Time Line to Abuse: The Real Story of Abu Graib

• Tom
  5:53 am on October 31st, 2008 1

  The GI’s are innocent. It’s the locals and the AP that are lying through their teeth to distort the truth. The US soldiers were surrounded by dangerous Iraqi mob so they had to protect themselves against the terrorist mob.

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• Gerry
  6:59 pm on October 31st, 2008 2

  I have always had serious problems with the” Abuse at Abu Graib”. The American media (in particular ‘60 Minutes and Mike Wallace’) and the media alone is responsible for disgracing and humiliating the United States as well as the death of countless soldiers. It is irresponsible journalism at its worst and most decadent. In an attempt to create another “Mei Lie” through which they could not only gain a “Peabody” or “pulitzer” but also influence the direction of the war, they played up a bunch of low lifes to be “American policy” directed from the top. Though Mapes has since been fired, as well as Dan “We make up the news, ‘you decide’” Rather, none of these “journalists” has been brought to trial for sidition, which is exactly what they were trying to do. The blogosphere is now under attack for “fact checking” that the MSM has been so lax in doing, and they wonder why. It has been the internet and the “Blogs” that have ended the rule of the MSM as the finale say as to who is telling the “truth”. I found it interesting that in making “Abu Graib” a museum in Iraq, there will be no mention of the American abuse. It was considered a very minor incident in contrast with the horrors committed there by Sadam.

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• Katrina
  10:52 am on November 1st, 2008 3

  You still don’t have it right…..anyone reading this is still misinformed about Ms. England. My husband, her official biographer, will post a comment.

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• sesame seed
  5:18 pm on November 1st, 2008 4

  I can definitely agree with MSM bias and crappy reporting. I agree that the military didn’t cover this incident up. However, there is more blame that needs to given out. This situation had 3 factors: person, environment, and system.

  I let this person who was involved in the investigation speak for itself.

  http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html

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• Gerry
  6:08 pm on November 1st, 2008 5

  SESAME SEED, When Jeffry Damler, Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy committed their crimes, was their High School Principle to blame? The local police force? The community, including the Mayor? Obviously the parents need to take responsibility, but where is the line drawn in the need to place blame? It was not the system, it was the failure of the system to insure these type of crimes did not take place. But the bottom line is it was the individuals involved who made the decision to humiliate and abuse the people under their care, reguardless of the “system” they worked under. Lets put the blame where it needs to be.

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• GI Korea
  7:29 pm on November 1st, 2008 6

  Sesame Seed, good link but Zimbardo makes a big mistake with his assumption that the soldiers involved in Abu Graib were good soldiers before they got there. Some of them were, a guy like Graner was not a good soldier and not even a good person.

  A guy like SGT Javal Davis admits he abused some prisoners because of a prison uprising a few days earlier when a female soldier was hit in the face with a brick. He also says the conditions of the prison is what led to the abuse occurring. These abuses occurred because there was no leadership in that unit that cared.

  SPC Darby still sums up best what happened there:

  Everybody thinks there was a conspiracy at Abu Ghraib.

  Everybody thinks there was an order from high up, or that somebody in command must have known. Everybody is wrong. Nobody in command knew about the abuse, because nobody in command cared enough to find out. That was the real problem. The entire command structure was oblivious, living in their own little worlds. So it wasn’t a conspiracy—it was negligence, plain and simple. They were all fucking clueless.

  Which relates back to one of Zimbardo’s points about power without oversight. That is what happened at Abu Graib when you had a charismatic sexual deviant like Graner who ran his night prison shift with no oversight from his chain of command.

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• sesame seed
  3:44 pm on November 2nd, 2008 7

  Absolutely, hold the individuals accountable, BUT…

  Gerry, you obviously enjoy hyperbole. How about I extend your hyperbole and blame you for participating in the system as a taxpayer. I’m definitely not blaming your teacher for your misinterpretation.

  It was not the system, it was the failure of the system to insure these type of crimes did not take place.

  system failure = system to be blamed (lack of supervision)

  GI also just said:

  …power without oversight. That is what happened at Abu Graib when you had a charismatic sexual deviant like Graner who ran his night prison shift with no oversight from his chain of command.

  Yes, the personnel involved may have already been messed up. Yes, the prison, which had an uprising, or the fact that mentally handicapped prisoners were not given the proper treatment created an environment in which abuses were accepted. But if proper supervision, proper training and screening of individuals (the system) were in place, these incident may have been caught earlier or prevented.

  Abu Grahib – Outcome evil

  Person – evil
  Environment – evil
  System – evil

  Take out any one of these parts and make it good and a lot of the problems could have been prevented.

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• Gerry
  7:45 pm on November 3rd, 2008 8

  SESAME SEED, I prefer my hyperbole to your faulty reasoning. All Men are evil(outcome). A man killed a woman=evil, Killing is evil, therefore all men are evil.

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• Katrina
  7:56 pm on November 3rd, 2008 9

  You all talk about these people as if they are objects. Meet Lynndie and you will know right away that she is “no monster”. Yes, what she was involved in was awful, but that whole situation was AWFUL. These reservists had no idea they would be going to a war zone when they joined up (or at least she didn’t). The reserves are usually used for homeland emergencies such as natural disasters or civil disturbances. This entire war has been a nightmare. She has paid the price of her sin – being in love with a complete and utter maniac who took great delight in controlling everyone around him. She has paid the price for her sin. Let those without their own hidden sins throw the first stone…

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• Gerry
  8:39 pm on November 3rd, 2008 10

  KATRINA, I have no doubt if any of us met with Lynndie, we would find her to be more than human and likable. Thats not the issue. Its what the media made her out to be, and as such disgraced the entire United States military, and the United States of America as well. Her actions more than likely inflamed an already radical Arab population and as a result more US troops probobly died than should have. Her actions, as naieve as she was, had world wide ramifications. She had “free will” as an adult to decide her choice of actions. I don’t discount her being in “love” with a sadist, but, that too was her choice. She made those choices using other human beings as her props. Under different circumstances perhaps nothing would have happened. A college fraternaty, sorority, etc, but it was during the worst part of a war, where idiology and peoples lives were at stake. The media, although previously informed and aware, discovered suddenly “Photographs” and a chance at not only a “Peabody” award, but another My Lei, that could change the outcome of the war. Lynndie was no longer the issue at that time. It was the “Story” being spread around the world. So yes, she gets talked about in terms that are demeaning to her as a person. Do you think its undeserved?

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• Katrina
  6:57 am on November 4th, 2008 11

  I did not complete my thought in my last posting. Had the media not sensationalized this story, the military was already in the middle of investigating it and would have disciplined the soldiers involved, accordingly. But, because the photos were “put out there” which embarassed Bush and the military – Lynndie had to be made “an example”. Interestingly, when the military put her under detention in January they did not charge her – but the day after the photos came out, they did. She would have paid her price, through the military, not the court of public opinion. You even claim she had sex with prisoners in your timeline – SHE DID NOT!

  As I said, this is not to excuse her actions, but I’m tired of only hearing one side to this story.

  Happy election day – time for a change!

  Katrina

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• GI Korea
  7:49 am on November 4th, 2008 12

  I never said she had sex with any prisoners. She took sexually explicit pictures with the prisoners and because of this one of the crimes she was convicted of was an indecent act.

  Personally I don’t hold her as the main villain in this case. She should have known better but Graner and Frederick are the real villains is this group because it is pretty obvious England was being manipulated by Graner.

  Also I find your statement reservists didn’t know they were going to a war zone odd. Don’t join the military if you don’t want to go to a war zone. Going to war zones is what the military does.

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• GI Korea
  7:53 am on November 4th, 2008 13

  Sesame Seed I continue to believe it has more to do with the people then the system. For example what was there company commander and First Sergeant doing not checking up on these people?

  My company commander I had in Iraq would not have put up with any of this going on. Clearly Graner and company had no fear of their commander or 1SG because they were using some of the pictures as screen savers on their computer. The system is only as good as the people who operate it and it seems Darby was the only one who cared enough to do something about it.

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• Katrina
  8:12 am on November 4th, 2008 14

  Yes, when I look back I see that you did not say she had sex with them. Sorry!I’ve made a couple of more postings about the “leash picture”, but I don’t see them on here. Maybe it was because there was a curse word? I explained the leash picture.

  I know why you question my comment about revervists not thinking they would go to war. She did not join the military as a four year regular soldier. She joined as a reservist believing she would be doing her one weekend a month stint in exchange for help with college tuition. As you may or may not know,reservists are generally used for “peace time” events such as civil unrest or natural disasters. I do understand what you are saying though. She comes from a very working class background, and like so many from Appalachia, joining the military (especially in a reservist capacity) is a way to serve your country while getting some help towards college tuition. Just remember, she did not join the regular military.

  Also, I’m sure you know how low on the pecking order of the military reservists are. Regular military treat them very disrespectfully (not all) because they are viewed as “weekend warriors”. As was noted earlier, Karpinski did not have her reservists trained for the type of prisoners and prison work these folks were put into. Abu Ghraib was a battle zone. I hope you got my posting about the leash picture.

  As I said in one of those postings. My husband is writing the only authorized biography of Lynndie, and I have a different perspective.

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• Gerry
  8:37 am on November 4th, 2008 15

  KATRINA, I never said she had sex with anyone. You also quote that Lynndie “had to be made an example” and indicate she was tried in the court of public opinion. I do not recall any misgivings by the media as to any unfairness in her trial. So it is more “in your opinion”, as you seem to feel she was a ‘victim’ and not a perpetrater of the crimes. As for a one sided story, perhaps. Altho we did receive much news about her life and who she was as a person as well during the time, and she was not portrayed in the media, so much as a monster, than her own photos did much of that for her. Graner received a much harsher sentence than Lynndie, and well deserved. Yes, time for a change. Remember Republicans vote today, and democrates on wednesday.

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• Katrina
  9:01 am on November 4th, 2008 16

  LOL – No, we all vote today! I also agreed that you did NOT say she had sex with prisoners. My bad! I do come from this on a more personal level. I am not saying she was not involved in bad behavior, but I do think she has been a victim of the media. When this first broke one of the dozens of reporters hanging outside her parents’ home said when her mom made “no comment” – “you better make a comment or we will say whatever we please”. Yes, Lynndie played a role in this event, but had the media not put it out there there certainly would not have been the retribution against American soldiers – so, yes, in that sense, Lynndie was made a scapegoat.

  Did you know that the military put out “an amnesty” after this came to light to all soldiers who might have taken pictures of anything going on in a wartime situation? Instead of turing pics in, people erased them. I’ve known of many instances when soldiers (especially during Desert Storm) who took lots of disturbing pics. Why do they do this? For the same reason my father-in-law got a slap in the face by Admiral Nimitz when he found out my father-in-law had kept a Japanese weapon he took off a dead Japanese at Guatal Canal (spelling). I don’t condone people wanting to have “trophies” of war, but it’s done all the time – all the time.

  No, there was definitely a M.A.S.H.-like atmosphere going on, but this war was so badly planned and executed. Bush had no plan, and the military had to do the best they could in the situation.

  On another note. Lynndie is a very private person. Putting her out there to talk about this incident is difficult. She also has PTSD.

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• KingofMekju
  10:10 am on November 4th, 2008 17

  Kat, got any naked pix? I know there are a few floating around. I just want to make sure you are real and not making this up.

