[Vision2020] 05-16-04 Washington Post: Knowledge of Abusive Tactics May Go Higher

[Art Deco aka W. Fox]

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washingtonpost.com
Knowledge of Abusive Tactics May Go Higher


By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page A01


Army intelligence officers suspected that a Syrian and admitted jihadist who was
detained at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad knew about the illegal flow of
money, arms and foreign fighters into Iraq. But he was smug, the officers said,
and refused to talk. So last November, they devised a special plan for his
interrogation, going beyond what Army rules normally allowed.

An Army colonel in charge of intelligence-gathering at the prison, spelling out
the plan in a classified cable to the top U.S. military officer in Iraq, said
interrogators would use a method known as "fear up harsh," which military
documents said meant "significantly increasing the fear level in a security
detainee." The aim was to make the 31-year-old Syrian think his only hope in
life was to talk, undermining his confidence in what they termed "the Allah
factor."

According to the plan, interrogators needed the assistance of military police
supervising his detention at the prison, who ordinarily play no role in
interrogations under Army regulations. First, the interrogators were to throw
chairs and tables in the man's presence at the prison and "invade his personal
space."

Then the police were to put a hood on his head and take him to an isolated cell
through a gantlet of barking guard dogs; there, the police were to strip-search
him and interrupt his sleep for three days with interrogations, barking and loud
music, according to Army documents. The plan was sent to Lt. Gen. Ricardo
Sanchez.

A spokesman for Sanchez declined to comment yesterday, and so it remains
uncertain whether the plan was one of 25 requests for unusually tough
interrogations that Army officials in Washington have said he approved between
October and the present. All involved prolonged isolation of detainees, the
officials said on Friday, adding that Sanchez last week issued an order barring
requests for approval of particularly severe questioning tactics.

But the fact that a plan for such intense and highly organized pressure was
proposed by Col. Thomas M. Pappas -- a senior military intelligence officer in
Iraq who took his job at the insistence of a general dispatched from the
Pentagon -- suggests a wider circle of involvement in aggressive and potentially
abusive interrogations of Iraqi detainees, encompassing officers higher up the
chain of command, than the Army has previously detailed.

While the Army has blamed the physical abuses documented in soldiers'
photographs on a handful of night-shift soldiers at Abu Ghraib who ignored rules
on humane treatment, government officials and humanitarian experts say the order
indicates the abuses could instead have been an outgrowth of harsh treatment
that had been approved.

They suggest in particular that military intelligence officials may not only
have improperly tolerated physical abuses, as stated in the Army's official
internal report, but also that they may have deliberately set the stage for
them. According to a hypothesis now being explored by members of Congress, this
stage was set through a directed collaboration between two units of military
police and intelligence officers, virtually unprecedented in recent Army
practice.

The interrogation plan for the Syrian "clearly allows for a crossing of the line
into abusive behavior," said James Ross, a senior legal adviser to Human Rights
Watch who reviewed it for The Washington Post.

What makes its wording so troubling, Ross added, is that it allows "wide
authority for soldiers conducting interrogations. . . . Were the superior
officer to agree to these techniques, it would be opening the door for any
soldier or officer to be committing abusive acts and believe they were doing so"
with official sanction.

Congressional testimony by Defense Department and Army officials over the past
two weeks has highlighted the fact that the abuses in Iraq -- which mostly
occurred in the last quarter of 2003 -- came at a time of heightened pressures
in Washington for more robust intelligence-gathering, because of proliferating
attacks on U.S. forces and the dwindling intelligence on Saddam Hussein's
suspected weapons of mass destruction.

Although no direct links have been found between the documented abuses and
orders from Washington, Pentagon officials who spoke on the condition that they
not be named say that the hunt for data on these two topics was coordinated
during this period by Defense Undersecretary Stephen A. Cambone, the top U.S.
military intelligence official and long one of the closest aides to Secretary of
Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The coincidence in timing has in turn prompted several lawmakers to say they
intend to probe more deeply in coming weeks to determine whether the specialists
and sergeants handling the prison guard dogs and pulling hoods over prisoners'
heads were in fact implementing policy directives instigated by Washington that
may have set the stage for abuses.

"We've got no proof that a person in authority told them to do this activity,"
Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's deputy chief of staff, said on May 11.

