Posted on 05/09/2004 2:01:02 AM PDT by Leroy S. Mort
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The head of U.S. detention centers in Iraq said Saturday the military has no plans to close the Abu Ghraib prison and blamed the abuse of detainees there on poor leadership and disregard for the rules.
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller said the United States does intend to cut the number of prisoners to help improve conditions but added that ``we will continue to conduct interrogation missions at the Abu Ghraib facility.''
Miller was named head of prisons in April after Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of Abu Ghraib, was suspended amid allegations of abuse by U.S. soldiers at the prison.
Seven prison guards have been criminally charged for alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Photographs of the abuse were published throughout the world.
President Bush vowed Saturday that ``we will learn all the facts and determine the full extent of these abuses. Those involved will be identified. They will answer for their actions.''
Bush said all prison operations in Iraq will be reviewed ``to make certain that similar disgraceful incidents are never repeated.''
Miller said he visited all 14 prison facilities in Iraq to review procedures and that an Army team of 31 specialists was in the country retraining prison guards, a process that would last until June 30.
``We will ensure that we follow our procedures,'' he said. ``It is a matter of honor. We were ashamed and embarrassed by the conduct of a very, very small number of our soldiers...On my honor, I will ensure that it will not happen again.''
Miller said the ``alleged abuses and abuses we have discovered from the investigations appear to be due to leaders and soldiers not following the authorized policy and lack of leadership and supervision.''
Miller insisted that Iraqi prisoners were now being treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and that interrogation teams were following Army guidelines while trying to get ``the best intelligence as rapidly as possible.''
``I am satisfied that that system is following the provisions of the Geneva Conventions and assisting the coalition in providing actionable intelligence to help us win this fight for the freedom of Iraq,'' he said.
He said earlier in the week that he would halt or restrict some interrogation methods, especially eight to 10 ``very aggressive techniques,'' including using hoods on prisoners, putting them in stressful positions and depriving them of sleep. He said those methods are now banned without specific approval.
Miller said there were no plans to close Abu Ghraib and that if orders are received to close the lockup, the military would probably shift the mission to another facility, Camp Bucca, south of Basra. Abu Ghraib was a notorious prison under Saddam Hussein where detainees were routinely tortured and sometimes executed.
Miller, the former commander of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, led a 30-member team to Iraq in August and September that focused on ways of sharpening interrogation procedures.
In a report on the Abu Ghraib scandal, Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba wrote that the team recommended ``that the guard force be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees.''
Some military police at the prison have said they were instructed to ``soften up'' the prisoners before interrogation.
``There was no recommendation ever by this group ... that recommended that the military police become actively involved in the interrogation,'' Miller said.
Miller said he recommended that guards should monitor prisoners closely and pass on information to interrogators.
Military police ``should be involved in passive intelligence collection,'' Miller said.
One of the soldiers facing charges, Spc. Sabrina Harman, said she and other members of the 372nd Military Police Company took direction from Army military intelligence officers, CIA operatives and from civilian contractors who conducted interrogations.
In an interview by e-mail from Baghdad, Harman told The Washington Post it was made clear that her mission was to break down the prisoners.
``They would bring in one to several prisoners at a time already hooded and cuffed,'' Harman said. ``The job of the MP was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk.''
Harman, 26, is one of two smiling soldiers seen in a photo taken at Abu Ghraib as they stand behind naked, hooded Iraqi prisoners stacked in a pyramid.
Miller said that in part he used his experience at Guantanamo to help reshape the interrogation process.
Miller has said that by the end of his stint at Guantanamo in March, intelligence tips had increased dramatically and that about three-quarters of the 600 detainees had confessed to some involvement in terrorism and many had exposed former friends. The detainees there were largely suspected of ties to the Taliban or the al-Qaida terror network.
Miller said he had a ``high level of confidence'' that proper procedures were now being implemented in Iraq.
``We may make honest mistakes ... but there will be no mistakes of moral turpitude,'' he said.
A classic example of a classic bureaucratic technique: 'explaining' a problem by restating it in different words.
I am sick and tired of reading about women "soldiers" who are nothing of the kind. In any combat situation, female troops are nothing but a liability. Females are not merely useless as soldiers, but are a deficit to any armed force which attempts to use them as such.
Units which have deployed to Iraq with female troops report that, over the course of a year, these women have a 25-percent disability rate due to pregnancy, with 100 percent of those pregancies conceived out of wedlock.
Women "soldiers," indeed! Tell the truth and call them "war sluts"!
As a former female soldier I have to tell you that you are way out of line, asshole.
You cannot judge all women in the military on the basis of the actions of a few. If that's the case men are also unqualified since they also participated in the abuse. At least the women didn't rape anybody.
And just how the hell do you think those "war sluts" are getting pregnant? By themselves?
Amen.
On your six.
Right.
1. In every major deployment involving female soldiers since Desert Storm, a disturbingly high percentage of female troops ends up going home pregnant. This despite the fact that the Pentagon provides contraception on demand. So the pregnancies represent only the tip of the iceberg in terms of "fraternization" that occurs.
2. In almost every case, female troops who become pregnant during deployments do so out of wedlock. In many cases, these children are sired by men who have wives back home.
3. This did not happen on anything like the current scale before the push to integrate women into the military beginning in the first Bush administration and accelerating under the Clinton administration.
There were no pregnant Marines evacuated from Iwo Jima or Okinawa. No pregnant soldiers were evacuated from the 101st Airborne at Bastogne. The presence of women in deployed military units has no positive value to the service, and destroys morale and unit cohesion among the troops.
Let me add further that this moral-destroying effect of female troops is not limited to theatres of deployment. Am I the only one who recalls the Aberdeen Proving Ground sex scandal in the 1990s, when sergeants who were supposed to be providing military training ended up accused of sexually harassing and exploiting female soldiers? Does anyone believe that this type of behavior ONLY occurred at Aberdeen? What do you think is the morale effect on troops when they see sergeants and other leaders use their positions to elicit or coerce sexual favors from female troops?
You are offended by my calling these women "war sluts." But let me ask: What percentage of female troops are married? Of the unmarried female troops, what percentage are sexually active? And of the sexually active female troops, what percentage are engaged in "fraternization" with their fellow troops?
Do you really think such a state of affairs is consistent with high morale, esprit de corps, and the good of the service?
And it isn't unheard of. My aunt was a WAC in WWII who was raped and became pregnant by a US soldier. What's happening in Iraq is nothing new.
You are missing the point: THE POLICY ON WOMEN IN THE ARMED SERVICES HAS CHANGED. It is not a question of identity politics and finger-pointing, it is a question of A POLICY THAT DOESN'T WORK.
Co-ed basic training? Co-ed barracks? Female troops deployed on aircraft carriers and destroyers? What idiot imagines that kind of policy could ever be implemented without mass "fraternization"? This was NOT Pentagon policy 20 or 25 years ago. This is a NEW policy, and it is this new POLICY CAUSING PROBLEMS.
Solution? REVERSE THE POLICY. No more females on ships at sea. No more co-ed training. No more co-ed barracks. No females piloting combat planes. No females deployed in war zones.
Co-ed basic training has been around since at least 1980 when I went through basic training at Ft Dix. I reported March 11, 1980 to be specific. It isn't a Clinton 90's idea like a lot Freepers think. I think it's still the exception rather than the rule but it's been around at least 24 years. It is definately not new.
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