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• Katrina
  6:04 pm on November 4th, 2008 18

  I guess you had to filter my posting. I am for real. You all can continue to debate.

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• Gerry
  10:36 pm on November 4th, 2008 19

  KATRINA, How did Lynndie get PTSD?

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• Katrina
  10:42 pm on November 4th, 2008 20

  Post traumatic stress disorder. She was in Iraq, remember? Abu Ghraib got shelled pretty routinely at night (the area around the prison remained a war zone for some time. I haven’t spoken to her at length about this, but the shelling took its toll on her and it was going on all during the investigation.

  Once the soldiers involved were put on detention they all had to live in one tent at Camp Victory – all of them together – Graner, Ambuhl, Lynndie, Frederick, Harmon – all of them. On top of that, she was pregnant as well – living in a tent with all the other accused. As you can imagine, she and Graner were not on good terms by that point.

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• Katrina
  10:43 pm on November 4th, 2008 21

  There is just so much the public does not know. You will have to read the book.

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• Gerry
  7:31 am on November 5th, 2008 22

  KATRINA, If the comments uou have made indicate the direction of the book, it sounds like she is being portrayed more of a victim. I’m sure I am not alone in saying mortor rounds in the distance or living in a tent with numerous others, would qualify many of us for PTSD, altho I cannot say I was pregnant at the time. Sounds like a lot of truth stretching to gain sympathy. I have no doubt there is an audiance who will buy the book tho. Sorry if I seem a little harsh.

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• Katrina
  7:25 pm on November 7th, 2008 23

  Hello Gerry,

  Most likely I have misrepresented my husband’s book. Here is what my husband has asked me to convey to you: He is not trying to “gain sympathy”, she does not get a “free pass” in the book. He is putting everything into a context so that people can make up their own minds about what happened. What she did was wrong, there is no doubth about it, but she wasn’t the ringleader and those 7 people with the 372nd were not the only ones perpetrating these abuses because the abuse was going on (from reading all the initial investigation and witness statements)at Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca. What you see in the photographs of the abuse at Abu Ghraib are not just 7 people abusing prisoners, but they are the ONLY visual evidence we have of Americans abusing detainees when the written evidence indicates there were abuses going on throughout the Iraq detainee system. But, that’s war….isn’t it?

  I, as a female, probably feel protective of Lynndie as I have spent several hours talking to her. She is not a monster, not a hardcore redneck, and in fact, a pretty shy young woman (I am 52). Originally, I supported out going into Iraq as I gave Bush the benefit of the doubt when he said Saddam had WMD – but he lied. I come from a family of military officers, and I respect the military. I don’t like seeing a president, who ran away from his own military obligations, sending young people into a war that wasn’t necessary – a way that marred the lives of so many of them…and for what? This includes Lynndie. Yes, what Lynndie got herself involved in was not good, but the culture of “anything goes” was alive and well in the Bush White House.

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• Katrina
  7:28 pm on November 7th, 2008 24

  PS – Abu Ghraib was a dangerous place – yes, it shelled! Guns were smuggled into the prison by the Iraqi police. Frederick himself was shot by a detainnee inside the prison. Please, do not put it out there that Lynndie was in a country club, or that she was not in a war zone – she was.

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• Katrina
  7:32 pm on November 7th, 2008 25

  and Lynndie did not diagnose herself with PTSD – the military doctors did. She witnessed some horrific things there. This war has brought nothing but shame to our country. Why did Bush turn his sights off of Osama? He was the person we were after, and should have stayed after.

  Also, I just receieved word yesterday that one of my students lost her cousin last weekend. He was serving in Iraq. The family still does not know what happened, but I just can’t stand seeing these young people die

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• Freedom
  7:56 pm on November 7th, 2008 26

  I have PTSD from watching too much TV. I guess I can torture people all I want and then get away with it.

  However, getting in a pile of naked men, or wearing a dog leash and being forced to sniff womens panties. If that is torture SIGN ME UP BABY!!!

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• Gerry
  10:05 pm on November 7th, 2008 27

  Katrina, like most Americans who have followed the war, your view is based on your politics. You seem to link the war fought by the troops in Iraq with “Bushes policies”. Thats fine, but those are your politics. The troops fight when told by our government and do their best. Please remember when the times got tough in Iraq, most of congress was running as fast as they could. They suddenly had nothing good to say about the troops or the war. It quickly became “I voted for it, but wasn’t given all the facts”. Well the troops had no choice in the matter and just went on to win the war. (And ‘yes’ we have won the war), Actually to the dismay of ‘many’ US politicians who had staked their careers hoping we would lose. My own personal opinion is every congressperson who voted for the war in Iraq should never be allowed to run for public office again. It would send a strong signal that they better think twice before they vote to go to war again, and they better back the troops up when they do. You need to direct your anger at ‘all’ the political hacks who voted to go to war in Iraq. Not just ‘Bush and his cronies’.

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• Gerry
  10:29 pm on November 7th, 2008 28

  Katrina, “I just can’t stand seeing these young people die”. Good. So you should be for the job the military did in putting an end to the war in Iraq. If it had been up to your politicians, we would have left by now leaving Iraq to disintigrate into chaos and sectarian war. Killing 10s of thousands of ‘these young people’ not to mention women and small children. Many by heinious means much greater than anything ever imagined at Abu Ghraeb. How would you feel about your country then? You need to thank the troops, not denegrate them with “it wasn’t just 7 troops, it was many Americans abusing detainees throughout the system”. But then Lynndie was just a ‘pretty shy young woman’. Give me a break.

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• Katrina
  9:09 am on November 8th, 2008 29

  Goodness Gerry,

  I’m not aware that I have ever denegrated troops, but that is your opinion. I think everyone’s beliefs are impacted by their politics and how they were raised. My father, step-father, and father-in-law proudly served during WWI and Korea. My step father was a colonel, and my father-in-law fought at Guatal Canal (can never remember how to spell that) and later a drill sergaent on Paris Island. My father-in-law was about as pro-military and patriotic as they come, but he had two sons who protested the Vietnam War. He supported them as he did not believe Vietnam was in anyone’s interest except politicians. He had no issue with anyone buring the American flag either as he used to say that he did not fight for a symbol (which the flag is) he fought for a belief.

  I respect those in uniform, but I will protest wars that don’t seem necessary. Are we civilians supposed to follow our leaders blindly? Why is it that the presidents who have most often led us in to a war have been those who never were soldiers? No, I think it is because these leaders have never seen the horror of war that they send our youth into places they don’t need to be. Do we go into every corner of the globe that has a dictator? Aren’t there other places in the world that need our help to overthrow evil people? Why don’t we go to those places? It is all strategic, and you as a military person knows this.

  I can’t make you change your mind about anything, but just because people do not support a war does not mean they don’t support the troops. Heck, I have to listen to another member of my family who is a the quarter master of his VFW complain about the “whining Vietnam vets”. I’m not sure what that is all about, but I’m sure it has something to do with that war. Those poor folks were denegrated and treated horribly – we learned our lesson about that.

  No, I grew up with a warbride mother from England who experienced the horror of war (she grew up in Southampton and was drafted at age 15). My nephew served in the Marines, couldn’t wait to go in and was the platoon leader all throughout bootcamp at PI). He served during Desert Storm – now? He marches as well.

  So, yes, our politics do play a part of it, but there are many people who think like I do who serve in the military and who have served in the military.

  I guess you did not like Colin Powell’s reasons for why he supported Obama? Powell is someone I would have voted for if he had run for President. The man has honor….

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• Katrina
  9:47 am on November 8th, 2008 30

  Gerry, I have to disagree again. People in Congress, like myself, voted or supported our initial entry into Iraq because our President told us (through Colin Powell at the UN) that Saddam had WMDs. That’s one of the reasons why Powell left the White House – he just had too much honor to go along with the lying to the American people. We supported Bush because we thought his people were telling us the truth. He knew all that stuff was untrue but wanted to get Saddam.

  How have we won this war? Yes, “The Surge” appears to have cut down on violence in Baghdad, but for how long? Has it really addressed the underlying hatred and distrust between the Sunnis and Shi’ites? That stuff goes back to the days of Muhammad. When we leave, do you think a civil war will most likely break out? No, we may have “some order” at the moment, but our going into Iraq has only served to destablize the region and open the door for Iran to meddle in the affairs of Iraq.

  By the way, there are several errors on your timeline for Lynndie – she joined the Reserves when she was still in high school – in 1999 when she was 17. She was never a “whistle blower” at Tyson’s plant. She left because she didn’t like what was going on there, but she was never a whistle blower. She did not take Graner home to her parents in WV – they met in Kentucky after the VA Beach trip. She did not show the pictures to her parents. The 372nd did not play with animal carcasses – that was done by a unit they relieved. The sex pictures were primarily taken while States side (and here is a question I have for you – have you ever looked at pornography?), and they were not “parties”. As you report for September 2003, Abu Ghraib was shelled, and was continuously shelled throughout Lynndie’s time there.

  As for Pappas, he was not there in the room the night they discussed what to do with Al-Jamadi’s body, but an OGA by the name of “Steve” (they do not identify his name in the records)and another OGA named “Chilly”. Steve was the lead OGA guy, and he took charge of the situation and stepped out of the room, went up to the tier office, and told everyone he had to call Washington. It was then that Pappas was contacted.(He called Pappas while he was up in the tier office). So, it was when he returned from talking on the phone that they put the body on ice over night. They then closed up the shower stall where he had been tortured to death and they gave Graner a key, and told him not to let anyone in to see the body. But, Graner did not listen to orders and that night, while on duty, he and Sabrina went in and took those awful pictures. The next day, the OGA guys back and took him out on a stretcher with an IV attached to his arm so that it would look like he was still alive, but sick. They did this because they could not trust some of Iraqi policemen working in Abu Ghraib because some had smuggled in guns to the detainees and were in fact insurgents. They did not want them seeing a dead body being taken out of the prison. The Navy SEALS were the ones who brought him in the night before. Al Jimadi was killed by a technique known as “Palestinian Hanging”. Lynndie actually came into the prison the night that Jimadi was being tortured by the OGA guys, but left because she could not take the screaming of Jimadi.

  Also, the pyramid pictures were not taken to “celebrate Lynndie’s birthday” although it was her birthday. There had been a riot earlier in the day and there were 7 detainees identified as the leaders. That’s another posting I can do later.

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• Gerry
  10:46 am on November 8th, 2008 31

  Katrina, LOL, I get more than a little bent out of shape when it comes to discussions about politicians and the troops. I cut a clear/distinct line between the two. I was not for the invasion to begin with. And I distinctly remember a National Guard General before Congress, who was not keen on the idea either, asking the congressmen if they were going to the same as they did to the troops in Vietnam and not support them when things got tough. The congressmen were all flustered and said of course they would support the troops. Well we all know they did the same thing during the Iraq war as they did to the troops during Vietnam. They ran as fast as they could. Murtha, “the marines were cold blooded killers”, Kerry “the troops are terrorizing women and children”, Pelosi, “the only reason we won in Basra is because the Iranians let us”, and before the surge was even complete, and there were clear signs it was working, Harry Reid declares “we lost”. I can’t tell you how much I dispise these people. I saw the media make Abu Ghraeb into a media circus, and found it disgusting as to how they portrayed the military. So when you talk about politicians and the troops in the same sentence it makes my blood boil. If it means anything, Obviously, Lynnsie would never have got the world wide attention she did, except for the news media, but I believe her sentence would have been the same. The news media while needed to tell the story of what is happening in the world is also self serving and often irresponsible in what they write and why. The only reason for Lynnsie was they had pictures and a chance to gain a “Peabody award”. They military would have corrected itself without the media.