But three directives in particular have already begun to attract congressional
scrutiny: The first is a classified report by Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller
on Sept. 9, 2003, demanding that the military police at Abu Ghraib be dedicated
and trained to set "the conditions for the successful interrogation and
exploitation of internees/detainees." The report, which Cambone has testified
was presented to his deputy William Boykin, contained five recommendations
spelling out how this was to occur and reported it had already begun.

The second is an Oct. 12 classified memo signed by Sanchez that demanded a
"harmonization" of military policing and intelligence work at Abu Ghraib for the
purpose of ensuring "consistency with the interrogation policies . . . and
maximiz[ing] the efficiency of the interrogation."

The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, also states "it is imperative that
interrogators be provided reasonable latitude to vary their approach," depending
on a detainee's background, strengths, resistance and other factors. It also
explicitly demands humane treatment and requires that any dogs present during
the interrogations be muzzled.

The third is a Nov. 19 memo from Sanchez's office that formally placed the two
key Abu Ghraib cellblocks where the abuses occurred under the control of Pappas
and his 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. It was 11 days later, after this
memo placed the military police responsible for "security of detainees and base
protection" in Pappas's hands, that he sought, in his memo to Sanchez, to draw
military police explicitly into applying pressure on the Syrian.

The fact that prison interrogations were so directly controlled by these
military directives, as well as the apparent cultural sophistication of some of
the abuses, has already led some lawmakers to conclude that much more
experienced and senior officers were involved than the seven military police now
charged by the Army with wrongdoing.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) expressed skepticism during a Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing last Tuesday, for example, that a group of military police
from rural Maryland and West Virginia "would have chosen bizarre sexual
humiliations that were specifically designed to be offensive to Muslim men [as
the photos depicted]. . . . It implies too much knowledge. . . . And that is
why, even though I do not yet have the evidence, I cannot help but suspect that
others were involved."

Alexander did nothing to steer her away from that idea. "Well, ma'am, your logic
is correct. I think that the difficult part is to find out who told whom what to
do."

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) expressed similar concerns on May 7. "On the
surface, you could portray the 800th MP Brigade as a Reserve unit with poor
leadership and poor training," he told top Pentagon officials at the hearing
that day. "However, the abuse of prisoners is not merely the failure of an MP
brigade; it's a failure of the chain of command."

Military Police


At the heart of the unfolding congressional probe into what happened at Abu
Ghraib is the conduct there of two units: the 800th Military Police Brigade, an
Army reserve unit based in Uniondale, N.Y., and the 205th Military Intelligence
Brigade, a regular Army unit principally based in Germany and Italy.

Two months after the end of the war, when members of the 800th brigade were
preparing to go home, they were abruptly told they were being assigned to take
over the Iraqi prison system. Looting in the weeks after the war ended had
reduced Abu Ghraib and virtually every other prison to a shambles, producing
acute shortages of supplies and eliminating such amenities as water and
electricity.

"It's difficult for people who are not on the ground in Iraq to understand how
nonexistent the detention infrastructure was when we arrived," said a senior
official with the U.S.-led occupation. "There was no reliable labor force to
work in the prisons. . . . It was in total disarray."

Almost immediately, the brigade's chain of command was tangled, as was the case
with many military units in Iraq. Its work was directly supervised by the U.S.
military's deputy commander in Iraq, Army Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, but
Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski said she also "answered to" L. Paul Bremer and to
a regional commander in Kuwait.

The brigade, like its specific components assigned to Abu Ghraib, was trained
not to oversee the detention of prisoners in jails, but to resettle prisoners of
war. "They were assigned there because there was a shortage of specialty units,"
Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, testified last week before
a House Government Reform subcommittee.

All of the Iraqi prisons were understaffed because promised civilian contractors
never appeared, Karpinski said. Unlike the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo
Bay, which has 800 police guarding 640 detainees, Karpinski had one soldier
available to guard every 10 detainees in a prison population that included men
and women of varying ages, criminals, terrorists and mentally ill persons.

"It's like being in Dodge City in the 1870's without speaking the same
language," said a newsletter home last summer from the 372nd Military Police
Company, the Cresaptown, Md., unit assigned in October to guard Abu Ghraib. "The
prison 'detainee' climate is becoming more strained as the months drag on," the
December newsletter said. "We take each day as it comes, do our jobs, and wait
for the day when we all get to go home."

