WHAT LED TO ABU GHRAIB
The first soft target hit,
August 7th, was the Jordanian Embassy when a car bomb exploded
outside. Eleven people were killed and more than fifty were injured. The
effects are clearly detailed in the following photographs:
Photo by:
MSGT Robert R. Hargreaves, U.S. Air Force
Photo by: Adam Shemper
Another target hit soon after on August 19, the United Nations building
in eastern Baghdad, in which twenty-two people were killed and more than
seventy were injured. In the bombing, Sergio Vierira de Mello, the chief of the
UN mission died trapped inside the rubble. This attack caused the UN to pull
most of their support staffs out of the region which also prompted a pull out
of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Oxfam and after a
second smaller bombing at the UN headquarters the UN pulled more staffers out
and Save the Children followed suit.
Photo by: Associated Press
Various attacks during the summer and
fall of 2003 in Iraq:
Photo by: Bullit Marque-RPG Attack
Photo by: Anja Niedringhaus/AP-Red
Cross Bombing
Photo by: EPA-Burned out Military
Humvee
This type of war was not what the U.S. was prepared to deal with or understand, they did not know their enemy and did not know who was committing assassinations, car bombings, roadside bombs and the like. At this point the priority became intelligence gathering. The US needed to know who was going to attack what, where and when before the surge of attacks could continue. That fall the US began raids in Iraq in which thousands of Iraqi’s were swept up for questioning. The most convenient place to hold these detainees was Saddam’s most feared prison, Abu Garhaib
This type of war was not what the U.S. was prepared to deal with or understand, they did not know their enemy and did not know who was committing assassinations, car bombings, roadside bombs and the like. At this point the priority became intelligence gathering. The US needed to know who was going to attack what, where and when before the surge of attacks could continue. That fall the US began raids in Iraq in which thousands of Iraqi’s were swept up for questioning. The most convenient place to hold these detainees was Saddam’s most feared prison, Abu Garhaib
There were 380 Military Police in Abu
Garhaib and thousands of detainees, they were overwhelmed. Conditions at Abu
Garhaib were harsh and they were under constant mortar attack, tensions ran
high. Intelligence was not coming from the detainees as Rumsfeld had hoped.
After a visit to the prison, Rumsfeld felt the MPs would have to institute
tougher interrogation techniques with the detainees. He gave person for these
techniques to go outside the normal limits of acceptable military and civilian
laws. Some of these included isolation, deprivation of light, lack of sleep,
long interrogations, removal of religious items, removal of clothing, and the
exploitation of phobias.[1]
These Geneva Conventions and Protocols were put into place to protect those affected by war, including soldiers, prisoners of war, injured and sick soldiers and civilians. The Geneva Conventions set up in 1949 in the wake of the atrocities carried out during World War II by Nazi Germany were technically the fourth version of conventions set up in 1864, 1906, and 1929. The changes made to the First Geneva Conventions included the immediate release of medical personnel and chaplains except in certain circumstances where their services were required to care for the wounded or sick prisoners of war. Medical equipment and transport of prisoners were also altered or arranged in the First Geneva Convention. The Second Geneva Convention (1949) made specific provisions for the conditions of wounded, sick and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea, the Third Geneva Convention (1949) was specific to the treatment of Prisoners of War, and the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) was specific to the protection of civilians in time of war. The Protocal Additions from 1977 and 2005 added protections for victims of International armed conflicts, non-international armed conflicts and also addressed the adoption of an additional distinctive emblem. These conventions were especially important to the United States as a protection for our own soldiers in times of war.
AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS AND PROTOCALS
The Geneva Conventions became an issue when the United States entered Afghanistan.Al-Qaeda did not sign the Geneva Conventions and therefore the United States Justice Department according to John Yoo was not required to stay within the parameters of the conventions with captured combatants. Early in 2002, President Bush decided the conventions could not hold sway over al-Qaeda when they captured American soldiers and contractors therefore the United states would not operate within them either.The persons captured by American forces would be seen as unlawful combatants rather than POWs.
Because the UN Convention Against Torture does not define the word torture in great detail much of its meaning was left to interpretation. The Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales defined torture to mean "physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."[2] The narrowed interpretation of torture allowed for very severe torture to take place within Abu Ghraib even though technically torture was prohibited. This type of interpretation was criticized because it could have justified much of what Saddam Hussein himself was perpetrating within his prisons.
In an attempt to gain intelligence raids and sweeps were conducted by American soldiers in which many civilian prisoners were rounded up for interrogation at one of Saddam's former prisons. Rather than directly identifying who many be guilty massive round-ups were conducted on minimal information. The film gave a good example of this when it described a type of vehicle being used by the enemy so therefore anyone in the area with that type of vehicle was rounded up for questioning.