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• Gerry
  10:59 am on November 8th, 2008 32

  Katrina. LOL, as far as “whining Vietnam vets”. I grew up in a neighborhood surrounded by WWII vets. When Korea came along, they dissed the troops with “its not even a real war”. Even when a neighbor lost a son at a place called “Chosen”, they didn’t seem to care. During the Vietnam war, the talk was all about the troops being a bunch of “misfits”. My guess is they lost some of the attention they received when people recognized how the troops of both Korea and Vietnam were treated, and therefore we are whiners. I don’t know the answer, but they all deserve equal respect.

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• CalmSeas
  11:15 am on November 8th, 2008 33

  “If it had been up to your politicians, we would have left by now leaving Iraq to disintigrate into chaos and sectarian war. Killing 10s of thousands of ‘these young people’ not to mention women and small children. Many by heinious means much greater than anything ever imagined at Abu Ghraeb.”

  Gerry:

  You just gotta know that it is still coming. “If” we would have went in there & turned the place into a parking lot, or nice playground…then, Yes, there might have been some lasting peace, but as with almost ALL of these 3rd World piss-pots, their major malfunction…is extensive corruption.

  Add the fact that Iraq is surrounded by Radical Islamic countries, who are already operating inside of Iraq with the cooperation of Clowns like Al Sadr (Sadr City)and it is a lost cause.

  Sure, our military has performed for the most part admirably, but as you have stated…once again our piece-of-sh#t politicans have sold us down the river (yea,the republicans were right there in the mix too)…along with the unpatriotic Left…unless it is now patriotic to get on the government dole and wait anxiously for that re-distribution of someone else’s wealth.

  I too saw the invasion of Iraq, while we were actively engaged in Afghanistan as a mistake, but still it was something that had to eventually be done, as it should “Have” been done back in 1991. As a note, we should remember what politicans/Generals were in charge then…as it looks like some of them may be recycled here in the near future.

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• Gerry
  11:45 am on November 8th, 2008 34

  Calmseas, “It may still be coming”. I also am skepticle as to wether or not they can run a democratic government. But if its does break down, it will be of their own accord, and we don’t need to be there. The Iraqi military can step in and appoint another “dictator for life”. Then the ethnic cleansing can begin anew as the world turns their heads and pretends its not really an issue they should be involved in. Yes, many of the republicans were in a panic as well and running fast. The few who didn’t remained completely silent.

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• Katrina
  2:20 pm on November 8th, 2008 35

  Yes, we agree with you as well. Lynndie would have been tried by the military and she would not have become the face of the “ugly American”. Believe me when I say that this book will give the complete story – and folks can make up their own minds. Lynndie isn’t blameless, but it’s amazing how many media outlets are still trying to get interviews with her. This is why my husband was asked to write the authorized story. Believe me, he did not seek this story. He is from the same area Lynndie is from (about 15 miles away) and she and her lawyer believed that he would at least give her the chance to tell her story. She has been completely cooperative with him – telling him the good and bad and sharing all the reams of investigation that went on with him. Abuse was going on everywhere in Iraq, but the photos from Abu Ghraib are the only visual evidence. From what we all have learned – the war was so fast their was no time to update SOP. Many of these young soldiers were flying by the seat of their pants – just trying to survive. Please, I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I respect those in uniform, and those who have served, but I also respect those who stand up to the politicians. So many who serve do so in order to learn a trade, or make money for college as they come from working class backgrounds. Many also serve for their country. I am a high school teacher who works in a poor urban school – the recruiters are there every day (just like they were in Lynndie’s case) promising these kids big signing bonuses and a chance to see the world. Our poor (which many in Appalachia are) are often the first to enlist, and the most to die in a war.

  Anyway, I’ll stop blathering!

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  2:33 pm on November 8th, 2008 36

  I have appreciated everyone’s comments on here. Let me ask you this question. Has “war” ever ended a conflict, or does it sow the seeds for the next one? Has violence ever ended a conflict? Now, I do believe we have had to go to war on several occaisions (like WWII), but did anything get finished in Korea? Did commumism spread after Saigon fell to the Vietcong?

  Also, I believe democracy only worked in our country because we wanted it – no one forced it on us. Democracy as a type of government is not easy to establish and keep running. Democracy has to be something that everyone wants, or it won’t survive. Once we leave Iraq, the heads will start rolling when Islamic law once takes ahold again. Iran will meddle, and so will Syria. “Strong-arm” dictatorship is the norm in that part of the world.

  My English mother used to tell me that if someone attacks your homeland you will fight like hell to protect it. When I visited Southampton after she died I realized just how much she really endured – bombing, almost getting killed several times, and death and the destruction of the city she grew up in.

  No, I respect you folks who have been willing to serve, I just don’t respect the folks who send us off to war so easily.

  [Reply]

• CalmSeas
  2:47 pm on November 8th, 2008 37

  Katrina:

  I’m pretty sure quite a few people here have been saying that we haven’t successfully concluded a war since WWII.

  Does war ever solve anything? It certainly keeps those we kill from doing whatever it was that we didn’t like from doing it again.

  Looking for someone to really blame…start with the State Department. Our military only gets involved after diplomacy fails.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  2:51 pm on November 8th, 2008 38

  Yes, we humans are quite flawed….

  [Reply]

• Gerry
  9:35 am on November 9th, 2008 39

  Katrina, I missed one of your ealier comments on “Yes, congress voted for the war, when they were told about WMDs by Collin Powell” I believe the Congress was briefed on the subject by the same agencies that briefed the president. It wasn’t by memos from the oval office or Sec of State. An investigation into the matter showed there were no coverups, lies, or intent to deceive by the intellegence agencies involved. The previous president as well as many members of congress, (on both sides) spoke often about Sadams WMDs. It was only after they had invaded that it was determined the intelligence was faulty. If I was secretary of state I would have left the administration as well. I know you want to vindicate the politicians who ran as fast as they could. But I don’t see where “They were cold blooded murderers”, “We lost”, “The only reason we won is because the Iranians let us”, and “our troops are terrorizing women and children” had anything to do with WMDs. It was pure ‘backstabbing’ the force they voted on to send to war. I believe most of the world understands that abuses occur in all wars, yet I think they understand that the war in Iraq probobly had the least amount of abuses of any war in history. Much of that can be attributed to the troops and their leadership. will that be in the preface of the book being written on Lynndie?

  [Reply]

• Gerry
  9:38 am on November 9th, 2008 40

  Katrina, After it was discovered there were no WMDs, Iraq was growing in sectarian violence, Al Qaeda was flocking to Iraq in droves to kill cowardly American soldiers, and Sadr was ramping up his death squads for revenge. Should we have just left?

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  12:04 pm on November 9th, 2008 41

  Hi Geri,

  Have you read the Downing Street memo? Have you read the words of Paul Wolfowitz, after the fact? The objective of Bush was a “regime change” – not WMDs. Iraq was not a noble cause (although I am not saying the military was not noble). Read the Downing Street memo, read the joint chiefs of state report, Sept. 3, 2003, and check out Paul Wolfowitz’s comments shortly after he left the White House staff which indicate that the WMD argument was just a rationale to allow Bush to make a “pre-emptive strike” on Iraq – something our country has never, ever done it its history.

  As far as atrocities – how about Haditha? Which really was far worse than the Abu Ghraib pictures, but we don’t know those people’s names like we do Lynndie’s. Why is that?

  The record speaks for itself as far as the conduct of the war and atrocities. But, it’s war, and people do get killed and that is the worst torture. We have had this feeling since Vietnam that we don’t want casualities.

  Have you watched the HBO series “Generation Kill”? The fact is people were thrown into these nightmarish situations, and like Iraq, and given the situation after 9/11, there was a great deal of animosity toward the Muslim world. Regardless of the “rules of engagement” which were never really clearly defined in Iraq, this animosity would translate into revenge and sometimes atrocity. Can I really blame a young soldier for responding inhumanly in critical life or death situations, when war itself is inhumane and barbaric? I cannot. What I resent are the politicians who send these folks into war, like this one, that appears to have no clear end game.

  Now, Afghanistan is deteriorating. Why, because we spend $5,000 minute on the war in Iraq. Bush, and yes I admit I put it on him, completely lost sight of our original objective which was to get Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Al- Queda. Our troops in Afghanistan are being dissed -and that is wrong, wrong, wrong.

  [Reply]

• Gerry
  1:43 pm on November 9th, 2008 42

  I believe all the marines involved in “Haditha” have been exonorated.(There could be one more, possibly a Captain, but he was not at the scene, only higher up in the chain of command. Possibly the reason you haven’t heard much about it is because the news media has been blamed for erroneously reporting the story as an “atrocity” to begin with. I doubt if you will see them self correct. Newsweek also tried to tell of “atrocities committed by the troops as a matter of routine” but that story died when the person telling it had never been in Iraq. I think the Weekly Standard had one that died for the same reason. But they were all looking as hard as they could for anything they could find. They didn’t find much after 5 years of trying. I would like to hear more about “all the US guards were doing it”. I never heard more than innuendo. But to be fair, yes there were a few abuses. If you will look up IBC (Iraq the Body Count)(generally accepted as having the best information on Iraqi war deaths) You will find during Sept 2005 to Sept 2006, approx 14,000 innocent civilians died a violent death in Iraq.(IBC has exact numbers) of that 315 were attributed to coalition forces. From Sept 2006 tp Sept 2007 approx 26,000 innocent Iraqis died a violent death. 540 were attributed to coalition forces. Like you said, “the record speaks for itself” . And you are correct the US does not want needless deaths. I believe that had much to do with the troops staying and putting an end to the fighting. I think we owed it to them for invading their country. Meanwhile at home the politicians were all in a lather about running as fast as they could. If the US had run at that time, it would have caused the biggest “Atrocity” since WWII. Rules of engagement from what I have heard have been very strict to the point of weekly breifings by the legal staffs to the grunts. Please do not portray the “young soldiers” as still being bed wetters, with their thumbs stuck in their mouths. Most are no longer young and those that are are usually mature and well disciplined. Unfortunately Lynndie was not one of them. As I stated before, I firmly believe every politician who voted for the war in Iraq should never be allowed to hold public office again. It would make the cowardly lions think twice before they ever sent the troops off to die for them again. The cost to the military during the highest year in Iraq was 4.2% of GDP. During Gulf war one, 4.6%, Vietnam war, 9.5%, Korean war, 13.2%, WWII 37.5%. If a politician had his or her career on the line depending on if we won or lost would help. I’m not for Afganistan either (I was for invading) as it is not like Iraq. Surge with everything we have (into the tribal areas as well) Kill as many Al Qaeda and terrorists as possible) for six/10 months, have all the pundits say what a good job we did at killing the terrorists but its bad for Pakistan and the Afgan civilians. Agree, pull out entirely, pay a couple billion a year for a couple years to the corruptocrats. Then let them return to their old ways.