Discipline among the soldiers slumped over time, according to internal Army
reports. Military police were permitted to wear civilian clothes to boost
morale, but it contributed to sloppiness about other rules, investigators
concluded; platoon leaders encouraged some of their soldiers to carry concealed
weapons while walking among the detainees, a violation of regulations.
Punishments for minor offenses were rare; a climate of leniency developed.

Army investigators have concluded that the brigade's low familiarity with
Islamic culture provided a breeding ground for racism and a widespread
conviction that Muslims were terrorists. One of its dog handlers insisted that
the animals simply disliked Iraqis because of their appearance and smell.

One of the most notorious photos to emerge from the prison -- of naked and
cuffed Iraqi men pushed together on the prison floor in a simulation of sex -- 
originated in a decision by guards to punish two Iraqis for raping a 14-year-old
male detainee, the participants said. On another occasion, a guard attacked,
beat and hung a handcuffed Iraqi by his wrists -- dislocating his shoulders -- 
in a fit of anger over the Iraqi's role in smuggling a pistol into the prison.

When Karpinski brought up a Red Cross complaint that intelligence officers had
demanded recalcitrant prisoners be escorted back to their cells wearing women's
underwear, a deputy to the chief intelligence officer joked about it.

"I told the commander to stop giving them Victoria's Secret catalogs," the
deputy said in a roomful of officers, Karpinski recalled. She said she replied
that the Red Cross would not appreciate that response.

Military Intelligence


The decision to place the prison's key cellblocks -- 1A and 1B, which held
"security detainees" suspected of threatening U.S. forces or knowing about such
threats -- under the direct control of the 205th MI Brigade came shortly after
Miller visited Iraq in late August and early September at the request of
Cambone, according to Cambone's congressional testimony last week.

Miller, a combat officer with no training in prisons or intelligence-gathering,
had won accolades inside the Pentagon and attracted controversy outside it
earlier in the year, when he oversaw a transformation of the military's
long-term detention center at Guantanamo Bay from a disorganized bundle of tents
into an efficient prison that routinely produced what officials have called
"moderately valuable" intelligence for the war on terrorism.

Miller's signature achievement at the Cuban center was to implement a system of
rewards and punishments in detainee housing, food, clothing and other treatment
that provided incentives for use as leverage during interrogations. Cambone
testified last week that he sent Miller to Iraq to help ensure "there was a flow
of intelligence [from the jail] back to the commands and [that it was] done in
an efficient and effective way."

Shortly after Miller's return, new rules were written for interrogation sessions
involving detainees in cellblocks 1A and 1B, which stressed a collaboration
between military police and intelligence officials while also providing
safeguards such as legal reviews of the interrogation plans and scrutiny of how
they were carried out. The rules were signed by Sanchez, but it remains unclear
who -- if anyone -- in Washington may have seen them in draft or final form.

The reality in the field, Army investigators quickly learned, was an absence of
any supervision or monitoring. Pappas, for example, told them that no procedures
were in place for the independent monitoring of the interrogations and no
personnel were available to do it, officials familiar with his testimony said.
Moreover, most of the Army soldiers accused of abuse have said they were
encouraged to undertake it by military intelligence officials in the prison, who
sometimes merely observed and sometimes took part in it themselves.

"MI has . . . instructed us to place prisoners in an isolation cell with little
or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window, for as much
as three days," Army Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II said in a diary he
wrote after being accused of wrongdoing.

One of the soldiers "was known to bang on the table, yell, scream, and maybe
assaulted detainees during interrogations in the booth," said Sgt. Samuel
Jefferson Provance III, a military intelligence officer who testified during a
military court proceeding against one of the military policemen on May 1. "This
was not to be discussed. It was kept 'hush-hush.' "

Although at least four Army lawyers were assigned to the military intelligence
brigade and its offices at Abu Ghraib, it remains unclear whether they played a
meaningful role in trying to block abuses. Maj. Gen. Thomas Romig, the service's
judge advocate general, testified last week that the Army is reviewing their
"resourcing and training" in the wake of the scandal.

Karpinski said in an interview last week that if the interrogation plan put
forward by Pappas had been presented to her, "I would have said, 'Absolutely
not. Not on my watch. Take your procedures somewhere else.' " If such a plan can
be made, she said, "this whole thing is more offensive than I thought. That does
sound like abuse and torture."

