JEHL, STEVEN LEE MYERS and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: May 26, 2004 WASHINGTON, May 25 — An Army summary of deaths and mistreatment involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known. The cases from Iraq date back to April 15, 2003, a few days after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in a Baghdad square, and they extend up to last month, when a prisoner detained by Navy commandos died in a suspected case of homicide blamed on "blunt force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia." Among previously unknown incidents are the abuse of detainees by Army interrogators from a National Guard unit attached to the Third Infantry Division, who are described in a document obtained by The New York Times as having "forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees in an attempt to obtain information" during a 10-week period last spring. The document, dated May 5, is a synopsis prepared by the Criminal Investigation Command at the request of Army officials grappling with intense scrutiny prompted by the circulation the preceding week of photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. It lists the status of investigations into three dozen cases, including the continuing investigation into the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib. In one of the oldest cases, involving the death of a prisoner in Afghanistan in December 2002, enlisted personnel from an active-duty military intelligence unit at Fort Bragg, N.C., and an Army Reserve military-police unit from Ohio are believed to have been "involved at various times in assaulting and mistreating the detainee." The Army summary is consistent with recent public statements by senior military officials, who have said the Army is actively investigating nine suspected homicides of prisoners held by Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan in late 2002. But the details paint a broad picture of misconduct, and show that in many cases among the 37 prisoners who have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army did not conduct autopsies and says it cannot determine the causes of the deaths. In his speech on Monday night, President Bush portrayed the abuse of prisoners by American soldiers in narrow terms. He described incidents at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which were the first and most serious to come to light, as involving actions "by a few American troops who disregarded our country and disregarded our values." According to the Army summary, the deaths that are now being investigated most vigorously by Army officials may be those from Afghanistan in December 2002, where two prisoners died in one week at what was known as the Bagram Collection Point, where interrogations were overseen by a platoon from Company A, 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, from Fort Bragg. The document says the investigation into the two deaths "is continuing with recent re-interviews," both of military intelligence personnel from Fort Bragg and of Army Reserve military police officers from Ohio and surrounding states, who were serving as guards at the facility. It was not clear from the document exactly which Army Reserve unit was being investigated. On March 4, 2003, The New York Times reported on the two deaths, noting that the cause given on one of the death certificates was "homicide," a result of "blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease." It was signed by an Army pathologist. Both deaths were ruled homicides within days, but military spokesmen in Afghanistan initially portrayed at least one as being the result of natural causes. Personnel from the unit in charge of interrogations at the facility, led by Capt. Carolyn Wood, were later assigned to Iraq, and to the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib. Lt. Col. Billy Buckner, a spokesman for the 18th Airborne Corps, said in an e-mail message on Monday that no one from the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion had yet been disciplined in connection with any deaths or other misconduct in Iraq. He declined to say if anyone from the unit was the subject of an ongoing investigation. The document also categorizes as a sexual assault a case of abuse at Abu Ghraib last fall that involved three soldiers from that unit, who were later fined and demoted but whose names the Army has refused to provide. As part of the incident, the document says, the three soldiers "entered the female wing of the prison and took a female detainee to a vacant cell." "While one allegedly stood as look-out and one held the detainee's hand, the third soldier allegedly kissed the detainee," the report said. It says that the female detainee was reportedly threatened with being left with a naked male detainee, but that "investigation failed to either prove or disprove the indecent-assault allegations." The May 5 document said the three soldiers from the 519th were demoted: two to privates first class and one to specialist. One was fined $750, the other two $500 each. In what appeared to be a serious case of abuse over a prolonged period of time, unidentified enlisted members of the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion, part of the California National Guard, were accused of abusing Iraqi detainees at a center in Samarra, north of Baghdad. The unit, based in San Francisco, operated under the command of the Third Infantry Division, the armored force that led the Army assault on Baghdad last April and continued to patrol the city and the surrounding region into the summer. According to the Army summary, members of the 223rd "struck and pulled the hair of detainees" during interrogations over a period that lasted 10 weeks. The summary said they "forced into asphyxiations numerous detainees in an attempt to obtain information." The accusations were based on the statement of a soldier. No other details of the abuse — not the number of suspected soldiers nor the progress of the investigation — were disclosed. A spokeswoman for the California National Guard in Sacramento, Maj. Denise Varner, said she could not discuss any investigation. Another incident, whose general outlines had been previously known, involved the death in custody of a senior Iraqi officer, Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who died last November at a detention center run by the Third Armored Cavalry, of Fort Carson, Colo. Soldiers acknowledged to investigators that interviews with the general on Nov. 24 and 25 involved "physical assaults." In fact, investigators determined that General Mowhoush died after being shoved head-first into a sleeping bag, and questioned while being rolled repeatedly from his back to his stomach. That finding was first reported in The Denver Post. According to Army officials and documents, at least 12 prisoners have died of natural or undetermined causes, including nine in Abu Ghraib. In six of those cases, the military conducted no autopsy to confirm the presumed cause of death. As a result, the investigations into their deaths were closed by Army investigators. In another case, an autopsy found that a detainee, Muhammad Najem Abed, died of cardiac arrest complicated by diabetes, without noting, as the investigation summary does, that he died after "a self-motivated hunger strike." In two cases, involving the deaths of prisoners at Abu Ghraib on Jan. 16 and Feb. 19, investigations continue even though the causes are believed to be natural. In the Feb. 19 case, Muhammad Saad Abdullah was found dead with "acute inflammation of the abdomen." An autopsy classified the death as natural, apparently caused by "peritonitis secondary to perforating gastric ulcer." Army officials have been reluctant to discuss the type of detail that the document describes, even when investigations into the cases are closed. The Army has refused to make public the synopses of Army criminal investigations into the deaths or assaults of Iraqi or Afghan prisoners while in custody. At a Pentagon briefing on Friday, a senior military official and a senior Pentagon medical official said the Army was investigating the deaths of 37 detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, an increase from at least 25 deaths that a senior Army general described on May 4. Army officials have given rough breakdowns of those deaths, including those ruled natural deaths, homicides and ongoing investigations. But Army officials have been stingy with details. Of the two homicide cases the Army has closed, for instance, officials have given only spare details about a soldier who shot and killed an Iraqi detainee who was throwing rocks at the guards. The soldier was demoted and dishonorably discharged from the Army. When asked Friday about details of pending investigations that military medical examiners had characterized as homicides, and that had been described in news accounts, a senior official would only confirm, "That's an ongoing investigation." The official described the dates, locations and number of deaths involved in four cases ruled justifiable homicide, all in Iraq, including three at Abu Ghraib. But the official did not give details about the individual cases.
-- JV 
I kill thresds. What do you do?
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