[Vision2020] 050904 NY Times: In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed G.I.'s
Art Deco aka W. Fox
deco@moscow.com
Sun, 9 May 2004 14:12:09 -0700
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May 9, 2004
THE MILITARY
In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed G.I.'s
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
ASHINGTON, May 8 - The orders that sent most of the 320th Military Police
Battalion to Iraq came on Feb. 5, 2003, as part of the tide of two-week-a-year
soldiers being called up from the National Guard and the Army Reserve in
preparation for war.
In theory, the battalion's specialty was guarding enemy prisoners of war,
a task that was expected to be a major logistical problem. In fact, an Army
report said few of the 1,000 reservists of the 320th had been trained to do
that, and fewer still knew how to run a prison. They were deployed so quickly
from the mid-Atlantic region that there was no time to get new lessons.
"You're a person who works at McDonald's one day; the next day you're
standing in front of hundreds of prisoners, and half are saying they're sick and
half are saying they're hungry," remembered Sgt. First Class Paul Shaffer, 35, a
metalworker from Pennsylvania. "We were hit with so much so fast, I don't think
we were prepared."
The battalion - including insurance agents, checkout clerks, sales people
and others - ultimately would follow a grim trajectory into the episodes of
prisoner abuse that have shocked the nation. The soldiers found themselves in
charge of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq at a time when the increasing rage of the
anti-American insurgency, along with the desperation of American commanders to
glean intelligence, magnified the pressures on the unit. This account of the
troubled battalion is based on interviews with soldiers, their relatives,
military commanders and Army reports.
Within days of the American invasion of Iraq, the 320th was in Kuwait, and
the unit moved swiftly into southern Iraq, first to a prisoner of war camp
overseen by British troops and then to a sprawling barbed-wire American camp in
the desert. Known as Camp Bucca, the American camp was home to a legion of Iraqi
prisoners.
"We were supposed to be the experts on this, but all we knew is what we
learned in our summer camp," said Scott McKenzie, 38, of Clearwater, Pa., a
sergeant first class who has since been discharged from the service. "We never
learned how to deal with a riot, what to do when we were being assaulted."
On May 12, Mr. McKenzie, who worked in civilian life as a guard in a
boot-camp style detention center, was escorting some Iraqi prisoners at Camp
Bucca when just such a riot broke out, in what became the first incident of
prisoner abuse involving the unit. At least one detainee was held down while Mr.
McKenzie and two other soldiers badly beat and kicked him, according to
testimony presented in a court-martial. This was done at the urging of a
superior, Master Sgt. Lisa Girman, according to the testimony.
"We called it just another night in the desert," Mr. McKenzie recalled
last week. He insisted that he had used no more than "the minimum force
necessary to regain control of the prisoners" and that the event was "no big
deal."
Mr. McKenzie, Ms. Girman and another soldier were found guilty of
mistreating Iraqi detainees, and they accepted a less-than-honorable discharge
in a plea bargain. A fourth soldier in the unit also was granted a
less-than-honorable discharge separately. But the incident prompted no effort by
the soldiers' commanders to make sure the abuse was not repeated, according to
an Army investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba into the maltreatment of
prisoners. The inaction was a lapse in leadership that reflected the eventual
near total-breakdown of discipline in the unit.
Many members of the 320th had expected their mission to wind down once
Iraqi prisoners were freed, after the declaration on May 1, 2003, that major
combat operations had ended. Instead, to their considerable disappointment, the
soldiers learned that they would be sent on to longer missions.
Some elements of the battalion were still coming in, including the 372nd
Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md., which arrived in May 2003. At
first the 180-member company was assigned to work with marines in the southern
town of Hilla. With a specialty in law enforcement, the company was ordered to
help train a reconstituted Iraqi police force in Hilla.
Under Lt. Col. Jerry L. Phillabaum, most of the battalion was directed to
a different destination.
With the P.O.W. facilities at Camp Bucca, the Baghdad airport and other
sites still crowded, and the processing of prisoners taking time, the Army was
looking for more permanent detention quarters.
Just as the occupation authorities turned to Saddam Hussein's old palaces
to house the new Coalition Provisional Authority and other American headquarters
around the country, they chose as the new American prison Mr. Hussein's old one
at Abu Ghraib, even though it had a history of executions and torture that made
the prison one of the most feared symbols of the old government.
Mr. Hussein had emptied Abu Ghraib of its occupants in October 2002, in a
gesture aimed at winning popular support and possibly at stirring trouble for
any American occupation. As late as June 2003, its gates were still adorned with
his portrait.
Once the Army decided to reopen the 280-acre site, it did so swiftly,
renovating cells, painting the walls and sweeping up broken glass and other
debris left from months of looting. In July, much of the 320th Battalion was
sent to Abu Ghraib. The reservists were turned into wardens of what was to
become the world's largest prison run by the United States Army.
The New Wardens
A Rebellion Begins, and a Prison Reopens
At the outset of the American occupation, Abu Ghraib held only about 2,000
Iraqi prisoners, most housed in tents erected under the scorching summer sun
outside the prison itself.
The inmate population grew quickly, as prisoners arrested after the war
emerged as a far bigger challenge than those taken in the war.
"We were real short-handed," said Sergeant Shaffer, the metal worker from
Pennsylvania, who described cases in which no more than six guards on a single
shift would be in charge of 700 Iraqi prisoners. "On my compound, we were doing
16-hour days. It was a very high-stress environment."
There were also clear clashes of culture, as soldiers who had little
knowledge of the Middle East found themselves frustrated by the poor conditions,
the prospect of a yearlong deployment and a lack of compliance among the Iraqi
prisoners.
"They don't want to listen," Sergeant Shaffer said. "We'd say we want you
to line up at 9 o'clock; they'd say, `If you want us to line up at 9 o'clock, we
want something in return.' It doesn't work that way."
Among the prison's new inmates, many were criminals, some of the same ones
freed by Mr. Hussein. When they joined in the looting, lawlessness and other
crimes, the Americans rearrested them.