Robert K. Goldman, an American University law professor who teaches a course on
the law of war, commented about the interrogation plan that, "in my view, a good
deal of it crosses the line. . . . They are talking about breaking the detainee,
and exercising extreme moral and possibly physical coercion."

Why is the dog there? he asked. "This is very coercive. It cannot be justified
by any lawful interrogation technique." The strip searching of someone already
being held in detention is clearly "to humiliate him. There is no question. . .
. This is violative of the spirit if not the letter of the Geneva Conventions.
It's like a B-grade movie."

Foreign correspondents Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Sewell Chan in Baghdad
contributed to this report.



© 2004 The Washington Post Company




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size=3D-1><B>washingtonpost.com</B> </FONT></A>
<P><FONT size=3D+2><B>Knowledge of Abusive Tactics May Go =
Higher</B></FONT> <BR>
<P><FONT size=3D-1>By R. Jeffrey Smith<BR>Washington Post Staff =
Writer<BR>Sunday,=20
May 16, 2004; Page A01 </FONT>
<P><NITF>
<P>Army intelligence officers suspected that a Syrian and admitted =
jihadist who=20
was detained at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad knew about the illegal =
flow of=20
money, arms and foreign fighters into Iraq. But he was smug, the =
officers said,=20
and refused to talk. So last November, they devised a special plan for =
his=20
interrogation, going beyond what Army rules normally allowed.</P>
<P>An Army colonel in charge of intelligence-gathering at the prison, =
spelling=20
out the plan in a classified cable to the top U.S. military officer in =
Iraq,=20
said interrogators would use a method known as "fear up harsh," which =
military=20
documents said meant "significantly increasing the fear level in a =
security=20
detainee." The aim was to make the 31-year-old Syrian think his only =
hope in=20
life was to talk, undermining his confidence in what they termed "the =
Allah=20
factor."</P>
<P>According to the plan, interrogators needed the assistance of =
military police=20
supervising his detention at the prison, who ordinarily play no role in=20
interrogations under Army regulations. First, the interrogators were to =
throw=20
chairs and tables in the man's presence at the prison and "invade his =
personal=20
space." </P>
<P>Then the police were to put a hood on his head and take him to an =
isolated=20
cell through a gantlet of barking guard dogs; there, the police were to=20
strip-search him and interrupt his sleep for three days with =
interrogations,=20
barking and loud music, according to Army documents. The plan was sent =
to Lt.=20
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.</P>
<P>A spokesman for Sanchez declined to comment yesterday, and so it =
remains=20
uncertain whether the plan was one of 25 requests for unusually tough=20
interrogations that Army officials in Washington have said he approved =
between=20
October and the present. All involved prolonged isolation of detainees, =
the=20
officials said on Friday, adding that Sanchez last week issued an order =
barring=20
requests for approval of particularly severe questioning tactics.</P>
<P>But the fact that a plan for such intense and highly organized =
pressure was=20
proposed by Col. Thomas M. Pappas -- a senior military intelligence =
officer in=20
Iraq who took his job at the insistence of a general dispatched from the =

Pentagon -- suggests a wider circle of involvement in aggressive and =
potentially=20
abusive interrogations of Iraqi detainees, encompassing officers higher =
up the=20
chain of command, than the Army has previously detailed.</P>
<P>While the Army has blamed the physical abuses documented in soldiers' =

photographs on a handful of night-shift soldiers at Abu Ghraib who =
ignored rules=20
on humane treatment, government officials and humanitarian experts say =
the order=20
indicates the abuses could instead have been an outgrowth of harsh =
treatment=20
that had been approved.</P>
<P>They suggest in particular that military intelligence officials may =
not only=20
have improperly tolerated physical abuses, as stated in the Army's =
official=20
internal report, but also that they may have deliberately set the stage =
for=20
them. According to a hypothesis now being explored by members of =
Congress, this=20
stage was set through a directed collaboration between two units of =
military=20
police and intelligence officers, virtually unprecedented in recent Army =