CONDITIONS FOR THE 372ND MILITARY POLICE COMPANY
Andrea Bruce for The New York Times
Photo by AFP Getty
AP/John Moore
John Moore for Getty Images
The 372nd Military Policy Company (372nd M.P.C.) were trained to support combat operations before they arrived at Abu Ghraib but were then tasked with supplementing the prison guards at the prison. The 372nd M.P.C. was not trained to be prison guards and were completely unprepared for the challenges they would endure.
Abu Ghraib was one of the most attacked positions under U.S. control in Iraq and the prison was shelled or shot at daily. The road outside was the deadliest road on the planet at the time of their arrival. They faced unbearable living conditions including bunking in a room with two cremation ovens, the heat index in direct sunlight could reach 130 degrees, and the place smelled of old sweat, urine and feces. There were packs of wild dogs running the grounds digging up the bodies of some of the 30,000 prisoners Saddam's regime had put to death at the location.
During July and August the prisoners numbers hovered at around 1000 detainees but by the end of September in 2003 the number had soared to over 6000 detainees. There were just under 300 Military Police maintaining control of the prison. The detainees were housed in different categories of general population prisoners housed outside in tents and then hard sites within the prison walls that housed the intelligence holds.
THE HARD SITES
Interview Room by Richard Ross
AP
Oliver Poole
Public Domain
The Hard Sites at Abu Ghraib were the locations specific detainees were held for interview to gather intelligence (Tier 1A), where the insane or criminal prisoners were held, and where the women and children were housed (Tier 1B). The women and children being housed in Tier 1B were the family and loved ones of high value detainees and were used to gain cooperation from the detainees.
Typically there were six to seven guards for an estimated 1000 detainees in the Hard Sites. The male prisoners being held there were considered the worst of the worst, the American killers. The truth was that 75-80% of those being brought in were providing no information to intelligence gathering officers.
Jordanian Embassy August 7, 2003
UN Baghdad August 19, 2003 by Suhaib Salem for Reuters
Turkish Embassy Bombing October 14, 2003
Rashid Hotel October 26, 2003
The insurgency rate grew during 2003 at an exponential rate and the United States began to panic. The need for useful intelligence became paramount.
GEOFFRY MILLER'S GUANTANAMO BAY TECHNIQUES
In 2002, Miller requested the use of harsher interrogation techniques in a memo to the Secretary of State. The enhanced techniques he was requesting the use of included sensory deprivation techniques like extreme noise, solitary confinement, limited light or darkness, the use of stress positions, the use of phobias against the prisoners, and the removal of clothing. Not only did Donald Rumsfeld approve Miller's techniques in his Action Memo of November 27, 2002 but questioned the restraint being used during interrogations.
In August 2003, Geoffry Miller was sent to Iraq where officially the administration believed the Geneva Conventions would apply. His target was to obtain better intelligence from the thousands of detainees. From what he ascertained of the situation was that the prisoners were being treated too well and that they needed to be shown who was in charge of the situation.
Lt. General Richardo Sanchez took this to mean that harsher techniques were to be implemented with detainees and issued a memo detailing some of the practices that were acceptable to use. These extreme techniques included dietary manipulation, isolation, emotional manipulation, fear manipulation, ego manipulation, environmental manipulation, sensory deprivation, stress positions, and deception in various forms. A second memo a month later rescinded some of the techniques permitted in the first memo causing confusion with the 372nd M.P.C. at Abu Ghraib. It was unclear to them what practices were specifically permitted and what techniques were considered a violation.
The 372nd M.P.C. were removed from Janet Karpinski's command and placed under the command of the Military Intelligence. This shift moved the M.P.s from prison guard staff to the intelligence gathering machine and were tasked with softening up the detainees for interrogators. This left the M.P.s open to orders from other governmental agencies such as the C.I.A. and civilian contractors tasked with intelligence gathering. These organizations were outside the specific command of what the normal M.P. orders were and left much of the interpretation up to the individual M.P.s. It is believed that some of the guards became enchanted by the power and control this gave them.
THE ABUSE
M.P.s were ordered by M.I. and O.G.A. to do things that made them feel ethically and morally wrong. They believed they had no other choice. The M.P.s were required to harass and torture detainees through the night. Prisoners were hung from chains in unbearable positions causing them to scream out in extreme pain, they were forced to carry heavy burdens and run back and forth in the cell block even while injured and nude, they were threatened abuse of loved ones and forced to watch the abuse of family and they were sleep and food deprived. The orders of torture were made by the interrogators and soon became routine to the M.P.s.