But a more worrisome category of prisoners emerged from the widening
insurgency in Iraq, as played out in the shootings, bombings and other attacks
against American soldiers. More and more of those prisoners were filling the
makeshift jails.
In addition to Abu Ghraib, they included Camp Bucca in the south; Camp
Cropper, a high-value prisoner center near the Baghdad airport; and Camp Ashraf,
a former camp for the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq, which was being
used to detain its members. The facilities were overseen by the 800th Military
Police Brigade, with headquarters in Uniondale, N.Y., the 320th Battalion and
the much smaller 372nd Military Police Company from Maryland.
Various Army divisions and other military units also maintained detention
facilities around the country where they could hold prisoners for as long as 14
days before transferring them to other sites.
At Abu Ghraib, the prison was divided into three main subcamps. One, Camp
Ganci, consisted of eight blocks of tents, each sealed off with razor wire and
containing about 400 inmates in rows and rows of Army-issue canvas tents. Each
tent held 25 inmates or more.
Camp Vigilant, another tent camp, was divided into four units with about
100 inmates each and was set aside for prisoners believed to have the most
intelligence value.
Finally, there was the "hard site," the old prison itself, divided into
seven blocks. Eventually, six were run by the Coalition Provisional Authority,
for the detention of Iraqi prisoners to be tried in Iraqi courts. The seventh
cellblock under American control, was divided into two parts, 1-A, set aside for
"high risk" prisoners, and 1-B, on the second floor, for female prisoners.
Together, the two parts had 103 cells, running down each wall, with a long
corridor down the middle. Each cell - about 6 by 10 feet - had a bunk bed and a
hole in the floor for a toilet. The cells were designed to hold 206 people.
From the initial 2,000 prisoners, the population skyrocketed toward 7,000
prisoners by September as thousands more "security detainees" were rounded up by
soldiers on suspicion of involvement in attacks on American troops.
In Baghdad, a three-person team headed by Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top
American intelligence officer in Iraq, was in charge of reviewing the status of
the security detainees as a prelude to their release. But far more Iraqis were
being arrested than freed; the average stay in the prison was approaching four
to six months. The 320th Battalion was stretched thin; working in temperatures
that regularly exceeded 120 degrees only added to the strain.
Meanwhile, security conditions around the prison were worsening, with
small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire coming into the
compound almost every night. Colonel Phillabaum, the battalion commander, said
that he and other officers dubbed the neighborhood around the prison "Little
Mogadishu," after the Somali capital that in 1993 become a death trap for
American soldiers. "The people just hated us," he said.
A Troubled Unit
Overcrowding and Prison Riots
By late in the summer of 2003, concerns about overcrowding, disciplinary
problems and disturbances at American-run prisons in Iraq had reached the
highest level of the military's headquarters in Baghdad. At Abu Ghraib in June,
a riot broke out and eight detainees were shot, leaving one dead. Similar
incidents occurred elsewhere.
But even more concern was focused on the mounting insurgency, and how
little American intelligence had been gathered about it, even though thousands
of Iraqis had been taken into custody. Mr. Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay,
were dead, killed by American soldiers in July, but the former Iraqi leader was
still on the run. Major bombings in August of the United Nations headquarters
and at other sites added to the level of anxiety.
While military police were in charge of American prisons in Iraq, military
intelligence units were in charge of interrogations. But changes were in the
works.
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, a business consultant and longtime reservist
who had arrived in Iraq in late June to take over the 800th Military Police
Brigade. "The numbers were increasing at rapid rates," she recalled in one of
several television interviews this week.
"They were tagged as security detainees and they could not simply be
released," she said. "They had to be interrogated, held, reviewed, and then
ultimately released. I know that the interrogation, the interrogators, were
under tremendous pressure."
In mid-August, a team of civilian interrogators led by Steven Stefanowicz,
a former Navy petty officer and an employee of a Virginia company called CACI,
began work at Abu Ghraib under a classified one-year military contract. The
contract was part of a broader effort by the military to enlist Arabic linguists
and other civilians in the work of questioning Iraqi detainees. CACI sent 27
interrogators to Abu Ghraib, Pentagon officials have said. Their job was to
conduct interrogations in conjunction with military police and military
intelligence units, according to a company memorandum.
Later that month, at the behest of senior Pentagon officials, Maj. Gen.
Geoffrey D. Miller, the two-star Army general overseeing the American detention
center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Iraq. He was to review the
American-led effort "to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence,"
according to the Army report by General Taguba.
Among General Miller's classified recommendations, submitted after a tour
that ended Sept. 9, were that the guards at Abu Ghraib and other facilities "be
actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the
internees," according to General Taguba's report.
At the end of September, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top American
officer in Iraq, sent his inspector general to Abu Ghraib. According to Colonel
Phillabaum, the visiting officer told him, "You guys are the forgotten."
Isolated and without amenities like gyms and barbershops that were
available to other troops in Iraq, morale in the 320th plummeted. Many
reservists who had been sent home when their tours were complete had not been
replaced, adding to the burden of the remaining guards even as the number of
prisoners continued to rise.
Army doctrine calls for a military police brigade to handle about 4,000
prisoners. But a single battalion - about a third the size of a brigade - was
handling 6,000 to 7,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib. When battalion commanders
sought to release hundreds of detainees deemed to be no threat to allied forces,
they were blocked from doing so by officers in Baghdad, they have complained.
At the end of October, Colonel Phillabaum briefed General Sanchez on the
deteriorating, dysfunctional conditions at Abu Ghraib. "It was a real
heart-to-heart," Colonel Phillabaum said in an interview. "I told it the way it
was."
Rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire were "a constant threat,"
General Karpinski said.
"Abu Ghraib was in the middle of a hostile fire zone," she said, adding
that the unit was "mortared every night, practically." Within days of the
briefing to General Sanchez, General Karpinski sent Colonel Phillabaum to Kuwait
for two weeks "to give him some relief from the pressure" at the camp, General
Taguba's inquiry found.
Colonel Phillabaum contends that General Karpinski was angry because his
briefing reflected poorly on her command, so she began a process to reassign him
to her headquarters. Colonel Phillabaum, however, returned to his post.