practice.</P>
<P>The interrogation plan for the Syrian "clearly allows for a crossing =
of the=20
line into abusive behavior," said James Ross, a senior legal adviser to =
Human=20
Rights Watch who reviewed it for The Washington Post.</P>
<P>What makes its wording so troubling, Ross added, is that it allows =
"wide=20
authority for soldiers conducting interrogations. . . . Were the =
superior=20
officer to agree to these techniques, it would be opening the door for =
any=20
soldier or officer to be committing abusive acts and believe they were =
doing so"=20
with official sanction.</P>
<P>Congressional testimony by Defense Department and Army officials over =
the=20
past two weeks has highlighted the fact that the abuses in Iraq -- which =
mostly=20
occurred in the last quarter of 2003 -- came at a time of heightened =
pressures=20
in Washington for more robust intelligence-gathering, because of =
proliferating=20
attacks on U.S. forces and the dwindling intelligence on Saddam =
Hussein's=20
suspected weapons of mass destruction.</P>
<P>Although no direct links have been found between the documented =
abuses and=20
orders from Washington, Pentagon officials who spoke on the condition =
that they=20
not be named say that the hunt for data on these two topics was =
coordinated=20
during this period by Defense Undersecretary Stephen A. Cambone, the top =
U.S.=20
military intelligence official and long one of the closest aides to =
Secretary of=20
Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.</P>
<P>The coincidence in timing has in turn prompted several lawmakers to =
say they=20
intend to probe more deeply in coming weeks to determine whether the =
specialists=20
and sergeants handling the prison guard dogs and pulling hoods over =
prisoners'=20
heads were in fact implementing policy directives instigated by =
Washington that=20
may have set the stage for abuses.</P>
<P>"We've got no proof that a person in authority told them to do this=20
activity," Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's deputy chief of staff, =
said on=20
May 11.</P>
<P>But three directives in particular have already begun to attract=20
congressional scrutiny: The first is a classified report by Army Maj. =
Gen.=20
Geoffrey D. Miller on Sept. 9, 2003, demanding that the military police =
at Abu=20
Ghraib be dedicated and trained to set "the conditions for the =
successful=20
interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees." The report, =
which=20
Cambone has testified was presented to his deputy William Boykin, =
contained five=20
recommendations spelling out how this was to occur and reported it had =
already=20
begun.</P>
<P>The second is an Oct. 12 classified memo signed by Sanchez that =
demanded a=20
"harmonization" of military policing and intelligence work at Abu Ghraib =
for the=20
purpose of ensuring "consistency with the interrogation policies . . . =
and=20
maximiz[ing] the efficiency of the interrogation."</P>
<P>The memo, obtained by The Washington Post, also states "it is =
imperative that=20
interrogators be provided reasonable latitude to vary their approach," =
depending=20
on a detainee's background, strengths, resistance and other factors. It =
also=20
explicitly demands humane treatment and requires that any dogs present =
during=20
the interrogations be muzzled.</P>
<P>The third is a Nov. 19 memo from Sanchez's office that formally =
placed the=20
two key Abu Ghraib cellblocks where the abuses occurred under the =
control of=20
Pappas and his 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. It was 11 days =
later, after=20
this memo placed the military police responsible for "security of =
detainees and=20
base protection" in Pappas's hands, that he sought, in his memo to =
Sanchez, to=20
draw military police explicitly into applying pressure on the =
Syrian.</P>
<P>The fact that prison interrogations were so directly controlled by =
these=20
military directives, as well as the apparent cultural sophistication of =
some of=20
the abuses, has already led some lawmakers to conclude that much more=20
experienced and senior officers were involved than the seven military =
police now=20
charged by the Army with wrongdoing.</P>
<P>Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) expressed skepticism during a Senate =
Armed=20
Services Committee hearing last Tuesday, for example, that a group of =
military=20
police from rural Maryland and West Virginia "would have chosen bizarre =
sexual=20
humiliations that were specifically designed to be offensive to Muslim =
men [as=20
the photos depicted]. . . . It implies too much knowledge. . . . And =
that is=20
why, even though I do not yet have the evidence, I cannot help but =
suspect that=20
others were involved."</P>
<P>Alexander did nothing to steer her away from that idea. "Well, ma'am, =
your=20
logic is correct. I think that the difficult part is to find out who =
told whom=20
what to do."</P>
<P>Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) expressed similar concerns on May 7. "On =
the=20
surface, you could portray the 800th MP Brigade as a Reserve unit with =
poor=20
leadership and poor training," he told top Pentagon officials at the =