  [Reply]

• Gerry
  1:46 pm on November 9th, 2008 43

  Katrina, I would appreciate if you would tell me how to set up a paragraph when I write. I don’t know how (go ahead laugh)

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  3:22 pm on November 9th, 2008 44

  LOL! (about paragraph)! I tend to ramble on email.

  I’ll pass on your information to Gary. He is knee deep in court documents. He has been all over the gamet regarding Lynndie. He wants to be fair to her, let her tell her side and let folks do their own judging. As you must know, the media barracaded her family inside their home. They are still afraid of the media as they descended on their quiet piece of the world like yellow jackets swarming after you when you run over a nest!

  Yes, you have the perspective of a soldier, and I come from a civilian viewpoint – one who has never faced war. I don’t want to either! It is interesting to note, though, that depending on who you talk to in the military – they don’t agree on Iraq or Afghanistan. I have not heard a consistent view of these engagements yet.

  [Reply]

• abu graib abuse - Dogpile Web Search
  8:51 pm on November 18th, 2008 45

  [...] http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact • Found on Yahoo! Search, Ask.com Time Line to Abuse: The Real Story of Abu Graib Time Line to Abuse: The Real Story of Abu Graib " by GI Korea in: Iraq … Lawyer claims that [...]

• Katrina
  5:20 pm on December 22nd, 2008 46

  Gerry,

  What do you think about the report out of the Senate Arms Services Committee released last week?

  Katrina

  [Reply]

• Mark
  5:32 pm on December 22nd, 2008 47

  This one.

  [Reply]

• gerry
  5:59 pm on December 22nd, 2008 48

  Katrina,

  I am aware of the report and its findings, but only as an overview. If you have a reference to it on the net I would appreciate it as I do not know its full title.

  Thanks

  [Reply]

• gerry
  6:57 pm on December 22nd, 2008 49

  I have now read the report and can see where you are heading. It does appear to make a strong case for Lynndie. But the report at one reading seems to leave many holes as to confusion, intent, and unintended consequences. I doubt it was anyones intent to have what occurred at Abu Ghrabe. It was obviously an out of control event.

  It would be interesting to fill some of the gaps, such as what exactly did General Sanchezes order in October say that caused confusion and who interpreted it for use.

  How did some of this “work its way to Iraq”?

  The international community is aware and involved in much the same discussions as to “stress and duress” vs “torture”. Many of the same subjects are involved.

  [Reply]

• Mark
  7:21 pm on December 22nd, 2008 50

  How did some of this “work its way to Iraq?”

  That’s an Army phoenomenon by which personnel learn a certain way of doing things at one duty station and then transfers the TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, Procedures) to his/her new unit. It is really bad when entire units company or higher echelon deploy from one theater to another after a pause in CONUS for refit/retrain.

  In this day and age, not even a physical transfer is required, since knowledge networks exist for units to share SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) without even physically changing units. I’d imagine this is probably more of what the verbiage of the report is getting at…TTPs and SOPs being shared between different units with a common skill set.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  4:30 pm on December 23rd, 2008 51

  Let alone the CI’s and MI’s that were moving all over the globe. I hope that Lynndie and the rest of the so-called “bad apples” will be allowed to seek a new trial with this information. A “bad conduct” discharge is far easier to handle than is a “dishonorable discharge”. So, if the Bush administration can get away with this, what does this mean for our men and women in uniform who at any time could become the scapegoat of an unscrupulous commander-in-chief. This reports supports what she said all along..,

  [Reply]

• GI Korea
  6:26 pm on December 23rd, 2008 52

  Katrina there is really nothing new is this report. It is just a compilation of all the other reports available. Bottom line is that the administration authorized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques used on US military personnel at SERE school to be used on detainees at Gitmo. Some of these same SERE school techniques were exported to Abu Graib.

  If the people at Abu Graib had just used the SERE school techniques on the prisoners then they would not have gotten in trouble. No where in SERE school are people stacked naked in pyramids, their penises played with, and the host of other deviant activities that the convicted soldiers did. The taking pictures of these activities only made it worse what they did.

  England is far from being a scapegoat. She did what she did and she paid the consequences for it. Hopefully she can get on with her life.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  6:53 pm on December 23rd, 2008 53

  GI – how does having detainees put pantees on their heads, or stacked naked, anywhere near as brutal sa OGA torturing and killing detainees? How does that compare? There were not SOP at this time – everyone was flying by the seat of their pants.

  Believe me, there ARE more pictures out there – especially of MI and CI doing their dirty deeds…..

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  6:55 pm on December 23rd, 2008 54

  Gerry – from my husband, her biographer

  First, one has to review the “Torture Memos” to get a sense of the timeline. These can be found online, because in general you are looking at the Bush administration’s attempts to circumvent the Geneva Conventions, and the memos themselves reveal how Rumsfeld interpreted the policy.
  As far as the migration of information is concerned, these measures were first employed at GTMO. In January of 2003, a PowerPoint presentation was viewed by military intelligence personnel at BAGRAM air force base in Afghanistan. This presentation showed the harsher interrogation techniques approved by Rumsfeld. Among them being hooding, forced nudity, humiliation (sexual and otherwise), loud music, and the use of dogs – etc.

  From Afghanistan, the GTMO techniques were brought to Iraq/Abu Ghraib by GTMO General Geoffrey Miller (August, 2003). Miller instructed MPs at Abu Ghraib that they should “set conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of detainees”. This was likened to the “good cop/bad cop” scenario used in most US prisons whereby the MPs would play the bad cop (threatening/abusing detainees) while the MI’s would promise safety for information. This is the SOP that the 372nd MP Co. saw when they arrived at Abu Ghraib on Oct 1, 2003, when they took their “right-seat ride” with the 72nd MP Co. of Nevada.

  Mind you, Lynndie England was NOT an MP, but was with headquarter’s company as an Admin. Specialist working for the in/out processing of detainees. The only reason she went to the hard site was to see Charles Grainer when her own shift was up at 23 hundred. It was during a few of those visits that Cpl. Grainer asked England to pose in the pictures which showed hooding, forced nudity, humiliation, etc.

  Nowhere in subsequent reports (CID, Ryder Report, and the Taguba Report) is England identified as the ringleader or mastermind of the Abu Ghraib scandal, it is only when those photos are aired by CBS in April of 2004 that she is made the poster child of the scandal.

  This latest information put out by the Senate Arms Service Committee Report verifies many of these details and confirms what she initially stated in her trial.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  7:05 pm on December 23rd, 2008 55

  Gerri,

  I’ve been trying to post a 4 paragraph reply to you from my husband, but it’s not showing up on here. Have you seen it yet?

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  7:07 pm on December 23rd, 2008 56

  this will be posted as 4 different entries – just keep reading. This is his response to you Gerry:

  First, one has to review the “Torture Memos” to get a sense of the timeline. These can be found online, because in general you are looking at the Bush administration’s attempts to circumvent the Geneva Conventions, and the memos themselves reveal how Rumsfeld interpreted the policy.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  7:11 pm on December 23rd, 2008 57

  part II

  As far as the migration of information is concerned, these measures were first employed at GTMO. In January of 2003, a PowerPoint presentation was viewed by military intelligence personnel at BAGRAM air force base in Afghanistan. This presentation showed the harsher interrogation techniques approved by Rumsfeld. Among them being hooding, forced nudity, humiliation (sexual and otherwise), loud music, and the use of dogs – etc. From Afghanistan, the GTMO techniques were brought to Iraq/Abu Ghraib by GTMO General Geoffrey Miller (August, 2003). Miller instructed MPs at Abu Ghraib that they should “set conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of detainees”. This was likened to the “good cop/bad cop” scenario used in most US prisons whereby the MPs would play the bad cop (threatening/abusing detainees) while the MI’s would promise safety for information. This is the SOP that the 372nd MP Co. saw when they arrived at Abu Ghraib on Oct 1, 2003, when they took their “right-seat ride” with the 72nd MP Co. of Nevada.

  [Reply]

• GI Korea
  7:13 pm on December 23rd, 2008 58

  You have to define torture because if the interrogators were slapping detainees or other techniques authorized by SERE school then they are not criminally liable.

  The Iraqi that died in custody and packed in ice was allegedly already seriously injured before he got to Abu Graib during the operation to capture him and then died from a blood clot an hour after arriving in the prison. If you have evidence that he was intentionally murdered then you need to provide it. If not there is no evidence to hold anyone criminally liable.

  There was plenty of evidence to hold Granier, England, etc. criminally liable for what they did at Abu Graib.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  7:14 pm on December 23rd, 2008 59

  well, trying to make the third post, but not taking it

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  7:15 pm on December 23rd, 2008 60

  Gerry – something wrong – third posting not taking

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  7:29 pm on December 23rd, 2008 61

  WOW – GI – Manadel Al-Jimadi’s death was ruled a homicide by the military coroner. He was brought into Abu Ghraib prison by Navy SEALS at which time he was conscious, and able to walk on his own. He was placed in the shower stall in tier 1 B by OGA. He was placed in a position known as a “Palestinian Hanging” in which his arms were pulled up behind him and attached to the wall. The shower itself was running and a blanket was placed over the entrance in an effort to muffle Jimadi’s screams, which were heard throughout the prison.He died a short time later and was placed on ice at the request of “Steve” who was the rep for the OGA. Subsequent testimony indicates that Col. Pappas was called and came to the hard site to meet with those present. His comment was “I’m not going down for this”. The next day, the body was hooked up to an IV, and removed by OGA. This was done to deceive the Iraqi police, working in the prison, many of whom were smuggling in weapons to detainees.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  7:30 pm on December 23rd, 2008 62

  PS – GI

  We DO have the documentation on this incident…

  [Reply]

• GI Korea
  8:34 pm on December 23rd, 2008 63

  In the posting above there is a Washington Post article link that explains the whole story.

  The man was brought to the prison by Navy SEALS and his face was bashed in. He was shackled to the wall and died an hour later at the prison. The autopsy said he died of a blood clot.

  How did his face get bashed in? Did it happen during the capture of the man by the SEALS? If you have information that the SEALS deliberately murdered him then you best present it to the authorities.

  Even if the SEALS murdered him it doesn’t excuse the behavior of Granier and company of the crimes they committed at Abu Graib.

  [Reply]

• GI Korea
  8:38 pm on December 23rd, 2008 64

  Also I don’t know of anyone who thinks England was the ring leader of what happened. Post child yes, ring leader know. She was the poster child simply because of the shocking pictures she was in.

  It is pretty clear she was easily manipulated by Granier to do what she did, but it still doesn’t excuse her behavior.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  8:44 pm on December 23rd, 2008 65

  and you believe a newspaper account over court proceedings? Okay, fine!We know, and have the evidence. We did not say the Navy Seals killed him – it happened in the shower in Abu Ghraib at the hands of government interrogators. He did not die an hour later. Did you read my posting about the position he was put into “Palestinian Hanging”? Read that posting.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  8:45 pm on December 23rd, 2008 66

  if the guy was dead, how could he scream?

  [Reply]

• gerry
  10:58 am on December 24th, 2008 67

  Katrina,

  I posted last night, however it apparently didn’t show up. Don’t know why.

  I think I solved all of the worlds problems in two paragraphs, but can’t remember a thing I said now.