According to General Taguba, Colonel Phillabaum and his chain of command
were part of the problem, rarely supervising their troops and failing to set
basic soldiering standards for them or make them aware of the protections
afforded to prisoners under the Geneva Conventions.
"Despite his proven deficiencies, as both a commander and leader," General
Taguba concluded, General Karpinski allowed Colonel Phillabaum "to remain in
command of her most troubled battalion guarding, by far, the largest number of
detainees in the 800th M.P. Brigade."
In October 2003, the 372nd Military Police Company joined Colonel
Phillabaum's battalion at Abu Ghraib.
In Hilla, they had seen little combat; in Abu Ghraib the soldiers suddenly
found themselves under attack virtually every night from insurgents outside the
prison.
In Hilla, the 372nd had been focusing on law enforcement. Staff Sgt. Ivan
L. Frederick, one of the soldiers from western Maryland, for one, had spent six
months working in operations, "manning radio's, mission board etc.," according
to a journal entry he made on Jan. 24. In Abu Ghraib, however, unit members were
assigned as prison guards, with responsibilities that included the so-called
Tier 1 cellblock of the prison.
A few weeks later, on Nov. 19, 2003, General Sanchez made a surprising
decision: he transferred formal command of Abu Ghraib to the 205th Military
Intelligence Brigade under Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, a 32-year military veteran
whose unit, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, had been assigned to the prison as the
chief interrogators since it opened. Working with Colonel Pappas was Lt. Col.
Steve Jordan, who headed the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the
prison.
General Karpinski, Colonel Phillabaum and the military police in the
battalion contend that the military intelligence officers had, even before Nov.
19, essentially taken control of the prisoners in the Tier 1 cellblock and had
encouraged their mistreatment. General Taguba concluded that the 372nd "was
directed to change facility procedures to `set the conditions' " for
interrogations.
"It was like they were in charge now; it's a military intelligence unit
now," said a member of the 32Oth Battalion, Sgt. John Lamela, of Wilkes-Barre,
Pa.
The intelligence officers' practice of wearing uniforms without insignia
made it difficult for soldiers to identify the officers or even to determine
which of them were military and which belonged to other agencies, including the
C.I.A., whose officers periodically visited Abu Ghraib prison to participate in
interrogations.
"They were in charge; it was almost like whatever his battalion wanted,
his battalion got," Sergeant Lamela said of one senior intelligence officer at
the prison. "He moved people out of their units so his personnel could live in
their units. His personnel could walk around without proper uniforms; we as
M.P.'s were not to correct them; he would say, `Let it slide.' "
Sgt. First Class Joseph Mood of Benton, Pa., had a similar view of the
intelligence officers' influence. "They took over the whole base; it was their
show," he said. "That was their wording. `This is our show now.' They would try
to get us to keep prisoners up all night, make them stand outside, have them
stand up all the time - sometimes they asked the guards to do something that was
totally against what you believed in doing."
An Open Secret
Reports of Abuse Trickle Out
During the summer and fall human rights groups in Iraq say they heard
repeated complaints of prisoners being roughed up or abused by their American
jailers. Those were not the only breakdowns of discipline in that period.
On three days, Nov. 5, 7 and 8, detainees escaped from the prison and Camp
Ganci, according to the results of military investigations that have been made
public. Then, in what appears to have been the worst of the incidents, a riot
broke out on Nov. 24 in Camp Ganci in which 12 detainees were shot, and 3 of
them killed, after members of the military police battalion opened fire. For
reasons that have not been explained, nonlethal and lethal rounds were mixed in
their chambers, according to the investigation.
Also at Abu Ghraib that month, an Iraqi detainee died as he was being
questioned by a C.I.A. officer and a linguist who was working as a contract
employee with the agency, in an investigation still under review by the agency's
inspector general. Through December and January, there were more shootings,
riots and escapes. The worst abuses at Abu Ghraib took place on or around Nov.
8, according to the details of the military investigation made public so far,
and principally in Cellblock 1-A, the group of cells set aside for high risk
prisoners.
It was largely in that cellblock that some guards from the 372nd are
accused of committing abuses that General Taguba called "sadistic, blatant and
wanton" criminal acts. Prisoners were punched, slapped and kicked and forced to
strip naked and form human pyramids. Some were ordered to simulate sexual acts.
In some of the photographs of the abuse that have surfaced in recent days, the
M.P.'s are grinning.
Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. is shown with his arms folded as he
stands behind a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners; an unidentified Iraqi prisoner is
seen hooded and standing on a small box, with wires attached to his body; and
Pfc. Lynndie England is seen glaring down at a naked Iraqi prisoner, whom she is
holding by a leash.
So far, seven enlisted soldiers from the western Maryland company face
criminal charges, all from the incidents in Tier 1. But several inquiries are
still under way, and the question of who was primarily responsible has still not
been answered.
The report by General Taguba, though limited to the conduct of the
military police, said that the general suspected much of the fault, either
directly or indirectly, should be attributed to military intelligence units
under Colonel Pappas and Colonel Jordan. Through a spokesman, Colonel Pappas
declined to comment, and Army officials would not even say which unit Colonel
Jordan is currently assigned to. General Tabuga also blamed Mr. Stefanowicz and
another contractor, John Israel, neither of whom could be reached for comment.
General Taguba's inquiry also criticized commanders, including Colonel
Phillabaum, for failing to supervise his troops and allowing a climate of abuse
to take hold.
Colonel Phillabaum said he felt he was being made a scapegoat for the
Army. "I have suffered shame and humiliation for doing the best job that anyone
could have done given the resources I had to work with," he said.
Colonel Phillabaum pinned the bulk of the blame on two of of the 372nd's
soldiers, Sergeant Frederick and Specialist Graner, who are both corrections
officers in civilian life. Neither of the two have spoken publicly about the
episode.
"These two people were really the ringleaders of this whole thing,"
Colonel Phillabaum said. "Everybody else followed."
They were the natural leaders in the military police company, he said,
since they spoke of their work experiences.