hearing=20
that day. "However, the abuse of prisoners is not merely the failure of =
an MP=20
brigade; it's a failure of the chain of command."</P><FONT =
face=3DArial,Helvetica=20
color=3D#000000 size=3D-1><B>Military Police <BR></B></FONT><BR>
<P>At the heart of the unfolding congressional probe into what happened =
at Abu=20
Ghraib is the conduct there of two units: the 800th Military Police =
Brigade, an=20
Army reserve unit based in Uniondale, N.Y., and the 205th Military =
Intelligence=20
Brigade, a regular Army unit principally based in Germany and Italy.</P>
<P>Two months after the end of the war, when members of the 800th =
brigade were=20
preparing to go home, they were abruptly told they were being assigned =
to take=20
over the Iraqi prison system. Looting in the weeks after the war ended =
had=20
reduced Abu Ghraib and virtually every other prison to a shambles, =
producing=20
acute shortages of supplies and eliminating such amenities as water and=20
electricity. </P>
<P>"It's difficult for people who are not on the ground in Iraq to =
understand=20
how nonexistent the detention infrastructure was when we arrived," said =
a senior=20
official with the U.S.-led occupation. "There was no reliable labor =
force to=20
work in the prisons. . . . It was in total disarray." </P>
<P>Almost immediately, the brigade's chain of command was tangled, as =
was the=20
case with many military units in Iraq. Its work was directly supervised =
by the=20
U.S. military's deputy commander in Iraq, Army Maj. Gen. Walter =
Wojdakowski, but=20
Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski said she also "answered to" L. Paul Bremer =
and to=20
a regional commander in Kuwait.</P>
<P>The brigade, like its specific components assigned to Abu Ghraib, was =
trained=20
not to oversee the detention of prisoners in jails, but to resettle =
prisoners of=20
war. "They were assigned there because there was a shortage of specialty =
units,"=20
Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, testified last week =
before=20
a House Government Reform subcommittee. </P>
<P>All of the Iraqi prisons were understaffed because promised civilian=20
contractors never appeared, Karpinski said. Unlike the U.S. detention =
center at=20
Guantanamo Bay, which has 800 police guarding 640 detainees, Karpinski =
had one=20
soldier available to guard every 10 detainees in a prison population =
that=20
included men and women of varying ages, criminals, terrorists and =
mentally ill=20
persons.</P>
<P>"It's like being in Dodge City in the 1870's without speaking the =
same=20
language," said a newsletter home last summer from the 372nd Military =
Police=20
Company, the Cresaptown, Md., unit assigned in October to guard Abu =
Ghraib. "The=20
prison 'detainee' climate is becoming more strained as the months drag =
on," the=20
December newsletter said. "We take each day as it comes, do our jobs, =
and wait=20
for the day when we all get to go home."</P>
<P>Discipline among the soldiers slumped over time, according to =
internal Army=20
reports. Military police were permitted to wear civilian clothes to =
boost=20
morale, but it contributed to sloppiness about other rules, =
investigators=20
concluded; platoon leaders encouraged some of their soldiers to carry =
concealed=20
weapons while walking among the detainees, a violation of regulations.=20
Punishments for minor offenses were rare; a climate of leniency =
developed. </P>
<P>Army investigators have concluded that the brigade's low familiarity =
with=20
Islamic culture provided a breeding ground for racism and a widespread=20
conviction that Muslims were terrorists. One of its dog handlers =
insisted that=20
the animals simply disliked Iraqis because of their appearance and =
smell.</P>
<P>One of the most notorious photos to emerge from the prison -- of =
naked and=20
cuffed Iraqi men pushed together on the prison floor in a simulation of =
sex --=20
originated in a decision by guards to punish two Iraqis for raping a =
14-year-old=20
male detainee, the participants said. On another occasion, a guard =
attacked,=20
beat and hung a handcuffed Iraqi by his wrists -- dislocating his =
shoulders --=20
in a fit of anger over the Iraqi's role in smuggling a pistol into the=20
prison.</P>
<P>When Karpinski brought up a Red Cross complaint that intelligence =
officers=20
had demanded recalcitrant prisoners be escorted back to their cells =
wearing=20
women's underwear, a deputy to the chief intelligence officer joked =
about=20
it.</P>
<P>"I told the commander to stop giving them Victoria's Secret =
catalogs," the=20
deputy said in a roomful of officers, Karpinski recalled. She said she =
replied=20
that the Red Cross would not appreciate that response. </P><FONT=20
face=3DArial,Helvetica color=3D#000000 size=3D-1><B>Military =
Intelligence=20
<BR></B></FONT><BR>
<P>The decision to place the prison's key cellblocks -- 1A and 1B, which =
held=20
"security detainees" suspected of threatening U.S. forces or knowing =
about such=20
threats -- under the direct control of the 205th MI Brigade came shortly =
after=20
Miller visited Iraq in late August and early September at the request of =

