The Mystery of Abu Ghraib

How were Iraqi detainees abused without the knowledge of higher-ups?

by Justin Raimondo

George W. Bush and his media minions told us that we must battle "the terrorists" in Baghdad and Najaf so we won't have to fight them in New York and Baltimore. But should the news that the Iraq war has been transformed into something resembling a gay S&M movie make us feel any safer?

PHOTOS OF PRISONER ABUSE (Warning: graphic photos.)

Colin Powell says that only "a few" soldiers were responsible for the Abu Ghraib outrages, and that this is "an isolated incident." Unfortunately, his remarks were reported just as news of a widening investigation broke. Powell also ignored the import of Major General Antonio M. Taguba's internal report, leaked to The New Yorker. Here is the "money quote" from Seymour Hersh's important piece:

General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen 'who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' which were neither authorized' nor in accordance with Army regulations. 'He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,' Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had 'received no formal communication' from the Army about the matter.)

"'I suspect,' Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel 'were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib,' and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action."

A third private contractor, Adel L. Nakhla, a civilian translator employed by the San Diego-based Titan Corp., is also identified as a "suspect." According to a senior Defense Department official interviewed by the Los Angeles Times,

"One of the issues that people are dealing with is who can investigate them. It's not clear in the legal framework that we have how to deal with this."

The issue of how to prosecute these crimes remains "unsettled," in spite of an edict issued by CPA head honcho Paul L. Bremer clearly giving jurisdiction to the home countries of foreign nationals who commit crimes in occupied Iraq. A law passed by Congress in the wake of the Bosnia prostitution scandal involving DynCorp also provides a legal framework for going after private military contractors operating overseas. So why the bureaucratic foot-dragging? Both CACI and Titan say they have yet to be informed of any legal proceedings against their employees: instead, we are told, 6 soldiers have been charged and face court martial, and an additional 7 have been given stern "reprimands."

They're reprimanding the officers, and prosecuting the grunts – while the "private" contractors are getting off scot-free, at least so far. Yet the lawyers for the accused soldiers maintain that their clients were "only following orders," and this is backed up by the former commander of military police stationed at detention facilities in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who said MPs were following instructions given to them by military intelligence officers. Karpinski told CNN:

"I don't know how they allowed these activities to get so far out of control, but I do know with absolute confidence that they didn't just wake up one day and decide to do this."

Guy Womack, lawyer for Charles Graner, one of the accused MPs, said the Abu Ghraib photos "were obviously staged" by U.S. intelligence officials:

"They were part of the psychological manipulation of the prisoners being interrogated. It was being controlled and devised by the military intelligence community and other governmental agencies, including the CIA."

The soldiers, avers Womack, were simply "following orders."

"I was only following orders" is a defense with a very bad history, but Womack raises an important point: to what degree are Graner and the other grunts scapegoats for crimes committed by their superiors? Martha Frederick, wife of Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick – who stands accused of indecent acts, assault, and other crimes – put it well:

"Those who are responsible are standing behind the curtain and watching him take the fall for it. It's almost like being a pawn in a chess game."

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! I am the Great and Powerful Oz, says the U.S. government, and these are the acts of just "a few" soldiers, as Colin Powell puts it. It's "un-American," adds Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the President vows to punish the offenders. But how far up the ladder will the prosecutions go?

Commander Punished as Army Probes Detainee Treatment

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 5, 2004; Page A13

The Army is investigating an allegation that U.S. troops killed an Iraqi detainee when they forced him and another man to jump from a bridge into the Tigris River, and a battalion commander has been disciplined for impeding the probe, officers familiar with the investigation said.

U.S. Probe: Two War Prisoners Murdered by Americans

May 4, 3:40 PM (ET)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has investigated the deaths of 25 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and determined that two prisoners were murdered by Americans, one an Army soldier and the other a CIA contractor, Army officials said on Tuesday.
An Army official said that a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of killing a prisoner by hitting him with a rock, and was reduced in rank to private and thrown out of the service but did not serve any jail time.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a private contractor who worked for the CIA was found to have committed the other homicide against a prisoner.

Mavs Owner Starting Own
'Apprentice'-style T.V. Show

Cash fight: Jewish gazillionaire Marc Cuban is starting his own Apprentice-style show called The Benefactor. Besides the competition between the two similar shows, Cuban has some pretty bad blood with Trump. For starters, he offered Apprentice runner-up Kwame Jackson a job. And now Cuban is dissing Trump on his personal Weblog. "You suggested our show was a duplicate of yours. It's not. It won't be. I wanted to make that perfectly clear."

----

April 2004 -- US troops reach agreement with rebels, ex-Saddam general to take on rebels now. While White House / Wolfowitz urge on US assault of Fallujah with "minimum civilian casualties."

"All wars are popular the first two months."

Fallujah accord leaves US policy in disarray

JAMES HALL
FOREIGN EDITOR
April 29, 2004

THE United States’ policy on Iraq was in disarray last night, as the Pentagon admitted it was unaware of a breakthrough agreement to end the siege of Fallujah announced by its troops on the ground.