"Taking these prisoners out of their cells and staging bizarre acts were
the thoughts of a couple of demented M.P.'s who in civilian life are prison
correction officers who well know such acts are prohibited," Colonel Phillabaum
said.
He said the abuses that were photographed only occurred between 2 a.m. and
4 a.m., times that Sergeant Frederick and Specialist Graner knew no commissioned
officers would be checking in. He said the digital photos are all time-coded,
and they are all taken over a couple of weeks in this brief window.
"If they thought these acts were condoned, then why were they only done a
few nights between 0200 and 0400 instead of during any time between 0600 and
2400 when there were many others around?" Colonel Phillabaum asked.
Sergeant Frederick's uncle, William Lawson, said his nephew had told him
the soldiers were photographing the Iraqi prisoners at the direction of military
intelligence officers as an interrogation tool.
"Somebody photographed the Iraqis with the intent of using those
photographs to show new prisoners that came in, `This is what can happen to
you,' to loosen them up psychologically," Mr. Lawson said.
In a letter to his family last year, Sergeant Frederick wrote that
military intelligence officers encouraged mistreatment like confining naked
inmates for three consecutive days without toilets in damp, unventilated cells
with floors 3 feet by 3 feet. Inmates were also handcuffed to cell doors and
forced to wear female underpants. "We have a very high rate with our style of
getting them to break," Sergeant Frederick wrote to a relative, Mimi Frederick,
in an e-mail message on Dec. 18, 2003, according to a copy of the communication.
"They usually end up breaking within hours."
General Karpinski has also said that she believed the military police were
"coached" in their abusive actions by military intelligence officers. Neal
Puckett, General Karpinski's lawyer, said the military police "took all their
instructions from military intelligence interrogators, who instructed them to
bring the prisoners to and away from these interrogation facilities, and
sometimes perhaps to soften them up."
He suggested that the interrogators had instructed the guards to "bring
them back naked this time, leave them naked tonight, don't give them any
clothes. We think that escalated over a period of time until it ended up in what
we see in the pictures."
A military official said Saturday that some of the photographs in the
custody of military investigators, but not yet publicly disclosed, depict
military working dogs snarling and intimidating Iraqi prisoners. "There are
photos showing military working dogs used in a threatening manner," said the
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said he was not
aware of when or at which prison in Iraq the photos were taken.
General Karpinski has complained that the initial investigation ordered by
General Sanchez was limited to the conduct of her military police brigade and
did not examine in any detail the role played by military intelligence and
private contractors.
Not until General Sanchez received a preliminary briefing on General
Taguba's findings on March 12, which identified the intelligence officers and
contractors as having possibly been primarily to blame, did he order a similar
review of any wrongdoing by military intelligence officers at the prison. For
reasons that remain unclear, that inquiry did not begin until April 23.
"I'd like to know who was the one that was giving instructions to the
military intelligence personnel to turn up the heat?" General Karpinski asked.
Nearly a year ago, when her troops assumed their prison duty at Abu
Ghraib, the Army made a promise. When it reopened Abu Ghraib last June, soldiers
hung a sign at the gate that proclaimed: "America is a friend of all the Iraqi
people."
Thom Shanker in Washington, Kate Zernike and Michael Moss in New York,
Dexter Filkins and Ian Fisher in Baghdad and Patrick E. Tyler in Wiesbaden,
Germany, contributed reporting for this article.
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<H5>May 9, 2004</H5><NYT_KICKER><FONT color=3D#666666 =
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MILITARY</STRONG></FONT> </NYT_KICKER><NYT_HEADLINE =
version=3D"1.0"=20
type=3D" ">
<H2>In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed=20
G.I.'s</H2></NYT_HEADLINE><NYT_BYLINE version=3D"1.0" type=3D" =
"><FONT=20
size=3D-1><STRONG>By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC=20
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<TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><NYT_TEXT>
<P><IMG height=3D33 alt=3DW=20
src=3D"http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/w.gif" =
width=3D46=20
align=3Dleft border=3D0>ASHINGTON, May 8 =97 The orders that sent =
most of the=20
320th Military Police Battalion to Iraq came on Feb. 5, 2003, as =
part of=20
the tide of two-week-a-year soldiers being called up from the =
National=20
Guard and the Army Reserve in preparation for war. </P>
<P>In theory, the battalion's specialty was guarding enemy =
prisoners of=20
war, a task that was expected to be a major logistical problem. In =
fact,=20
an Army report said few of the 1,000 reservists of the 320th had =
been=20
trained to do that, and fewer still knew how to run a prison. They =
were=20
deployed so quickly from the mid-Atlantic region that there was no =
time to=20
get new lessons. </P>
<P>"You're a person who works at McDonald's one day; the next day =
you're=20
standing in front of hundreds of prisoners, and half are saying =
they're=20
sick and half are saying they're hungry," remembered Sgt. First =
Class Paul=20
Shaffer, 35, a metalworker from Pennsylvania. "We were hit with so =
much so=20
fast, I don't think we were prepared." </P>
<P>The battalion =97 including insurance agents, checkout clerks, =
sales=20
people and others =97 ultimately would follow a grim trajectory =
into the=20
episodes of prisoner abuse that have shocked the nation. The =
soldiers=20
found themselves in charge of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq at a time =
when the=20
increasing rage of the anti-American insurgency, along with the=20
desperation of American commanders to glean intelligence, =
magnified the=20
pressures on the unit. This account of the troubled battalion is =
based on=20
interviews with soldiers, their relatives, military commanders and =
Army=20
reports. </P>
<P>Within days of the American invasion of Iraq, the 320th was in =
Kuwait,=20
and the unit moved swiftly into southern Iraq, first to a prisoner =