  Anyway, there seems to be a contradiction between the “torture memos” and the “abuse” that happened at Abu Ghraeb. What happened at Abu Ghraeb was “abuse” and it was done for the pleasure and amusement of a few out of control soldiers. As you stated Lynndie should not have even been there, but was invited by her boyfriend to join the fun.

  The abuse was soldiers taking it upon themselves to express their own forms of sadism for their own amusement. Weather they saw any memos or heard about them, does not justify their behavior.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  12:04 pm on December 24th, 2008 68

  Forced nudity, hooding, and sexual humiliation were approved by the Bush administration, knowing that and having been warned that, such measures could cross the line and become torture. The Bush administration was willing to take that chance in the search for actionable intelligence. The acts engaged in by Graner and company were observered by military intelligence personnel, OGA, and others and were considered appropriate for the circumstance. It was such a common practice, that the photos of these incidents were used as screen savers in the internet cafe at Abu Ghraib. You are mistaken if you think that the photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib indicate an isolated incident, when abuses had also occured at Camp Cropper, Camp Bucca, and elsewhere in the Iraq theater.

  PS – my husband is writing a book about Abu Ghraib and has had access to all the classified and unclassified documentation.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  1:51 pm on December 28th, 2008 69

  Here is the final conclusion of the bi-partisan report from the Senate Armed Forces committee:

  Conclusion 19: The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

  [Reply]

• gerry
  6:03 pm on December 28th, 2008 70

  So the techniques were ‘not approved’ for Iraq? Wasn’t general Karpinski held accountable for the ‘erosion’ in standards? The issue still boils down to ‘out of control’.

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  8:08 pm on December 28th, 2008 71