The marines’ siege of Fallujah is the most controversial military action undertaken by coalition forces since the end of the war, with Iraqi doctors estimating that 600 Iraqis had died in the fighting.

US marines to the south of Fallujah were yesterday packing up their kit and destroying earthworks in apparent preparation for withdrawal. Yet elsewhere in the city, airstrikes were being launched against insurgent positions and gunfire could be heard last night.

Sunni and Shiite communities alike have expressed their anger at the US tactics, and members of the coalition-appointed Iraqi Governing Council have threatened to resign if the fighting continues. Confirmation of the coalition’s unpopularity came yesterday, with the publication of a poll which showed that, despite concerns about their own safety, the majority of Iraqis say they want the US and British troops now in Iraq to leave within the next few months.

While a new poll showed a majority of Iraqis want US and British troops to leave in the next few months, an American marine commander revealed that his troops were preparing to withdraw from the outskirts of Fallujah, a major U-turn in US policy.

Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said a newly created Iraqi force of 1,100 soldiers, called the Fallujah Protective Army and led by a former general from Saddam Hussein’s army, would take over security in the besieged city.

It was a deal few of his superiors seemed aware of.

In Washington, Larry Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said: "There’s no deal that we’re aware of." He added that he could not rule out that an agreement was in place, but said that officials at the US military command in Baghdad told him they could not confirm a final deal was sealed.

In Washington, Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, said the situation in Fallujah was confusing but a deal was being worked on.

"The goal has got to be to try to isolate the killers from the population, so that if military action is necessary, it can be done with a minimum of civilian casualties," he added.

The situation in Iraq is also causing increased concern in the US as the death toll mounts. Ten more soldiers died yesterday - eight of them killed when a car bomb exploded south of Baghdad.

At least 125 US soldiers have died this month, April 2004.

New Iraqi Opinion Poll - One Year After Liberation

More than 50 percent of those surveyed in the Gallup poll said attacks on US troops were "justified" or "sometimes justified," while only a quarter said they were never justified. In the Sunni triangle north of Baghdad, and in Baghdad itself, the number of respondents who said attacks were justified was much higher than the rest of Iraq.

Marines patrolling around Fallujah this week say they can feel the Iraqi anger every day, even when the two sides aren't shooting [reports USA Today]. Marine Lance Cpl. Wes Monks, 23, of Springfield, Ore., says that as he drives around the restive, mostly Sunni city, he sees Iraqis with a knowing, "sarcastic smile. You see it every day. ... We're always the last one to find out when we run over a mine." "I can see their point of view," says Marine Lance Cpl. Mathew Leifi, 20, of Orange, Calif. "If anyone rolled up on my street, I'd be p****d, too."

US troops also took a hit in the survey. They are seen by most Iraqis as "uncaring, dangerous and lacking in respect for the country's people, religion and traditions."

"One specific Iraqi complaint against US troops is the widespread perception – whether correct or incorrect – that they have been indiscriminate in their use of force when civilians are nearby," said Gallup's director of international polling, Richard Burkholder. Except for the Kurds in the north, two-thirds of Iraqis say that US troops "make no attempt to keep ordinary Iraqis from being killed or wounded during exchanges of gunfire," while 60 percent say the troops conducted themselves "badly or very badly."

The Guardian reports that one reason that British commanders, for instance, have refrained from sending more troops to Iraq, especially following the withdrawal of troops from Spain, is that they are wary of "getting sucked into operations determined by heavy-handed American tactics."

They [British commanders] have also made no secret of their concern that British troops operating with the Americans elsewhere in Iraq could cause serious problems for troops in the British-controlled area centred on Basra in southern Iraq. "If we do it we'll do it differently," said a senior defense official, referring to the possible deployment of British soldiers elsewhere in Iraq. "We must be able to fight with the Americans. That does not mean we must fight as the Americans."

In another incident that called into question the behavior of US troops in Iraq, Wednesday night CBS News showed pictures of alleged abuse against Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. According to the photos, US military police stacked naked Iraqi prisoners in a human pyramid, and "attached wires to one detainee to convince him he might be electrocuted." Last month the US Army announced that six US reservists serving as MPs face a court martial for allegedly abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Also, disciplinary actions has been recommended against the seven senior US officials who help run the prison, including Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski, the commander of the 800th Brigade. (woman in charge of prisoner of war camp)

USA Today also reports that much of the anti-US animosity reflected in the poll is not coming from direct contact with coalition troops, but from watching incidents involving US troops on Arab satellite TV channels. And although most Iraqis can get the pro-US broadcast station, and only about one-third get Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, it's the Arab channels that viewers trust the most, and consider the most 'objective.' The report notes that few Iraqis trust western networks like CNN or the BBC.

Fallen Soldiers

WASHINGTON (AFP) Apr 22, 2004
Photos of flag-draped caskets bearing the remains of US soldiers killed in Iraq are being shown on the Internet against Pentagon protocol after they were published in the Seattle Times over the weekend.