of war=20
camp overseen by British troops and then to a sprawling =
barbed-wire=20
American camp in the desert. Known as Camp Bucca, the American =
camp was=20
home to a legion of Iraqi prisoners.</P>
<P>"We were supposed to be the experts on this, but all we knew is =
what we=20
learned in our summer camp," said Scott McKenzie, 38, of =
Clearwater, Pa.,=20
a sergeant first class who has since been discharged from the =
service. "We=20
never learned how to deal with a riot, what to do when we were =
being=20
assaulted." </P>
<P>On May 12, Mr. McKenzie, who worked in civilian life as a guard =
in a=20
boot-camp style detention center, was escorting some Iraqi =
prisoners at=20
Camp Bucca when just such a riot broke out, in what became the =
first=20
incident of prisoner abuse involving the unit. At least one =
detainee was=20
held down while Mr. McKenzie and two other soldiers badly beat and =
kicked=20
him, according to testimony presented in a court-martial. This was =
done at=20
the urging of a superior, Master Sgt. Lisa Girman, according to =
the=20
testimony. </P>
<P>"We called it just another night in the desert," Mr. McKenzie =
recalled=20
last week. He insisted that he had used no more than "the minimum =
force=20
necessary to regain control of the prisoners" and that the event =
was "no=20
big deal."</P>
<P>Mr. McKenzie, Ms. Girman and another soldier were found guilty =
of=20
mistreating Iraqi detainees, and they accepted a =
less-than-honorable=20
discharge in a plea bargain. A fourth soldier in the unit also was =
granted=20
a less-than-honorable discharge separately. But the incident =
prompted no=20
effort by the soldiers' commanders to make sure the abuse was not=20
repeated, according to an Army investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio =
M.=20
Taguba into the maltreatment of prisoners. The inaction was a =
lapse in=20
leadership that reflected the eventual near total-breakdown of =
discipline=20
in the unit. </P>
<P>Many members of the 320th had expected their mission to wind =
down once=20
Iraqi prisoners were freed, after the declaration on May 1, 2003, =
that=20
major combat operations had ended. Instead, to their considerable=20
disappointment, the soldiers learned that they would be sent on to =
longer=20
missions. </P>
<P>Some elements of the battalion were still coming in, including =
the=20
372nd Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md., which =
arrived in=20
May 2003. At first the 180-member company was assigned to work =
with=20
marines in the southern town of Hilla. With a specialty in law=20
enforcement, the company was ordered to help train a reconstituted =
Iraqi=20
police force in Hilla. </P>
<P>Under Lt. Col. Jerry L. Phillabaum, most of the battalion was =
directed=20
to a different destination. </P>
<P>With the P.O.W. facilities at Camp Bucca, the Baghdad airport =
and other=20
sites still crowded, and the processing of prisoners taking time, =
the Army=20
was looking for more permanent detention quarters.</P>
<P>Just as the occupation authorities turned to Saddam Hussein's =
old=20
palaces to house the new Coalition Provisional Authority and other =
American headquarters around the country, they chose as the new =
American=20
prison Mr. Hussein's old one at Abu Ghraib, even though it had a =
history=20
of executions and torture that made the prison one of the most =
feared=20
symbols of the old government. </P>
<P>Mr. Hussein had emptied Abu Ghraib of its occupants in October =
2002, in=20
a gesture aimed at winning popular support and possibly at =
stirring=20
trouble for any American occupation. As late as June 2003, its =
gates were=20
still adorned with his portrait. </P>
<P>Once the Army decided to reopen the 280-acre site, it did so =
swiftly,=20
renovating cells, painting the walls and sweeping up broken glass =
and=20
other debris left from months of looting. In July, much of the =
320th=20
Battalion was sent to Abu Ghraib. The reservists were turned into =
wardens=20
of what was to become the world's largest prison run by the United =
States=20
Army. </P>
<P><STRONG><U>The New Wardens</U><BR>A Rebellion Begins, and a =
Prison=20
Reopens</STRONG></P>
<P>At the outset of the American occupation, Abu Ghraib held only =
about=20
2,000 Iraqi prisoners, most housed in tents erected under the =
scorching=20
summer sun outside the prison itself. </P>
<P>The inmate population grew quickly, as prisoners arrested after =
the war=20
emerged as a far bigger challenge than those taken in the war. =
</P>
<P>"We were real short-handed," said Sergeant Shaffer, the metal =
worker=20
from Pennsylvania, who described cases in which no more than six =
guards on=20
a single shift would be in charge of 700 Iraqi prisoners. "On my =
compound,=20
we were doing 16-hour days. It was a very high-stress =
environment." </P>
<P>There were also clear clashes of culture, as soldiers who had =
little=20
knowledge of the Middle East found themselves frustrated by the =
poor=20
conditions, the prospect of a yearlong deployment and a lack of =
compliance=20
among the Iraqi prisoners.</P>
<P>"They don't want to listen," Sergeant Shaffer said. "We'd say =
we want=20
you to line up at 9 o'clock; they'd say, `If you want us to line =
up at 9=20
o'clock, we want something in return.' It doesn't work that way." =
</P>
<P>Among the prison's new inmates, many were criminals, some of =
the same=20
ones freed by Mr. Hussein. When they joined in the looting, =
lawlessness=20
and other crimes, the Americans rearrested them. </P>
<P>But a more worrisome category of prisoners emerged from the =
widening=20
insurgency in Iraq, as played out in the shootings, bombings and =
other=20
attacks against American soldiers. More and more of those =
prisoners were=20
filling the makeshift jails. </P>
<P>In addition to Abu Ghraib, they included Camp Bucca in the =
south; Camp=20
Cropper, a high-value prisoner center near the Baghdad airport; =
and Camp=20
Ashraf, a former camp for the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen =
Khalq,=20
which was being used to detain its members. The facilities were =
overseen=20
by the 800th Military Police Brigade, with headquarters in =
Uniondale,=20
N.Y., the 320th Battalion and the much smaller 372nd Military =
Police=20
Company from Maryland. </P>
<P>Various Army divisions and other military units also maintained =
detention facilities around the country where they could hold =
prisoners=20
for as long as 14 days before transferring them to other sites. =