Cambone, according to Cambone's congressional testimony last week.</P>
<P>Miller, a combat officer with no training in prisons or=20
intelligence-gathering, had won accolades inside the Pentagon and =
attracted=20
controversy outside it earlier in the year, when he oversaw a =
transformation of=20
the military's long-term detention center at Guantanamo Bay from a =
disorganized=20
bundle of tents into an efficient prison that routinely produced what =
officials=20
have called "moderately valuable" intelligence for the war on terrorism. =
</P>
<P>Miller's signature achievement at the Cuban center was to implement a =
system=20
of rewards and punishments in detainee housing, food, clothing and other =

treatment that provided incentives for use as leverage during =
interrogations.=20
Cambone testified last week that he sent Miller to Iraq to help ensure =
"there=20
was a flow of intelligence [from the jail] back to the commands and =
[that it=20
was] done in an efficient and effective way."</P>
<P>Shortly after Miller's return, new rules were written for =
interrogation=20
sessions involving detainees in cellblocks 1A and 1B, which stressed a=20
collaboration between military police and intelligence officials while =
also=20
providing safeguards such as legal reviews of the interrogation plans =
and=20
scrutiny of how they were carried out. The rules were signed by Sanchez, =
but it=20
remains unclear who -- if anyone -- in Washington may have seen them in =
draft or=20
final form.</P>
<P>The reality in the field, Army investigators quickly learned, was an =
absence=20
of any supervision or monitoring. Pappas, for example, told them that no =

procedures were in place for the independent monitoring of the =
interrogations=20
and no personnel were available to do it, officials familiar with his =
testimony=20
said. Moreover, most of the Army soldiers accused of abuse have said =
they were=20
encouraged to undertake it by military intelligence officials in the =
prison, who=20
sometimes merely observed and sometimes took part in it themselves.</P>
<P>"MI has . . . instructed us to place prisoners in an isolation cell =
with=20
little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or =
window, for=20
as much as three days," Army Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II said =
in a=20
diary he wrote after being accused of wrongdoing.</P>
<P>One of the soldiers "was known to bang on the table, yell, scream, =
and maybe=20
assaulted detainees during interrogations in the booth," said Sgt. =
Samuel=20
Jefferson Provance III, a military intelligence officer who testified =
during a=20
military court proceeding against one of the military policemen on May =
1. "This=20
was not to be discussed. It was kept 'hush-hush.' "</P>
<P>Although at least four Army lawyers were assigned to the military=20
intelligence brigade and its offices at Abu Ghraib, it remains unclear =
whether=20
they played a meaningful role in trying to block abuses. Maj. Gen. =
Thomas Romig,=20
the service's judge advocate general, testified last week that the Army =
is=20
reviewing their "resourcing and training" in the wake of the =
scandal.</P>
<P>Karpinski said in an interview last week that if the interrogation =
plan put=20
forward by Pappas had been presented to her, "I would have said, =
'Absolutely=20
not. Not on my watch. Take your procedures somewhere else.' " If such a =
plan can=20
be made, she said, "this whole thing is more offensive than I thought. =
That does=20
sound like abuse and torture."</P>
<P>Robert K. Goldman, an American University law professor who teaches a =
course=20
on the law of war, commented about the interrogation plan that, "in my =
view, a=20
good deal of it crosses the line. . . . They are talking about breaking =
the=20
detainee, and exercising extreme moral and possibly physical =
coercion."</P>
<P>Why is the dog there? he asked. "This is very coercive. It cannot be=20
justified by any lawful interrogation technique." The strip searching of =
someone=20
already being held in detention is clearly "to humiliate him. There is =
no=20
question. . . . This is violative of the spirit if not the letter of the =
Geneva=20
Conventions. It's like a B-grade movie."</P>
<P><I>Foreign correspondents Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Sewell Chan in =
Baghdad=20
contributed to this report.</I> </P>
<P></P></NITF>
<P>
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