"The (US Defense) Department's policy regarding no media coverage of remains transfer has been in effect since 1991," a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

"The principal focus and purpose of the policy is to protect the wishes and the privacy of the families during their time of greatest loss and grief," he said.

Tami Silicio, an employee with an army subcontractor, secretly took the photographs of caskets draped in the US flag as they were transferred inside a US Air Force transport airplane in Kuwait, the newspaper said.

Silicio was fired after taking the pictures and supplying them to the newspaper.

There has been no other media coverage of the remains of soldiers returning from Iraq. Most caskets are back to Dover air force base in Delaware.

The government of President George W. Bush firmly reminded the news media of the policy of not photographing caskets in March 2003, shortly after the start of the Iraq war.

Opponents of the war have largely been critical of this policy, which they see as a government attempt to lessen the impact of the loss of US lives on public opinion.

WAR IN IRAG

Posted on Sun, Apr. 18, 2004

By MATTHEW SCHOFIELD and SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON
Knight Ridder Newspapers

(Schofield reported from Baghdad and Nelson from Najaf. Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondent Patrick Peterson contributed from Fallujah.)

BAGHDAD - As the fighting in Iraq widened and the death toll continued to mount on Sunday, Spain's new prime minister said he's ordered his country's troops out of Iraq as soon as possible and the top U.S. civilian administrator conceded that Iraqi police and security forces aren't ready to protect the country from insurgents.

The U.S.-led coalition is facing separate Sunni and Shiite Muslim uprisings, and the fighting widened on Saturday when five Marines were killed after they were ambushed on the Syrian border. That prompted Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to demand that Syria do more to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq.

The most intense fighting this weekend occurred in Husaybah, a small city along the Syrian border. According to U.S. military officials, the explosion of a roadside bomb drew Marines to investigate about 300 yards from the border, where they were ambushed by an estimated 120 to 150 insurgents.

The fighting lasted for as long as 14 hours, military officials said, estimating that 25 to 30 Iraqis were killed. The Marines said women and children gathered around enemy mortars, but it wasn't clear if they were there voluntarily.

A dozen American soldiers died on Saturday, 10 of them in action and two in accidents, bringing the number of American soldiers killed in action in Iraq so far this month to 98, more than died from enemy fire during the U.S.-led invasion a year ago.

Roadside bombs and ambushes continue to bedevil U.S. and allied troops, and coalition forces kept the major highways out of Baghdad closed on Sunday. The road west to Jordan has been closed since fighting intensified earlier this month in Fallujah.

Despite an announcement that some convoys are moving again, soldiers in Baghdad have complained that they're afraid they'll be back on Meals Ready to Eat - prepackaged, long-storing "foods" - because not enough fresh supplies are coming from Kuwait and Jordan.

Three soldiers died south of Baghdad when their convoy was ambushed near ad Diwaniyah. Another died in the southern part of Baghdad after a roadside bomb exploded. Two more died in apparent accidents, one when his Abrams tank rolled over in the northern part of the capital and another when he was electrocuted while working on a generator in Tikrit.

In Fallujah and Ramadi, a shaky peace continued to hold on Sunday, and sites were designated in the city for guerrillas to surrender weapons such as missiles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Talks were scheduled to continue on Tuesday in Baghdad between community leaders and coalition representatives. More than 2,000 Marines remain dug in around the mostly Sunni Muslim town, and coalition officials have said they're prepared to resume offensive operations if talks fail to produce progress.

The other flashpoint in Iraq remains Najaf, where 2,500 American soldiers have joined a Spanish contingent in an attempt to shut down outlawed Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr.

A spokesman for al Sadr, who's wanted on murder charges, told a news conference that the cleric's Mahdi Army militia would focus its efforts on Monday and Tuesday to protecting Shiites coming to pray at the Grand Imam Ali Mosque during a holiday commemorating the Prophet Mohammed's death.

The Mahdi gunmen withdrew to a tight perimeter around the Grand Imam Ali Shrine and the Kufa Mosque on Sunday, and were splitting guard duty with another Iraqi Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, which last year supposedly disarmed at the request of the Americans.

Attempts to negotiate a compromise over al Sadr with the Americans remained at a standstill, spokesman Qais al Khazali said on Sunday.

His supporters in Baghdad, however, said they were firmly behind the young cleric.

"We are not unfamiliar with the fight against those who oppose the truth of Islam," said Hasim al Araji, who runs al Sadr's Baghdad office. "Many will rise to fight for him if the Americans attack our city of peace."

Facing a self-imposed June 30 deadline to return sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government that still hasn't been chosen, the Bush administration is now fighting to keep roads and supply lines open, battling insurgents virtually nationwide and trying to hold together an international coalition strained by killings, kidnappings and now by Spain's withdrawal.

An Egyptian news agency on Sunday quoted Spain's new foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, as saying that Spain plans to withdraw its 1,300 troops from Iraq within 15 days.

The White House said it had expected the move, which new Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had promised, but Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Sunday called it "troublesome", saying: "It will put pressure on the other coalition nations that have joined in this, I'm sure."

T. Dubbs Weblog - December 2003

T. Dubbs Weblog - August 2003

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