</P>
<P>At Abu Ghraib, the prison was divided into three main subcamps. =
One,=20
Camp Ganci, consisted of eight blocks of tents, each sealed off =
with razor=20
wire and containing about 400 inmates in rows and rows of =
Army-issue=20
canvas tents. Each tent held 25 inmates or more. </P>
<P>Camp Vigilant, another tent camp, was divided into four units =
with=20
about 100 inmates each and was set aside for prisoners believed to =
have=20
the most intelligence value. </P>
<P>Finally, there was the "hard site," the old prison itself, =
divided into=20
seven blocks. Eventually, six were run by the Coalition =
Provisional=20
Authority, for the detention of Iraqi prisoners to be tried in =
Iraqi=20
courts. The seventh cellblock under American control, was divided =
into two=20
parts, 1-A, set aside for "high risk" prisoners, and 1-B, on the =
second=20
floor, for female prisoners. </P>
<P>Together, the two parts had 103 cells, running down each wall, =
with a=20
long corridor down the middle. Each cell =97 about 6 by 10 feet =
=97 had a bunk=20
bed and a hole in the floor for a toilet. The cells were designed =
to hold=20
206 people. </P>
<P>From the initial 2,000 prisoners, the population skyrocketed =
toward=20
7,000 prisoners by September as thousands more "security =
detainees" were=20
rounded up by soldiers on suspicion of involvement in attacks on =
American=20
troops. </P>
<P>In Baghdad, a three-person team headed by Maj. Gen. Barbara =
Fast, the=20
top American intelligence officer in Iraq, was in charge of =
reviewing the=20
status of the security detainees as a prelude to their release. =
But far=20
more Iraqis were being arrested than freed; the average stay in =
the prison=20
was approaching four to six months. The 320th Battalion was =
stretched=20
thin; working in temperatures that regularly exceeded 120 degrees =
only=20
added to the strain. </P>
<P>Meanwhile, security conditions around the prison were =
worsening, with=20
small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire coming =
into the=20
compound almost every night. Colonel Phillabaum, the battalion =
commander,=20
said that he and other officers dubbed the neighborhood around the =
prison=20
"Little Mogadishu," after the Somali capital that in 1993 become a =
death=20
trap for American soldiers. "The people just hated us," he =
said.</P>
<P><STRONG><U>A Troubled Unit</U><BR>Overcrowding and Prison=20
Riots</STRONG></P>
<P>By late in the summer of 2003, concerns about overcrowding,=20
disciplinary problems and disturbances at American-run prisons in =
Iraq had=20
reached the highest level of the military's headquarters in =
Baghdad. At=20
Abu Ghraib in June, a riot broke out and eight detainees were =
shot,=20
leaving one dead. Similar incidents occurred elsewhere. </P>
<P>But even more concern was focused on the mounting insurgency, =
and how=20
little American intelligence had been gathered about it, even =
though=20
thousands of Iraqis had been taken into custody. Mr. Hussein's two =
sons,=20
Uday and Qusay, were dead, killed by American soldiers in July, =
but the=20
former Iraqi leader was still on the run. Major bombings in August =
of the=20
United Nations headquarters and at other sites added to the level =
of=20
anxiety. </P>
<P>While military police were in charge of American prisons in =
Iraq,=20
military intelligence units were in charge of interrogations. But =
changes=20
were in the works.</P>
<P>Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, a business consultant and longtime=20
reservist who had arrived in Iraq in late June to take over the =
800th=20
Military Police Brigade. "The numbers were increasing at rapid =
rates," she=20
recalled in one of several television interviews this week. </P>
<P>"They were tagged as security detainees and they could not =
simply be=20
released," she said. "They had to be interrogated, held, reviewed, =
and=20
then ultimately released. I know that the interrogation, the=20
interrogators, were under tremendous pressure." </P>
<P>In mid-August, a team of civilian interrogators led by Steven=20
Stefanowicz, a former Navy petty officer and an employee of a =
Virginia=20
company called CACI, began work at Abu Ghraib under a classified =
one-year=20
military contract. The contract was part of a broader effort by =
the=20
military to enlist Arabic linguists and other civilians in the =
work of=20
questioning Iraqi detainees. CACI sent 27 interrogators to Abu =
Ghraib,=20
Pentagon officials have said. Their job was to conduct =
interrogations in=20
conjunction with military police and military intelligence units,=20
according to a company memorandum. </P>
<P>Later that month, at the behest of senior Pentagon officials, =
Maj. Gen.=20
Geoffrey D. Miller, the two-star Army general overseeing the =
American=20
detention center at Guant=E1namo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Iraq. He =
was to=20
review the American-led effort "to rapidly exploit internees for=20
actionable intelligence," according to the Army report by General=20
Taguba.</P>
<P>Among General Miller's classified recommendations, submitted =
after a=20
tour that ended Sept. 9, were that the guards at Abu Ghraib and =
other=20
facilities "be actively engaged in setting the conditions for =
successful=20
exploitation of the internees," according to General Taguba's =
report.</P>
<P>At the end of September, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top =
American=20
officer in Iraq, sent his inspector general to Abu Ghraib. =
According to=20
Colonel Phillabaum, the visiting officer told him, "You guys are =
the=20
forgotten."</P>
<P>Isolated and without amenities like gyms and barbershops that =
were=20
available to other troops in Iraq, morale in the 320th plummeted. =
Many=20
reservists who had been sent home when their tours were complete =
had not=20
been replaced, adding to the burden of the remaining guards even =
as the=20
number of prisoners continued to rise. </P>
<P>Army doctrine calls for a military police brigade to handle =
about 4,000=20
prisoners. But a single battalion =97 about a third the size of a =
brigade =97=20
was handling 6,000 to 7,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib. When =
battalion=20
commanders sought to release hundreds of detainees deemed to be no =
threat=20
to allied forces, they were blocked from doing so by officers in =
Baghdad,=20
they have complained.</P>
<P>At the end of October, Colonel Phillabaum briefed General =
Sanchez on=20
the deteriorating, dysfunctional conditions at Abu Ghraib. "It was =
