8. Military Police Moved from Incarceration Staff and Placed Under Military Intelligence (MI)

Military Police Moved from Incarceration Staff and Placed Under Military Intelligence (MI)

 

 

Military Police experienced a change in leadership from Janet Karpinski to being held under the supervision of the Military Intelligence during the Abu Ghraib.  The change brought on a new addition of the requirement of being a part of the interrogation staff.  They were responsible to create the conditions in which the prisoners would be interrogated and to work within the means to weaken the prisoners as the preparation for the Military Intelligence Police to have an easier victim to obtain intelligence on terrorist activities.  The techniques would be to scare, sleep deprived, and conduct techniques that were devised to created psychological damage to the prisoners.  They Military Police worked in twelve-hour shifts with only two soldiers on duty at a time. 

 

Graner was one of the Military Police that worked within this group.  As a desire for more and more power, Graner allowed himself to be sucked into the harsh treatments even though he later expressed the knowledge and understanding that the actions were morally and ethically wrong.

7. Major general Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez, and Interrogation Techniques

Major General Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez, and Interrogation Techniques

 

Major General Geoffrey Miller was a fast favorite of Donald Rumsfeld due to his tactics that he used at Guantanamo Bay, a prison camp.  It was Miller that implemented harsher techniques for interrogation on the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, which normally housed the higher profile or valued prisoners for the US.   As a prison of high classification security, it was not an open door for the press or attorneys, this prison was extremely high clearance. Though Major General Miller would state that the prisoners were treated in a very humane way, we now know that they prisoners were subjected to the extreme opposite. 

Donald Rumsfeld, as mentioned above, found the usefulness of Miller's interrogation methods and gave approval for their use at Abu Ghraib.  Approval branched into the use of the stress position which also included the fetal positions. It was on November 27 of 2002 when a report was released by Rumsfeld which gave the authorization for extreme techniques in the interrogation process.  This is in the form of a classified document and included approved actions which did not limit to solitary confinement, sensory disorientation, stress positions, undermine self confidence, and even more harsher techniques.  Rumsfeld went farther and sent Miller, himself, to implement the techniques at Abu Ghraib, in order to give the added push to obtain more intelligence. 

It was Miller's arrival into Iraq that changed the way that the Military Intelligence Police conducted the actual interrogations.  General Ricardo Sanchez would issue a memo which outlines the approval of extreme interrogation techniques to be used and the use of the hard techniques would now become normal protocol.  The prisoners were constantly naked and often would have sandbag covering their entire head.

 

6. The "Hard Site" and the Failure of "Intelligence" at Abu Ghraib

The "Hard Site" and the Failure of "Intelligence" at Abu Ghraib

 

 

 The "Hard site" at Abu Ghraib was a location in which the highly valued prisoners were kept.  Any detainees that were labeled as "high importance" or may have be privy to large amount of intelligence were placed at the "Hard Site".   Such individuals might have been Al Qaeda, Taliban, and/or other individuals from terrorist type groups would also be directed into this area.  This area was sectioned off into two levels: Tier 1A and Tier 1B.  Tier 1A would be the male terrorists as described above. Tier 1B would be the women and children that were held as collateral to the male detainees kept in Tier 1A.  The interrogators would use the Tier 1B detainees as leverage to get the men to give up more intelligence.  This area also had a lack of prison guards / soldiers to watch the inmates.

 

 

The Intelligence that was being received and transmitted out from Abu Ghraib was minimal.  The Military Intelligence Police believed that all the intelligence that they were forcing out of the detainees would be beneficial to save lives worldwide; however, the intelligence actually collected was far less than the Military Police expected.  While it is unsure where it was from lack of experience in interrogation methods or the prisoners actually had no intelligence to give.  

 



13. Where are Lynndie England and Charles Graner now?

Where are Lynndie England and Charles Graner now?

Lynndie England served five-hundred twenty-one days of her sentence and a three-year parole which ended on September 2008.  (AP 19 Mar 2013). England suffered through hardship trying to locate employment once released from prison and her parole.  She was able to find seasonal employment as a secretary for an accountant whom as known her since she was a teenager.  The majority of her time was spent with her parents in Fort Ashby, West Virginia, where she resides with her son.  In 2009, Graner was proved by a DNA test to be the father of England's son.  Despite the DNA prove, England states, "Graner is not an active father in their son's life.", according to an interview with The Daily in 2009.  This very interview proved to be very enlightening as England expresses no remorse for her action, "Their (Iraqis’) lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” she said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”

Charles Graner was released from prison in Kansas on the sixth of August, 2011.  He served a little more than six and a half years of his ten year sentence.  He married Megan Ambuhl.  Ambuhl was a member of his unit who was discharged from the Army after she pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty for failing to report maltreatment of the detainees.  He and his family has worked to remain out of the news. 

 

Above is the charge sheet for Charles A. Graner Jr.



12. The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

 

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report states that the authorization that was used in the interrogation tactics / techniques by the senior officials was a direct abuse of power.   The "approval" of the abuse demonstrated by the soldiers was in direct violation of the Geneva Convention.  The report links the abusive interrogation techniques and the interrogation policy for the individuals held as detainees in US custody as a major violation.  The abuse that the detainees suffered at the hands of the US soldiers  can only be described as actions of the senior officials who wanted to pass the blame onto the lower ranking soldiers.   The orders, whether written or oral, was clearly given and allowed.

 

The report states that Rumsfeld was also responsible for the actions that took place, and the idea that the harsher the punishment that they more information was possible through the techniques used under the "Bush Administration idea".

 



11. Antonio Taguba and his report, May 2004

Antonio Taguba and his report, May 2004

 



Major General Antonio Tagua of the US Army was the individual in charge of the investigation on the abuse scandal at Abu Gharib.  It was his goal to go there and find out the truth behind the details of the alleged abuse against the detainees.

 

Joseph Darby was the individual that was the first to stumble upon the photographs taken at Abu Ghraib and report them to the officials.  In February 2004, which in Iraq he was amazed at how much abuse was at the Iraq prison. 

 

It was not until May of 2004 that he would release his findings of the abuse of the detainees from October to December of 2003.  He reported that the Military police's abuse was intentionally carried through by the 273nd Military Policy Company. 

10. How did the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal become known and what was the immediate Result?

How did the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal become known and what was the immediate Result?

 

 

The heart of the news of the scandal at Abu Ghraib became known through the photographs that were taken by the 372nd Military Police Company.  As the soldiers shared stories and photographs, it would be the photographs that would be the key evidence into the wrong doings of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib. 

 

 

Charles Graner was one soldier that could be traced as handing a electronic disk of photographs from Abu Gharig to Darby who turned them into the Army investigators. 


In the Spring of 2004, the photos would be released to the public through 60 Minutes and The New Yorker.  Abu Ghraib's abuse would become public knowledge, as well, as the photographed soldiers.  The detainees abuse and inhumane treatment would be the top of conversation at the morning water cooler break time for many Americans.

The Bush Administration would call their press conferences, and defer the abuse as not typical of all American soldiers; therefore, setting the blame on only a few "bad egg" soldiers.

The 372nd Battalion became the embarrassment of the US Army and would be charged for all the abuse and inhumane treatment for the  Abu Ghraib Scandal.