  Gerry,

  Here is the entire report. What it seems to boil down to is that,yes, the definition of “torture” was never agreed upon or clearly defined leaving much left open for interpretation.
  SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN U.S. CUSTODY
  xii
  Executive Summary
  “What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight… is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings”
  – General David Petraeus
  May 10, 2007
  (U) The collection of timely and accurate intelligence is critical to the safety of U.S. personnel deployed abroad and to the security of the American people here at home. The methods by which we elicit intelligence information from detainees in our custody affect not only the reliability of that information, but our broader efforts to win hearts and minds and attract allies to our side.
  (U) Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists are taught to expect Americans to abuse them. They are recruited based on false propaganda that says the United States is out to destroy Islam. Treating detainees harshly only reinforces that distorted view, increases resistance to cooperation, and creates new enemies. In fact, the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States” cited “pervasive anti U.S. sentiment among most Muslims” as an underlying factor fueling the spread of the global jihadist movement. Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2008 that “there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq – as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat – are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.”
  (U) The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of “a few bad apples” acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority. This report is a product of the Committee’s inquiry into how those unfortunate results came about.
  xiii
  Presidential Order Opens the Door to Considering Aggressive Techniques (U)
  (U) On February 7, 2002, President Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflict with al Qaeda and concluding that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or the legal protections afforded by the Third Geneva Convention. The President’s order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. While the President’s order stated that, as “a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Conventions,” the decision to replace well established military doctrine, i.e., legal compliance with the Geneva Conventions, with a policy subject to interpretation, impacted the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.
  (U) In December 2001, more than a month before the President signed his memorandum, the Department of Defense (DoD) General Counsel’s Office had already solicited information on detainee “exploitation” from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), an agency whose expertise was in training American personnel to withstand interrogation techniques considered illegal under the Geneva Conventions.
  (U) JPRA is the DoD agency that oversees military Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training. During the resistance phase of SERE training, U.S. military personnel are exposed to physical and psychological pressures (SERE techniques) designed to simulate conditions to which they might be subject if taken prisoner by enemies that did not abide by the Geneva Conventions. As one JPRA instructor explained, SERE training is “based on illegal exploitation (under the rules listed in the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War) of prisoners over the last 50 years.” The techniques used in SERE school, based, in part, on Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean war to elicit false confessions, include stripping students of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, disrupting their sleep, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatures. It can also include face and body slaps and until recently, for some who attended the Navy’s SERE school, it included waterboarding.
  (U) Typically, those who play the part of interrogators in SERE school neither are trained interrogators nor are they qualified to be. These role players are not trained to obtain reliable intelligence information from detainees. Their job is to train our personnel to resist providing reliable information to our enemies. As the Deputy Commander for the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), JPRA’s higher headquarters, put it: “the expertise of JPRA lies in training personnel how to respond and resist interrogations – not in how to conduct interrogations.” Given JPRA’s role and expertise, the request from the DoD General Counsel’s office was unusual. In fact, the Committee is not aware of any similar request prior to December 2001. But while it may have been the first, that was not the last time that a senior government official contacted JPRA for advice on using SERE methods offensively. In fact, the call from the DoD General Counsel’s office marked just the beginning of JPRA’s support of U.S. government interrogation efforts.
  xiv
  Senior Officials Seek SERE Techniques and Discuss Detainee Interrogations (U)
  (U) Beginning in the spring of 2002 and extending for the next two years, JPRA supported U.S. government efforts to interrogate detainees. During that same period, senior government officials solicited JPRA’s knowledge and its direct support for interrogations. While much of the information relating to JPRA’s offensive activities and the influence of SERE techniques on interrogation policies remains classified, unclassified information provides a window into the extent of those activities.
  (U) JPRA’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Baumgartner testified that in late 2001 or early 2002, JPRA conducted briefings of Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) personnel on detainee resistance, techniques, and information on detainee exploitation.
  (U) On April 16, 2002, Dr. Bruce Jessen, the senior SERE psychologist at JPRA, circulated a draft exploitation plan to JPRA Commander Colonel Randy Moulton and other senior officials at the agency. The contents of that plan remain classified but Dr. Jessen’s initiative is indicative of the interest of JPRA’s senior leadership in expanding the agency’s role.
  (U) One opportunity came in July 2002. That month, DoD Deputy General Counsel for intelligence Richard Shiffrin contacted JPRA seeking information on SERE physical pressures and interrogation techniques that had been used against Americans. Mr. Shiffrin called JPRA after discussions with William “Jim” Haynes II, the DoD General Counsel.
  (U) In late July, JPRA provided the General Counsel’s office with several documents, including excerpts from SERE instructor lesson plans, a list of physical and psychological pressures used in SERE resistance training, and a memo from a SERE psychologist assessing the long-term psychological effects of SERE resistance training on students and the effects of waterboarding. The list of SERE techniques included such methods as sensory deprivation, sleep disruption, stress positions, waterboarding, and slapping. It also made reference to a section of the JPRA instructor manual that discusses “coercive pressures,” such as keeping the lights on at all times, and treating a person like an animal. JPRA’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Baumgartner, who spoke with Mr. Shiffrin at the time, thought the General Counsel’s office was asking for the information on exploitation and physical pressures to use them in interrogations and he said that JFCOM gave approval to provide the agency the information. Mr. Shiffrin, the DoD Deputy General Counsel for Intelligence, confirmed that a purpose of the request was to “reverse engineer” the techniques. Mr. Haynes could not recall what he did with the information provided by JPRA.
  (U) Memos from Lieutenant Colonel Baumgartner to the Office of Secretary of Defense General Counsel stated that JPRA would “continue to offer exploitation assistance to those government organizations charged with the mission of gleaning intelligence from enemy detainees.” Lieutenant Colonel Baumgartner testified that he provided another government agency the same information he sent to the DoD General Counsel’s office.
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  (U) Mr. Haynes was not the only senior official considering new interrogation techniques for use against detainees. Members of the President’s Cabinet and other senior officials attended meetings in the White House where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was then the National Security Advisor, said that, “in the spring of 2002, CIA sought policy approval from the National Security Council (NSC) to begin an interrogation program for high-level al-Qaida terrorists.” Secretary Rice said that she asked Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to brief NSC Principals on the program and asked the Attorney General John Ashcroft “personally to review and confirm the legal advice prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel.” She also said that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld participated in the NSC review of CIA’s program.
  (U) Asked whether she attended meetings where SERE training was discussed, Secretary Rice stated that she recalled being told that U.S. military personnel were subjected in training to “certain physical and psychological interrogation techniques.” National Security Council (NSC) Legal Advisor, John Bellinger, said that he was present in meetings “at which SERE training was discussed.”
  Department of Justice Redefines Torture (U)
  (U) On August 1, 2002, just a week after JPRA provided the DoD General Counsel’s office the list of SERE techniques and the memo on the psychological effects of SERE training, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued two legal opinions. The opinions were issued after consultation with senior Administration attorneys, including then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and then-Counsel to the Vice President David Addington. Both memos were signed by then-Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee. One opinion, commonly known as the first Bybee memo, was addressed to Judge Gonzales and provided OLC’s opinion on standards of conduct in interrogation required under the federal torture statute. That memo concluded:
  [F]or an act to constitute torture as defined in [the federal torture statute], it must inflict pain that is difficult to endure. 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. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture under [the federal torture statute], it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.
  (U) In his book The Terror Presidency, Jack Goldsmith, the former Assistant Attorney General of the OLC who succeeded Mr. Bybee in that job, described the memo’s conclusions:
  Violent acts aren’t necessarily torture; if you do torture, you probably have a defense; and even if you don’t have a defense, the torture law doesn’t apply if you act under the color of presidential authority.
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  (U) The other OLC opinion issued on August 1, 2002 is known commonly as the Second Bybee memo. That opinion, which responded to a request from the CIA, addressed the legality of specific interrogation tactics. While the full list of techniques remains classified, a publicly released CIA document indicates that waterboarding was among those analyzed and approved. CIA Director General Michael Hayden stated in public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 5, 2008 that waterboarding was used by the CIA. And Steven Bradbury, the current Assistant Attorney General of the OLC, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on February 14, 2008 that the CIA’s use of waterboarding was “adapted from the SERE training program.”
  (U) Before drafting the opinions, Mr. Yoo, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the OLC, had met with Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and David Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, to discuss the subjects he intended to address in the opinions. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Yoo refused to say whether or not he ever discussed or received information about SERE techniques as the memos were being drafted. When asked whether he had discussed SERE techniques with Judge Gonzales, Mr. Addington, Mr. Yoo, Mr. Rizzo or other senior administration lawyers, DoD General Counsel Jim Haynes testified that he “did discuss SERE techniques with other people in the administration.” NSC Legal Advisor John Bellinger said that “some of the legal analyses of proposed interrogation techniques that were prepared by the Department of Justice… did refer to the psychological effects of resistance training.”
  (U) In fact, Jay Bybee the Assistant Attorney General who signed the two OLC legal opinions said that he saw an assessment of the psychological effects of military resistance training in July 2002 in meetings in his office with John Yoo and two other OLC attorneys. Judge Bybee said that he used that assessment to inform the August 1, 2002 OLC legal opinion that has yet to be publicly released. Judge Bybee also recalled discussing detainee interrogations in a meeting with Attorney General John Ashcroft and John Yoo in late July 2002, prior to signing the OLC opinions. Mr. Bellinger, the NSC Legal Advisor, said that “the NSC’s Principals reviewed CIA’s proposed program on several occasions in 2002 and 2003” and that he “expressed concern that the proposed CIA interrogation techniques comply with applicable U.S. law, including our international obligations.”
  JPRA and CIA Influence Department of Defense Interrogation Policies (U)
  (U) As senior government lawyers were preparing to redefine torture, JPRA – responding to a request from U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Task Force 170 (JTF-170) at Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) – was finalizing plans to train JTF-170 personnel. During the week of September 16, 2002, a group of interrogators and behavioral scientists from GTMO travelled to Fort Bragg, North Carolina and attended training conducted by instructors from JPRA’s SERE school. On September 25, 2002, just days after GTMO staff returned from that training, a delegation of senior Administration lawyers, including Mr. Haynes, Mr. Rizzo, and Mr. Addington, visited GTMO.
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  (U) A week after the visit from those senior lawyers, two GTMO behavioral scientists who had attended the JPRA-led training at Fort Bragg drafted a memo proposing new interrogation techniques for use at GTMO. According to one of those two behavioral scientists, by early October 2002, there was “increasing pressure to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” He added that if the interrogation policy memo did not contain coercive techniques, then it “wasn’t going to go very far.”
  (U) JPRA was not the only outside organization that provided advice to GTMO on aggressive techniques. On October 2, 2002, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA’s CounterTerrorist Center, attended a meeting of GTMO staff. Minutes of that meeting indicate that it was dominated by a discussion of aggressive interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, death threats, and waterboarding, which was discussed in relation to its use in SERE training. Mr. Fredman’s advice to GTMO on applicable legal obligations was similar to the analysis of those obligations in OLC’s first Bybee memo. According to the meeting minutes, Mr. Fredman said that “the language of the statutes is written vaguely… Severe physical pain described as anything causing permanent damage to major organs or body parts. Mental torture [is] described as anything leading to permanent, profound damage to the senses or personality.” Mr. Fredman said simply “It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong.”
  (U) On October 11, 2002, Major General Michael Dunlavey, the Commander of JTF-170 at Guantanamo Bay, sent a memo to General James Hill, the Commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) requesting authority to use aggressive interrogation techniques. Several of the techniques requested were similar to techniques used by JPRA and the military services in SERE training, including stress positions, exploitation of detainee fears (such as fear of dogs), removal of clothing, hooding, deprivation of light and sound, and the so-called wet towel treatment or the waterboard. Some of the techniques were even referred to as “those used in U.S. military interrogation resistance training.” Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver, GTMO’s Staff Judge Advocate wrote an analysis justifying the legality of the techniques, though she expected that a broader legal review conducted at more senior levels would follow her own. On October 25, 2002, General Hill forwarded the GTMO request from Major General Dunlavey to General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Days later, the Joint Staff solicited the views of the military services on the request.
  (U) Plans to use aggressive interrogation techniques generated concerns by some at GTMO. The Deputy Commander of the Department of Defense’s Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF) at GTMO told the Committee that SERE techniques were “developed to better prepare U.S. military personnel to resist interrogations and not as a means of obtaining reliable information” and that “CITF was troubled with the rationale that techniques used to harden resistance to interrogations would be the basis for the utilization of techniques to obtain information.” Concerns were not limited to the effectiveness of the techniques in obtaining reliable information; GTMO’s request gave rise to significant legal concerns as well.
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  Military Lawyers Raise Red Flags and Joint Staff Review Quashed (U)
  (U) In early November 2002, in a series of memos responding to the Joint Staff’s call for comments on GTMO’s request, the military services identified serious legal concerns about the techniques and called for additional analysis.
  (U) The Air Force cited “serious concerns regarding the legality of many of the proposed techniques” and stated that “techniques described may be subject to challenge as failing to meet the requirements outlined in the military order to treat detainees humanely…” The Air Force also called for an in depth legal review of the request.
  (U) CITF’s Chief Legal Advisor wrote that certain techniques in GTMO’s October 11, 2002 request “may subject service members to punitive articles of the [Uniform Code of Military Justice],” called “the utility and legality of applying certain techniques” in the request “questionable,” and stated that he could not “advocate any action, interrogation or otherwise, that is predicated upon the principle that all is well if the ends justify the means and others are not aware of how we conduct our business.”
  (U) The Chief of the Army’s International and Operational Law Division wrote that techniques like stress positions, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli, and use of phobias to induce stress “crosses the line of ‘humane’ treatment,” would “likely be considered maltreatment” under the UCMJ, and “may violate the torture statute.” The Army labeled GTMO’s request “legally insufficient” and called for additional review.
  (U) The Navy recommended a “more detailed interagency legal and policy review” of the request. And the Marine Corps expressed strong reservations, stating that several techniques in the request “arguably violate federal law, and would expose our service members to possible prosecution.” The Marine Corps also said the request was not “legally sufficient,” and like the other services, called for “a more thorough legal and policy review.”
  (U) Then-Captain (now Rear Admiral) Jane Dalton, Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that her staff discussed the military services’ concerns with the DoD General Counsel’s Office at the time and that the DoD General Counsel Jim Haynes was aware of the services’ concerns. Mr. Haynes, on the other hand, testified that he did not know that the memos from the military services existed (a statement he later qualified by stating that he was not sure he knew they existed). Eliana Davidson, the DoD Associate Deputy General Counsel for International Affairs, said that she told the General Counsel that the GTMO request needed further assessment. Mr. Haynes did not recall Ms. Davidson telling him that.
  (U) Captain Dalton, who was the Chairman’s Legal Counsel, said that she had her own concerns with the GTMO request and directed her staff to initiate a thorough legal and policy review of the techniques. That review, however, was cut short. Captain Dalton said that General Myers returned from a meeting and advised her that Mr. Haynes wanted her to stop her review, in part because of concerns that people were going to see the GTMO request and the military services’ analysis of it. Neither General Myers nor Mr. Haynes recalled cutting short the Dalton
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  review, though neither has challenged Captain Dalton’s recollection. Captain Dalton testified that this occasion marked the only time she had ever been told to stop analyzing a request that came to her for review.
  Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld Approves Aggressive Techniques (U)
  (U) With respect to GTMO’s October 11, 2002 request to use aggressive interrogation techniques, Mr. Haynes said that “there was a sense by the DoD Leadership that this decision was taking too long” and that Secretary Rumsfeld told his senior advisors “I need a recommendation.” On November 27, 2002, the Secretary got one. Notwithstanding the serious legal concerns raised by the military services, Mr. Haynes sent a one page memo to the Secretary, recommending that he approve all but three of the eighteen techniques in the GTMO request. Techniques such as stress positions, removal of clothing, use of phobias (such as fear of dogs), and deprivation of light and auditory stimuli were all recommended for approval.
  (U) Mr. Haynes’s memo indicated that he had discussed the issue with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, and General Myers and that he believed they concurred in his recommendation. When asked what he relied on to make his recommendation that the aggressive techniques be approved, the only written legal opinion Mr. Haynes cited was Lieutenant Colonel Beaver’s legal analysis, which senior military lawyers had considered “legally insufficient” and “woefully inadequate,” and which LTC Beaver herself had expected would be supplemented with a review by persons with greater experience than her own.
  (U) On December 2, 2002, Secretary Rumsfeld signed Mr. Haynes’s recommendation, adding a handwritten note that referred to limits proposed in the memo on the use of stress positions: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
  (U) SERE school techniques are designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies. There are fundamental differences between a SERE school exercise and a real world interrogation. At SERE school, students are subject to an extensive medical and psychological pre-screening prior to being subjected to physical and psychological pressures. The schools impose strict limits on the frequency, duration, and/or intensity of certain techniques. Psychologists are present throughout SERE training to intervene should the need arise and to help students cope with associated stress. And SERE school is voluntary; students are even given a special phrase they can use to immediately stop the techniques from being used against them.
  (U) Neither those differences, nor the serious legal concerns that had been registered, stopped the Secretary of Defense from approving the use of the aggressive techniques against detainees. Moreover, Secretary Rumsfeld authorized the techniques without apparently providing any written guidance as to how they should be administered.
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  SERE Techniques at GTMO (U)
  (U) Following the Secretary’s December 2, 2002 authorization, senior staff at GTMO began drafting a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) specifically for the use of SERE techniques in interrogations. The draft SOP itself stated that “The premise behind this is that the interrogation tactics used at U.S. military SERE schools are appropriate for use in real-world interrogations. These tactics and techniques are used at SERE school to ‘break’ SERE detainees. The same tactics and techniques can be used to break real detainees during interrogation.” The draft “GTMO SERE SOP” described how to slap, strip, and place detainees in stress positions. It also described other SERE techniques, such as “hooding,” “manhandling,” and “walling” detainees.
  (U) On December 30, 2002, two instructors from the Navy SERE school arrived at GTMO. The next day, in a session with approximately 24 interrogation personnel, the two SERE instructors demonstrated how to administer stress positions, and various slapping techniques. According to two interrogators, those who attended the training even broke off into pairs to practice the techniques.
  (U) Exemplifying the disturbing nature and substance of the training, the SERE instructors explained “Biderman’s Principles” – which were based on coercive methods used by the Chinese Communist dictatorship to elicit false confessions from U.S. POWs during the Korean War – and left with GTMO personnel a chart of those coercive techniques. Three days after they conducted the training, the SERE instructors met with GTMO’s Commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller. According to some who attended that meeting, Major General Miller stated that he did not want his interrogators using the techniques that the Navy SERE instructors had demonstrated. That conversation, however, took place after the training had already occurred and not all of the interrogators who attended the training got the message.
  (U) At about the same time, a dispute over the use of aggressive techniques was raging at GTMO over the interrogation of Mohammed al-Khatani, a high value detainee. Personnel from CITF and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had registered strong opposition, to interrogation techniques proposed for use on Khatani and made those concerns known to the DoD General Counsel’s office. Despite those objections, an interrogation plan that included aggressive techniques was approved. The interrogation itself, which actually began on November 23, 2002, a week before the Secretary’s December 2, 2002 grant of blanket authority for the use of aggressive techniques, continued through December and into mid-January 2003.
  (U) NSC Legal Advisor John Bellinger said that, on several occasions, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bruce Swartz raised concerns with him about allegations of detainee abuse at GTMO. Mr. Bellinger said that, in turn, he raised these concerns “on several occasions with DoD officials and was told that the allegations were being investigated by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.” Then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said that Mr. Bellinger also advised her “on a regular basis regarding concerns and issues relating to DoD detention policies and practices at Guantanamo.” She said that as a result she convened a “series
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  of meetings of NSC Principals in 2002 and 2003 to discuss various issues and concerns relating to detainees in the custody of the Department of Defense.”