a real=20
heart-to-heart," Colonel Phillabaum said in an interview. "I told =
it the=20
way it was." </P>
<P>Rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire were "a constant =
threat,"=20
General Karpinski said. </P>
<P>"Abu Ghraib was in the middle of a hostile fire zone," she =
said, adding=20
that the unit was "mortared every night, practically." Within days =
of the=20
briefing to General Sanchez, General Karpinski sent Colonel =
Phillabaum to=20
Kuwait for two weeks "to give him some relief from the pressure" =
at the=20
camp, General Taguba's inquiry found. </P>
<P>Colonel Phillabaum contends that General Karpinski was angry =
because=20
his briefing reflected poorly on her command, so she began a =
process to=20
reassign him to her headquarters. Colonel Phillabaum, however, =
returned to=20
his post. </P>
<P>According to General Taguba, Colonel Phillabaum and his chain =
of=20
command were part of the problem, rarely supervising their troops =
and=20
failing to set basic soldiering standards for them or make them =
aware of=20
the protections afforded to prisoners under the Geneva =
Conventions. </P>
<P>"Despite his proven deficiencies, as both a commander and =
leader,"=20
General Taguba concluded, General Karpinski allowed Colonel =
Phillabaum "to=20
remain in command of her most troubled battalion guarding, by far, =
the=20
largest number of detainees in the 800th M.P. Brigade." </P>
<P>In October 2003, the 372nd Military Police Company joined =
Colonel=20
Phillabaum's battalion at Abu Ghraib. </P>
<P>In Hilla, they had seen little combat; in Abu Ghraib the =
soldiers=20
suddenly found themselves under attack virtually every night from=20
insurgents outside the prison. </P>
<P>In Hilla, the 372nd had been focusing on law enforcement. Staff =
Sgt.=20
Ivan L. Frederick, one of the soldiers from western Maryland, for =
one, had=20
spent six months working in operations, "manning radio's, mission =
board=20
etc.," according to a journal entry he made on Jan. 24. In Abu =
Ghraib,=20
however, unit members were assigned as prison guards, with=20
responsibilities that included the so-called Tier 1 cellblock of =
the=20
prison. </P>
<P>A few weeks later, on Nov. 19, 2003, General Sanchez made a =
surprising=20
decision: he transferred formal command of Abu Ghraib to the 205th =
Military Intelligence Brigade under Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, a =
32-year=20
military veteran whose unit, based in Wiesbaden, Germany, had been =
assigned to the prison as the chief interrogators since it opened. =
Working=20
with Colonel Pappas was Lt. Col. Steve Jordan, who headed the =
Joint=20
Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the prison. </P>
<P>General Karpinski, Colonel Phillabaum and the military police =
in the=20
battalion contend that the military intelligence officers had, =
even before=20
Nov. 19, essentially taken control of the prisoners in the Tier 1=20
cellblock and had encouraged their mistreatment. General Taguba =
concluded=20
that the 372nd "was directed to change facility procedures to `set =
the=20
conditions' " for interrogations. </P>
<P>"It was like they were in charge now; it's a military =
intelligence unit=20
now," said a member of the 32Oth Battalion, Sgt. John Lamela, of=20
Wilkes-Barre, Pa. </P>
<P>The intelligence officers' practice of wearing uniforms without =
insignia made it difficult for soldiers to identify the officers =
or even=20
to determine which of them were military and which belonged to =
other=20
agencies, including the C.I.A., whose officers periodically =
visited Abu=20
Ghraib prison to participate in interrogations.</P>
<P>"They were in charge; it was almost like whatever his battalion =
wanted,=20
his battalion got," Sergeant Lamela said of one senior =
intelligence=20
officer at the prison. "He moved people out of their units so his=20
personnel could live in their units. His personnel could walk =
around=20
without proper uniforms; we as M.P.'s were not to correct them; he =
would=20
say, `Let it slide.' "</P>
<P>Sgt. First Class Joseph Mood of Benton, Pa., had a similar view =
of the=20
intelligence officers' influence. "They took over the whole base; =
it was=20
their show," he said. "That was their wording. `This is our show =
now.'=20
They would try to get us to keep prisoners up all night, make them =
stand=20
outside, have them stand up all the time =97 sometimes they asked =
the guards=20
to do something that was totally against what you believed in =
doing." </P>
<P><STRONG><U>An Open Secret</U><BR>Reports of Abuse Trickle=20
Out</STRONG></P>
<P>During the summer and fall human rights groups in Iraq say they =
heard=20
repeated complaints of prisoners being roughed up or abused by =
their=20
American jailers. Those were not the only breakdowns of discipline =
in that=20
period. </P>
<P>On three days, Nov. 5, 7 and 8, detainees escaped from the =
prison and=20
Camp Ganci, according to the results of military investigations =
that have=20
been made public. Then, in what appears to have been the worst of =
the=20
incidents, a riot broke out on Nov. 24 in Camp Ganci in which 12 =
detainees=20
were shot, and 3 of them killed, after members of the military =
police=20
battalion opened fire. For reasons that have not been explained, =
nonlethal=20
and lethal rounds were mixed in their chambers, according to the=20
investigation.</P>
<P>Also at Abu Ghraib that month, an Iraqi detainee died as he was =
being=20
questioned by a C.I.A. officer and a linguist who was working as a =
contract employee with the agency, in an investigation still under =
review=20
by the agency's inspector general. Through December and January, =
there=20
were more shootings, riots and escapes. The worst abuses at Abu =
Ghraib=20
took place on or around Nov. 8, according to the details of the =
military=20
investigation made public so far, and principally in Cellblock =
1-A, the=20
group of cells set aside for high risk prisoners.</P>
<P>It was largely in that cellblock that some guards from the =
372nd are=20
accused of committing abuses that General Taguba called "sadistic, =
blatant=20
and wanton" criminal acts. Prisoners were punched, slapped and =
kicked and=20
forced to strip naked and form human pyramids. Some were ordered =
to=20
simulate sexual acts. In some of the photographs of the abuse that =
have=20
surfaced in recent days, the M.P.'s are grinning. </P>
<P>Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr. is shown with his arms folded =
as he=20