In 2003, the prisoners at Abu Ghraib rioted. Three detainees were killed and nine were injured. Nine U.S. soldiers were injured in the riot. The abuse and torture intensified.
*ALTHOUGH WORDS CAN DESCRIBE THE ABUSE SUFFERED BY THE DETAINEES AT ABU GHRAIB, THE IMAGES THAT EMERGED DO NOT SIMPLY PAINT THE PICTURE FOR YOU BUT PHYSICALLY SHOW YOU THE TORTURE THEY ENDURED AT THE HANDS OF A FEW. THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE GRAPHIC AND MAY BE VERY DISTURBING TO SOME.
Digital photos obtained from M.P.s at Abu Ghraib
The abuse and torture inside the interrogation rooms was not captured on film but has become well documented and reported by former detainees. The detainees were beaten into submission, they were refused medical care and many died at the hands of interrogators although the exact number of deaths has not been released. Only one death at Abu Ghraib was dubbed a murder and no one was brought to trial for that murder.
Photo by Chuck Graner of the "Ghost" Prisoner killed at Abu Ghraib
It was later learned that the man was Manadel al-Jamadi
THE RELEASE OF INFORMATION
While trying to document his travels through Iraq, M.P. Joseph Darby innocently asked fellow soldiers for copies of any photos they had obtained while in country. What Sargent Graner England would hand over to Darby would change the way the world looked at the U.S. involvement in Iraq. Darby immediately turned over the disk of pictures to CID at Abu Ghraib. An investigation was begun.
A memo was released requesting any paraphernalia, photos or the like of Abu Ghraib soldiers and that the items would not be used against each person. There would be no legal action taken against those who cooperated, an Amnesty Box was put in place. Soldiers began to cover their tracks by deleting photographs and videos and wiping their hard drives clean.
In the Spring of 2004 60 Minutes II and the New Yorker broke the story. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld outed Joseph Darby on national television.
THE TAGUBA REPORT-2004
Two star general Antonio Taguba was tasked with investigating the abuses at Abu Ghraib. General Taguba believed that the actions of the soldiers were "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses."[3] His investigation led him to believe that the soldiers involved were not acting as "bad apples" as some had been led to believe but were part of a much larger picture that included some very high ranking officials. His report reflected his concerns but because he was limited in who he could investigate his report did not find a direct link or an order or policy given that allowed the type of torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib.
THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE REPORT
ON TREATMENT OF DETAINEES-2008
In 2008, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a report on the treatment of detainees. In the investigation for the report the committee found that high ranking officials did allow the use of harsh techniques against detainees and believed this led directly to the low level soldiers abusing and mistreating detainees. The techniques used at Abu Ghraib were techniques used on soldiers during SERE training and were meant to teach the soldiers in training what it may be like for them if they were captured and not intended to be used by those soldiers against detainees under interrogation. The committee reported that he Geneva Conventions were ignored and that these actions must never occur again.
THE OUTCOME AND FALL OUT
Eleven low ranking soldiers were charged, court marshaled and sentenced for their roll in the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Javal Davis was sentenced to six months in military prison.
Roman Krol was sentenced to ten months in military prison.
Sabrina Harman was sentenced to six months in military prison.
Megan Ambuhl received a reduction in rank.
Brigadier General Janis Karpinski received a demotion in rank to Colonel and retired.
Lynndie England was sentenced to three years in military prison for which she was only required to serve half that time. When she was released she moved back home with her parents where her days are spent searching for a job and caring for her son. As a felon and with her reputation the job search has been difficult. She and her lawyer still condone some of her actions while at Abu Ghraib, including giving a defense against the photo in which prisoners were made to stack up like a pyramid. They also still contend that she was manipulated by Graner. Graner is now married to Megan Ambuhl and has requested DNA proof that England's son is his. Although she says she does not feel guilt for what she did at Abu Ghraib she is on antidepressants and is plagued by nightmares.
Charles Graner was sentenced to ten years in military prison for which he only serves six and one-half years. He received the longest sentence of any of the soldiers brought up on charges stemming from the Abu Ghraib abuse. He married Megan Ambuhl, a fellow soldier charged in the abuse and someone he dated while he was seeing England. Appeals to his conviction failed and very little is known about his release because he is still under direct supervision until December 25, 2014.
[1]Film:
Abu Ghraib Context
[2]Film: Abu Ghraib Context
[3]Film: Abu Ghraib Context
[1]
Ricks, Thomas, Fiasco: The American Military
Adventure in Iraq, New York: Penguin Books, 2006, 2007.