  (U) Between mid-December 2002 and mid-January 2003, Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora spoke with the DoD General Counsel three times to express his concerns about interrogation techniques at GTMO, at one point telling Mr. Haynes that he thought techniques that had been authorized by the Secretary of Defense “could rise to the level of torture.” On January 15, 2003, having received no word that the Secretary’s authority would be withdrawn, Mr. Mora went so far as to deliver a draft memo to Mr. Haynes’s office memorializing his legal concerns about the techniques. In a subsequent phone call, Mr. Mora told Mr. Haynes he would sign his memo later that day unless he heard definitively that the use of the techniques was suspended. In a meeting that same day, Mr. Haynes told Mr. Mora that the Secretary would rescind the techniques. Secretary Rumsfeld signed a memo rescinding authority for the techniques on January 15, 2003.
  (U) That same day, GTMO suspended its use of aggressive techniques on Khatani. While key documents relating to the interrogation remain classified, published accounts indicate that military working dogs had been used against Khatani. He had also been deprived of adequate sleep for weeks on end, stripped naked, subjected to loud music, and made to wear a leash and perform dog tricks. In a June 3, 2004 press briefing, SOUTHCOM Commander General James Hill traced the source of techniques used on Khatani back to SERE, stating: “The staff at Guantanamo working with behavioral scientists, having gone up to our SERE school and developed a list of techniques which our lawyers decided and looked at, said were OK.” General Hill said “we began to use a few of those techniques … on this individual…”
  (U) On May 13, 2008, the Pentagon announced in a written statement that the Convening Authority for military commissions “dismissed without prejudice the sworn charges against Mohamed al Khatani.” The statement does not indicate the role his treatment may have played in that decision.
  DoD Working Group Ignores Military Lawyers and Relies on OLC (U)
  (U) On January 15, 2003, the same day he rescinded authority for GTMO to use aggressive techniques, Secretary Rumsfeld directed the establishment of a “Working Group” to review interrogation techniques. For the next few months senior military and civilian lawyers tried, without success, to have their concerns about the legality of aggressive techniques reflected in the Working Group’s report. Their arguments were rejected in favor of a legal opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) John Yoo. Mr. Yoo’s opinion, the final version of which was dated March 14, 2003, had been requested by Mr. Haynes at the initiation of the Working Group process, and repeated much of what the first Bybee memo had said six months earlier.
  (U) The first Bybee memo, dated August 1, 2002, had concluded that, to violate the federal torture statute, physical pain that resulted from an act would have to be “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of
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  bodily function, or even death.” Mr. Yoo’s March 14, 2003 memo stated that criminal laws, such as the federal torture statute, would not apply to certain military interrogations, and that interrogators could not be prosecuted by the Justice Department for using interrogation methods that would otherwise violate the law.
  (U) Though the final Working Group report does not specifically mention SERE, the list of interrogation techniques it evaluated and recommended for approval suggest the influence of SERE. Removal of clothing, prolonged standing, sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, hooding, increasing anxiety through the use of a detainee’s aversions like dogs, and face and stomach slaps were all recommended for approval.
  (U) On April 16, 2003, less than two weeks after the Working Group completed its report, the Secretary authorized the use of 24 specific interrogation techniques for use at GTMO. While the authorization included such techniques as dietary manipulation, environmental manipulation, and sleep adjustment, it was silent on many of the techniques in the Working Group report. Secretary Rumsfeld’s memo said, however, that “If, in your view, you require additional interrogation techniques for a particular detainee, you should provide me, via the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a written request describing the proposed technique, recommended safeguards, and the rationale for applying it with an identified detainee.”
  (U) Just a few months later, one such request for “additional interrogation techniques” arrived on Secretary Rumsfeld’s desk. The detainee was Mohamedou Ould Slahi. While documents relating to the interrogation plan for Slahi remain classified, a May 2008 report from the Department of Justice Inspector General includes declassified information suggesting the plan included hooding Slahi and subjecting him to sensory deprivation and “sleep adjustment.” The Inspector General’s report says that an FBI agent who saw a draft of the interrogation plan said it was similar to Khatani’s interrogation plan. Secretary Rumsfeld approved the Slahi plan on August 13, 2003.
  Aggressive Techniques Authorized in Afghanistan and Iraq (U)
  (U) Shortly after Secretary Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 approval of his General Counsel’s recommendation to authorize aggressive interrogation techniques, the techniques – and the fact the Secretary had authorized them – became known to interrogators in Afghanistan. A copy of the Secretary’s memo was sent from GTMO to Afghanistan. Captain Carolyn Wood, the Officer in Charge of the Intelligence Section at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, said that in January 2003 she saw a power point presentation listing the aggressive techniques that had been authorized by the Secretary.
  (U) Despite the Secretary’s January 15, 2003 rescission of authority for GTMO to use aggressive techniques, his initial approval six weeks earlier continued to influence interrogation policies.
  (U) On January 24, 2003, nine days after Secretary Rumsfeld rescinded authority for the techniques at GTMO, the Staff Judge Advocate for Combined Joint Task Force 180 (CJTF-180),
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  U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) conventional forces in Afghanistan, produced an “Interrogation techniques” memo. While that memo remains classified, unclassified portions of a report by Major General George Fay stated that the memo “recommended removal of clothing – a technique that had been in the Secretary’s December 2 authorization” and discussed “exploiting the Arab fear of dogs” another technique approved by the Secretary on December 2, 2002.
  (U) From Afghanistan, the techniques made their way to Iraq. According to the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General (IG), at the beginning of the Iraq war, special mission unit forces in Iraq “used a January 2003 Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) which had been developed for operations in Afghanistan.” According to the DoD IG, the Afghanistan SOP had been:
  [I]nfluenced by the counterresistance memorandum that the Secretary of Defense approved on December 2, 2002 and incorporated techniques designed for detainees who were identified as unlawful combatants. Subsequent battlefield interrogation SOPs included techniques such as yelling, loud music, and light control, environmental manipulation, sleep deprivation/adjustment, stress positions, 20-hour interrogations, and controlled fear (muzzled dogs)…
  (U) Techniques approved by the Secretary of Defense in December 2002 reflect the influence of SERE. And not only did those techniques make their way into official interrogation policies in Iraq, but instructors from the JPRA SERE school followed. The DoD IG reported that in September 2003, at the request of the Commander of the Special Mission Unit Task Force, JPRA deployed a team to Iraq to assist interrogation operations. During that trip, which was explicitly approved by U.S. Joint Forces Command, JPRA’s higher headquarters, SERE instructors were authorized to participate in the interrogation of detainees in U.S. military custody using SERE techniques.
  (U) In September 2008 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Colonel Steven Kleinman, an Air Force Reservist who was a member of the interrogation support team sent by JPRA to the Special Mission Unit Task Force in Iraq, described abusive interrogations he witnessed, and intervened to stop, during that trip. Colonel Kleinman said that one of those interrogations, which took place in a room painted all in black with a spotlight on the detainee, the interrogator repeatedly slapped a detainee who was kneeling on the floor in front of the interrogator. In another interrogation Colonel Kleinman said the two other members of the JPRA team took a hooded detainee to a bunker at the Task Force facility, forcibly stripped him naked and left him, shackled by the wrist and ankles, to stand for 12 hours.
  (U) Interrogation techniques used by the Special Mission Unit Task Force eventually made their way into Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) issued for all U.S. forces in Iraq. In the summer of 2003, Captain Wood, who by that time was the Interrogation Officer in Charge at Abu Ghraib, obtained a copy of the Special Mission Unit interrogation policy and submitted it, virtually unchanged, to her chain of command as proposed policy.
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  (U) Captain Wood submitted her proposed policy around the same time that a message was being conveyed that interrogators should be more aggressive with detainees. In mid-August 2003, an email from staff at Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7) headquarters in Iraq requested that subordinate units provide input for a “wish list” of interrogation techniques, stated that “the gloves are coming off,” and said “we want these detainees broken.” At the end of August 2003, Major General Geoffrey Miller, the GTMO Commander, led a team to Iraq to assess interrogation and detention operations. Colonel Thomas Pappas, the Commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, who met with Major General Miller during that visit, said that the tenor of the discussion was that “we had to get tougher with the detainees.” A Chief Warrant Officer with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said that during Major General Miller’s tour of the ISG’s facility, Major General Miller said the ISG was “running a country club” for detainees.
  (U) On September 14, 2003 the Commander of CJTF-7, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, issued the first CJTF-7 interrogation SOP. That SOP authorized interrogators in Iraq to use stress positions, environmental manipulation, sleep management, and military working dogs in interrogations. Lieutenant General Sanchez issued the September 14, 2003 policy with the knowledge that there were ongoing discussions about the legality of some of the approved techniques. Responding to legal concerns from CENTCOM lawyers about those techniques, Lieutenant General Sanchez issued a new policy on October 12, 2003, eliminating many of the previously authorized aggressive techniques. The new policy, however, contained ambiguities with respect to certain techniques, such as the use of dogs in interrogations, and led to confusion about which techniques were permitted.
  (U) In his report of his investigation into Abu Ghraib, Major General George Fay said that interrogation techniques developed for GTMO became “confused” and were implemented at Abu Ghraib. For example, Major General Fay said that removal of clothing, while not included in CJTF-7’s SOP, was “imported” to Abu Ghraib, could be “traced through Afghanistan and GTMO,” and contributed to an environment at Abu Ghraib that appeared “to condone depravity and degradation rather than humane treatment of detainees.” Major General Fay said that the policy approved by the Secretary of Defense on December 2, 2002 contributed to the use of aggressive interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib in late 2003.
  OLC Withdraws Legal Opinion – JFCOM Issues Guidance on JPRA “Offensive”
  Support (U)
  (U) As the events at Abu Ghraib were unfolding, Jack Goldsmith, the new Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel was presented with a “short stack” of OLC opinions that were described to him as problematic. Included in that short stack were the Bybee memos of August 1, 2002 and Mr. Yoo’s memo of March 2003. After reviewing the memos, Mr. Goldsmith decided to rescind both the so-called first Bybee memo and Mr. Yoo’s memo. In late December 2003, Mr. Goldsmith notified Mr. Haynes that DoD could no longer rely on Mr. Yoo’s memo in determining the lawfulness of interrogation techniques. The change in OLC
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  guidance, however, did not keep JPRA from making plans to continue their support to interrogation operations. In fact, it is not clear that the agency was even aware of the change.
  (U) In 2004, JPRA and CENTCOM took steps to send a JPRA training team to Afghanistan to assist in detainee interrogations there. In the wake of the public disclosure of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, however, that trip was cancelled and JFCOM subsequently issued policy guidance limiting JPRA’s support to interrogations.
  (U) On September 29, 2004 Major General James Soligan, JFCOM’s Chief of Staff, issued a memorandum referencing JPRA’s support to interrogation operations. Major General Soligan wrote:
  Recent requests from [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the Combatant Commands have solicited JPRA support based on knowledge and information gained through the debriefing of former U.S. POWs and detainees and their application to U.S. Strategic debriefing and interrogation techniques. These requests, which can be characterized as ‘offensive’ support, go beyond the chartered responsibilities of JPRA… The use of resistance to interrogation knowledge for ‘offensive’ purposes lies outside the roles and responsibilities of JPRA.
  (U) Lieutenant General Robert Wagner, the Deputy Commander of JFCOM, later called requests for JPRA interrogation support “inconsistent with the unit’s charter” and said that such requests “might create conditions which tasked JPRA to engage in offensive operational activities outside of JPRA’s defensive mission.”
  (U) Interrogation policies endorsed by senior military and civilian officials authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques were a major cause of the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. The impact of those abuses has been significant. In a 2007 international BBC poll, only 29 percent of people around the world said the United States is a generally positive influence in the world. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have a lot to do with that perception. The fact that America is seen in a negative light by so many complicates our ability to attract allies to our side, strengthens the hand of our enemies, and reduces our ability to collect intelligence that can save lives.
  (U) It is particularly troubling that senior officials approved the use of interrogation techniques that were originally designed to simulate abusive tactics used by our enemies against our own soldiers and that were modeled, in part, on tactics used by the Communist Chinese to elicit false confessions from U.S. military personnel. While some argue that the brutality and disregard for human life shown by al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists justifies us treating them harshly, General David Petraeus explained why that view is misguided. In a May 2007 letter to his troops, General Petraeus said “Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we – not our enemies – occupy the moral high ground.”
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  Senate Armed Services Committee Conclusions
  Conclusion 1: On February 7, 2002, President George W. Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, did not apply to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees. Following the President’s determination, techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and stress positions, used in SERE training to simulate tactics used by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions, were authorized for use in interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.
  Conclusion 2: Members of the President’s Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. National Security Council Principals reviewed the CIA’s interrogation program during that period.
  Conclusions on SERE Training Techniques and Interrogations
  Conclusion 3: The use of techniques similar to those used in SERE resistance training – such as stripping students of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, and treating them like animals – was at odds with the commitment to humane treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Using those techniques for interrogating detainees was also inconsistent with the goal of collecting accurate intelligence information, as the purpose of SERE resistance training is to increase the ability of U.S. personnel to resist abusive interrogations and the techniques used were based, in part, on Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to elicit false confessions.
  Conclusion 4: The use of techniques in interrogations derived from SERE resistance training created a serious risk of physical and psychological harm to detainees. The SERE schools employ strict controls to reduce the risk of physical and psychological harm to students during training. Those controls include medical and psychological screening for students, interventions by trained psychologists during training, and code words to ensure that students can stop the application of a technique at any time should the need arise. Those same controls are not present in real world interrogations.
  Conclusions on Senior Official Consideration of SERE Techniques for Interrogations
  Conclusion 5: In July 2002, the Office of the Secretary of Defense General Counsel solicited information from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) on SERE techniques for use during interrogations. That solicitation, prompted by requests from Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II, reflected the view that abusive tactics similar to those used by our enemies should be considered for use against detainees in U.S. custody.
  Conclusion 6: The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) interrogation program included at least one SERE training technique, waterboarding. Senior Administration lawyers, including Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and David Addington, Counsel to the Vice President, were consulted on the development of legal analysis of CIA interrogation techniques. Legal opinions
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  subsequently issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) interpreted legal obligations under U.S. anti-torture laws and determined the legality of CIA interrogation techniques. Those OLC opinions distorted the meaning and intent of anti-torture laws, rationalized the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody and influenced Department of Defense determinations as to what interrogation techniques were legal for use during interrogations conducted by U.S. military personnel.
  Conclusions on JPRA Offensive Activities
  Conclusion 7: Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) efforts in support of “offensive” interrogation operations went beyond the agency’s knowledge and expertise. JPRA’s support to U.S. government interrogation efforts contributed to detainee abuse. JPRA’s offensive support also influenced the development of policies that authorized abusive interrogation techniques for use against detainees in U.S. custody.
  Conclusion 8: Detainee abuse occurred during JPRA’s support to Special Mission Unit (SMU) Task Force (TF) interrogation operations in Iraq in September 2003. JPRA Commander Colonel Randy Moulton’s authorization of SERE instructors, who had no experience in detainee interrogations, to actively participate in Task Force interrogations using SERE resistance training techniques was a serious failure in judgment. The Special Mission Unit Task Force Commander’s failure to order that SERE resistance training techniques not be used in detainee interrogations was a serious failure in leadership that led to the abuse of detainees in Task Force custody. Iraq is a Geneva Convention theater and techniques used in SERE school are inconsistent with the obligations of U.S. personnel under the Geneva Conventions.
  Conclusion 9: Combatant Command requests for JPRA “offensive” interrogation support and U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) authorization of that support led to JPRA operating outside the agency’s charter and beyond its expertise. Only when JFCOM’s Staff Judge Advocate became aware of and raised concerns about JPRA’s support to offensive interrogation operations in late September 2003 did JFCOM leadership begin to take steps to curtail JPRA’s “offensive” activities. It was not until September 2004, however, that JFCOM issued a formal policy stating that support to offensive interrogation operations was outside JPRA’s charter.
  Conclusions on GTMO’s Request for Aggressive Techniques
  Conclusion 10: Interrogation techniques in Guantanamo Bay’s (GTMO) October 11, 2002 request for authority submitted by Major General Michael Dunlavey, were influenced by JPRA training for GTMO interrogation personnel and included techniques similar to those used in SERE training to teach U.S. personnel to resist abusive enemy interrogations. GTMO Staff Judge Advocate Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver’s legal review justifying the October 11, 2002 GTMO request was profoundly in error and legally insufficient. Leaders at GTMO, including Major General Dunlavey’s successor, Major General Geoffrey Miller, ignored warnings from DoD’s Criminal Investigative Task Force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the techniques were potentially unlawful and that their use would strengthen detainee resistance.
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  Conclusion 11: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers’s decision to cut short the legal and policy review of the October 11, 2002 GTMO request initiated by his Legal Counsel, then-Captain Jane Dalton, undermined the military’s review process. Subsequent conclusions reached by Chairman Myers and Captain Dalton regarding the legality of interrogation techniques in the request followed a grossly deficient review and were at odds with conclusions previously reached by the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Criminal Investigative Task Force.
  Conclusion 12: Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II’s effort to cut short the legal and policy review of the October 11, 2002 GTMO request initiated by then-Captain Jane Dalton, Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was inappropriate and undermined the military’s review process. The General Counsel’s subsequent review was grossly deficient. Mr. Haynes’s one page recommendation to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld failed to address the serious legal concerns that had been previously raised by the military services about techniques in the GTMO request. Further, Mr. Haynes’s reliance on a legal memo produced by GTMO’s Staff Judge Advocate that senior military lawyers called “legally insufficient” and “woefully inadequate” is deeply troubling.
  Conclusion 13: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there. Secretary Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 approval of Mr. Haynes’s recommendation that most of the techniques contained in GTMO’s October 11, 2002 request be authorized, influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques, including military working dogs, forced nudity, and stress positions, in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  Conclusion 14: Department of Defense General Counsel William J. Haynes II’s direction to the Department of Defense’s Detainee Working Group in early 2003 to consider a legal memo from John Yoo of the Department of Justice’s OLC as authoritative, blocked the Working Group from conducting a fair and complete legal analysis and resulted in a report that, in the words of then-Department of the Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora contained “profound mistakes in its legal analysis.” Reliance on the OLC memo resulted in a final Working Group report that recommended approval of several aggressive techniques, including removal of clothing, sleep deprivation, and slapping, similar to those used in SERE training to teach U.S. personnel to resist abusive interrogations.
  Conclusions on Interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan
  Conclusion 15: Special Mission Unit (SMU) Task Force (TF) interrogation policies were influenced by the Secretary of Defense’s December 2, 2002 approval of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at GTMO. SMU TF interrogation policies in Iraq included the use of aggressive interrogation techniques such as military working dogs and stress positions. SMU TF policies were a direct cause of detainee abuse and influenced interrogation policies at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq.
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  Conclusion 16: During his assessment visit to Iraq in August and September 2003, GTMO Commander Major General Geoffrey Miller encouraged a view that interrogators should be more aggressive during detainee interrogations.
  Conclusion 17: Interrogation policies approved by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, which included the use of military working dogs and stress positions, were a direct cause of detainee abuse in Iraq. Lieutenant General Sanchez’s decision to issue his September 14, 2003 policy with the knowledge that there were ongoing discussions as to the legality of some techniques in it was a serious error in judgment. The September policy was superseded on October 12, 2003 as a result of legal concerns raised by U.S. Central Command. That superseding policy, however, contained ambiguities and contributed to confusion about whether aggressive techniques, such as military working dogs, were authorized for use during interrogations.
  Conclusion 18: U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) failed to conduct proper oversight of Special Mission Unit Task Force interrogation policies. Though aggressive interrogation techniques were removed from Combined Joint Task Force 7 interrogation policies after CENTCOM raised legal concerns about their inclusion in the September 14, 2003 policy issued by Lieutenant General Sanchez, SMU TF interrogation policies authorized some of those same techniques, including stress positions and military working dogs.
  Conclusion 19: The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own. Interrogation techniques such as stripping detainees of their clothes, placing them in stress positions, and using military working dogs to intimidate them appeared in Iraq only after they had been approved for use in Afghanistan and at GTMO. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s December 2, 2002 authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody. What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.