stands behind a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners; an unidentified =
Iraqi=20
prisoner is seen hooded and standing on a small box, with wires =
attached=20
to his body; and Pfc. Lynndie England is seen glaring down at a =
naked=20
Iraqi prisoner, whom she is holding by a leash. </P>
<P>So far, seven enlisted soldiers from the western Maryland =
company face=20
criminal charges, all from the incidents in Tier 1. But several =
inquiries=20
are still under way, and the question of who was primarily =
responsible has=20
still not been answered. </P>
<P>The report by General Taguba, though limited to the conduct of =
the=20
military police, said that the general suspected much of the =
fault, either=20
directly or indirectly, should be attributed to military =
intelligence=20
units under Colonel Pappas and Colonel Jordan. Through a =
spokesman,=20
Colonel Pappas declined to comment, and Army officials would not =
even say=20
which unit Colonel Jordan is currently assigned to. General Tabuga =
also=20
blamed Mr. Stefanowicz and another contractor, John Israel, =
neither of=20
whom could be reached for comment. </P>
<P>General Taguba's inquiry also criticized commanders, including =
Colonel=20
Phillabaum, for failing to supervise his troops and allowing a =
climate of=20
abuse to take hold. </P>
<P>Colonel Phillabaum said he felt he was being made a scapegoat =
for the=20
Army. "I have suffered shame and humiliation for doing the best =
job that=20
anyone could have done given the resources I had to work with," he =
said.</P>
<P>Colonel Phillabaum pinned the bulk of the blame on two of of =
the=20
372nd's soldiers, Sergeant Frederick and Specialist Graner, who =
are both=20
corrections officers in civilian life. Neither of the two have =
spoken=20
publicly about the episode. </P>
<P>"These two people were really the ringleaders of this whole =
thing,"=20
Colonel Phillabaum said. "Everybody else followed." </P>
<P>They were the natural leaders in the military police company, =
he said,=20
since they spoke of their work experiences. </P>
<P>"Taking these prisoners out of their cells and staging bizarre =
acts=20
were the thoughts of a couple of demented M.P.'s who in civilian =
life are=20
prison correction officers who well know such acts are =
prohibited,"=20
Colonel Phillabaum said. </P>
<P>He said the abuses that were photographed only occurred between =
2 a.m.=20
and 4 a.m., times that Sergeant Frederick and Specialist Graner =
knew no=20
commissioned officers would be checking in. He said the digital =
photos are=20
all time-coded, and they are all taken over a couple of weeks in =
this=20
brief window.</P>
<P>"If they thought these acts were condoned, then why were they =
only done=20
a few nights between 0200 and 0400 instead of during any time =
between 0600=20
and 2400 when there were many others around?" Colonel Phillabaum =
asked.=20
</P>
<P>Sergeant Frederick's uncle, William Lawson, said his nephew had =
told=20
him the soldiers were photographing the Iraqi prisoners at the =
direction=20
of military intelligence officers as an interrogation tool. </P>
<P>"Somebody photographed the Iraqis with the intent of using =
those=20
photographs to show new prisoners that came in, `This is what can =
happen=20
to you,' to loosen them up psychologically," Mr. Lawson said. </P>
<P>In a letter to his family last year, Sergeant Frederick wrote =
that=20
military intelligence officers encouraged mistreatment like =
confining=20
naked inmates for three consecutive days without toilets in damp,=20
unventilated cells with floors 3 feet by 3 feet. Inmates were also =
handcuffed to cell doors and forced to wear female underpants. "We =
have a=20
very high rate with our style of getting them to break," Sergeant=20
Frederick wrote to a relative, Mimi Frederick, in an e-mail =
message on=20
Dec. 18, 2003, according to a copy of the communication. "They =
usually end=20
up breaking within hours." </P>
<P>General Karpinski has also said that she believed the military =
police=20
were "coached" in their abusive actions by military intelligence =
officers.=20
Neal Puckett, General Karpinski's lawyer, said the military police =
"took=20
all their instructions from military intelligence interrogators, =
who=20
instructed them to bring the prisoners to and away from these=20
interrogation facilities, and sometimes perhaps to soften them =
up." </P>
<P>He suggested that the interrogators had instructed the guards =
to "bring=20
them back naked this time, leave them naked tonight, don't give =
them any=20
clothes. We think that escalated over a period of time until it =
ended up=20
in what we see in the pictures."</P>
<P>A military official said Saturday that some of the photographs =
in the=20
custody of military investigators, but not yet publicly disclosed, =
depict=20
military working dogs snarling and intimidating Iraqi prisoners. =
"There=20
are photos showing military working dogs used in a threatening =
manner,"=20
said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The =
official said=20
he was not aware of when or at which prison in Iraq the photos =
were=20
taken.</P>
<P>General Karpinski has complained that the initial investigation =
ordered=20
by General Sanchez was limited to the conduct of her military =
police=20
brigade and did not examine in any detail the role played by =
military=20
intelligence and private contractors.</P>
<P>Not until General Sanchez received a preliminary briefing on =
General=20
Taguba's findings on March 12, which identified the intelligence =
officers=20
and contractors as having possibly been primarily to blame, did he =
order a=20
similar review of any wrongdoing by military intelligence officers =
at the=20
prison. For reasons that remain unclear, that inquiry did not =
begin until=20
April 23.</P>
<P>"I'd like to know who was the one that was giving instructions =
to the=20
military intelligence personnel to turn up the heat?" General =
Karpinski=20
asked. </P>
<P>Nearly a year ago, when her troops assumed their prison duty at =
Abu=20
Ghraib, the Army made a promise. When it reopened Abu Ghraib last =
June,=20
soldiers hung a sign at the gate that proclaimed: "America is a =
friend of=20
all the Iraqi people." </P><!--author id start -->
<P></P>
<P><EM>Thom Shanker in Washington, Kate Zernike and Michael Moss =
in New=20
York, Dexter Filkins and Ian Fisher in Baghdad and Patrick E. =
Tyler in=20
Wiesbaden, Germany, contributed reporting for this=20
article.</EM></P></NYT_TEXT><BR>
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