  [Reply]

• gerry
  10:43 pm on December 28th, 2008 72

  Katrina,

  Yes I read the entire report before. (ref previous comments).

  You still have not answered my questions. The techniques were not authorized in Iraq? (or were they authorized?), wasn’t General Karpinski held accountable for erosion of standards? Doesn’t this still boil down to a group out of control?

  [Reply]

• Katrina
  10:52 am on December 30th, 2008 73

  The techniques were not authorized in Iraq? (or were they authorized?)

  1. Please refer back my previous posting:

  As far as the migration of information is concerned, these measures were first employed at GTMO. In January of 2003, a PowerPoint presentation was viewed by military intelligence personnel at BAGRAM air force base in Afghanistan. This presentation showed the harsher interrogation techniques approved by Rumsfeld. Among them being hooding, forced nudity, humiliation (sexual and otherwise), loud music, and the use of dogs – etc.

  From Afghanistan, the GTMO techniques were brought to Iraq/Abu Ghraib by GTMO General Geoffrey Miller (August, 2003). Miller instructed MPs at Abu Ghraib that they should “set conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of detainees”. This was likened to the “good cop/bad cop” scenario used in most US prisons whereby the MPs would play the bad cop (threatening/abusing detainees) while the MI’s would promise safety for information. This is the SOP that the 372nd MP Co. saw when they arrived at Abu Ghraib on Oct 1, 2003, when they took their “right-seat ride” with the 72nd MP Co. of Nevada.

  “I was outside 1-A when a fellow MP yelled to me and told me to come and observe a naked detainee for the purpose of humiliation,” recalls Sharon Dixon, an MP Guard with the 72nd Military Police Company from Nevada. “The detainee was naked with his hands restrained behind his back. I believe the OGA (non-uniformed individuals from “other government agencies” like the CIA) was giving the MP advice on how to humiliate the detainee by having me observe him naked.” September 20, 2003

  The precedeing quotation, taken from the initial CID investigation (Jan, 2004) illustrates this very point, that these interrogation techiniques suggested by General Miller were in place well before the 372nd company arrived at Abu Ghraib.

  Read the Torture Memoes from start to finish – AGAIN.

  Wasn’t General Karpinski held accountable for erosion of standards?

  Brigadeer General Janice Karpinski was only one of several in the COC that were found accoutable for lapses in judgement throughout the Iraq detainee system. Colonol Thomas Pappas and Major General Ricardo Sanchez were also reprimanded, however, as the head of the 800th MP brigade (and the reservists) Brigadeer General Karpinski was the only the only officer in the COC to be demoted and driven from the Army.

  Doesn’t this still boil down to a group out of control?

  Who was the “group out of control”? Certainly the night shift in charge of Tier 1A was photographed in the act of “abusing detainees” at Abu Ghraib, but the photographs show several unidentified military personnel connected with MI and subsequent testimony highlights the participatin of OGA in these activities. Additionally, do you include the abuses that occurred at Camp Cropper, Camp Bucca, and else where in the Iraq war theater? What about Afghanistan? If you want to talk about the “few bad apples” do you include Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld as a “few bad apples”?

  [Reply]

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