Posted on 05/21/2004 12:56:04 PM PDT by .cnI redruM
WASHINGTON - Many of the worst abuses that have come to light from the Abu Ghraib prison happened on a single November day amid a flare of insurgent violence in Iraq (news - web sites), the deaths of many U.S. soldiers and a breakdown of the American guards' command structure.
Nov. 8 was the day U.S. guards took most of the infamous photographs: soldiers mugging in front of a pile of naked, hooded Iraqis, prisoners forced to perform or simulate sex acts, a hooded prisoner in a scarecrow-like pose with wires attached to him.
It was unclear Friday whether most or all of the new pictures and video published by The Washington Post depicted events on Nov. 8. At least one photo, showing Spc. Charles Graner Jr. with his arm cocked as if to punch a prisoner, is described in military court documents as having been taken that day.
When Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits tearfully pleaded guilty Wednesday to abusing prisoners, he described fellow soldiers committing an escalating series of abuses on eight prisoners that included stamping on their toes and fingers and punching one man hard enough to knock him out.
Sivits is likely to testify about the events of Nov. 8 at courts-martial for other soldiers charged with abuse. Three of them declined to enter pleas at hearings Wednesday: Sgt. Javal Davis, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II and Graner.
The abuse came during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting and reflection. The abused Iraqis, Sivits said, had been suspected of taking part in a prison riot that day. They were held at Abu Ghraib on suspicion of common crimes, not attacks on U.S. forces, said Col. Marc Warren, the top legal adviser to Iraqi commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.
The day of abuse — a Saturday — capped what had been the worst week for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. Nearly three dozen had been killed in a surge of attacks that left some other soldiers frustrated and frightened. Insurgents had attacked the Abu Ghraib prison and other U.S. bases in the area with mortars several times in previous weeks.
The day before, insurgents had downed a Black Hawk helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade near Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit, killing six. Sixteen soldiers had died five days earlier when a shoulder-fired missile destroyed a Chinook transport helicopter near the flashpoint city of Fallujah.
The International Red Cross temporarily pulled out of Iraq on Nov. 8 because of the violence, which also had included a deadly car bomb outside the aid group's Baghdad headquarters on Oct. 27.
Three Iraqi prisoners escaped in the four days before Nov. 8 — and an additional half-dozen detainees escaped on that day, according to the military's internal report prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
The pressure was on to get information from prisoners to help stop the attacks.
"We've been working very hard to increase our intelligence capacity here," Sanchez told reporters in Iraq on Nov. 11. "We are not where we want to be yet."
Several accused soldiers have told investigators that military and civilian intelligence officers asked them to scare and humiliate the prisoners before they were questioned.
"The orders came directly from the intelligence community, to soften up the detainees so that intelligence information could be gathered to save the lives of soldiers in the field," said Paul Bergrin, a lawyer for Davis.
Using guards to help interrogators "set the conditions" for questioning had been one tactic recommended by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller in September. Miller, then the commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terrorism suspects, toured U.S. prisons in Iraq and recommended several changes in tactics to Sanchez.
Troops in Iraq adopted many of Miller's suggested approaches, military officials have said, after toning them down because some would have violated the Geneva Conventions, which apply to prisoners in Iraq. U.S. officials have said those rules did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo.
Sanchez told a Senate panel Wednesday that he never approved any tactics harsher than keeping prisoners in isolation. And Miller testified that he never meant for military guards to abuse detainees, only to tell interrogators their observations of the prisoners.
Miller now oversees the military detention facilities in Iraq. Sanchez announced last week that he would no longer even consider requests for harsh treatment of detainees other than isolation or segregation.
After Miller's visit in September, the military brought in Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder in October to survey prison camps and make more suggestions. Ryder issued his report and left Iraq just three days before Nov. 8.
Ryder opposed Miller's recommendation that military police be used to help set the stage for interrogations. He also urged officers to give more training to prison guards, which was never done.
Lack of training was one of many leadership problems with the Army Reserve unit that provided the guards at Abu Ghraib, according to the report by Gen. Taguba. He described a unit in which discipline had broken down to the point that soldiers were writing poems on their helmets and wandering around in civilian clothes carrying weapons.
Two days after the Nov. 8 spasm of abuse, the general in charge of the MPs gave written reprimands to two of the unit's leaders for failing to correct security lapses at Abu Ghraib. Taguba recommended further disciplinary action against the two officers — Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum and Maj. David DiNenna. It is unclear if that has happened; they have not been criminally charged.
Egregiously not mentioned. Out of 500 AR 15-6 investigations recently conducted, only 5 have been chaired by a Major General. Abu Ghraib coverup, not exactly.
But they spread out reporting it for 3 months....
Someone saw the pictures and reported it.
Well well well........
the plot thickens.
To these whiners
A “Col Jeesup's rant” I think it's time for Donald Rumsfeld to have a few words with ABCNBCBCCNNandpress:
"Liberals, we live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, ABCNBCCBCCNNandpress?
"I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for prisoners at Abu Ghraib and curse the Commander-In-Chief, you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that prisoner intimidation at Abu Ghraib, while tragic, probably saved lives and that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives."
"You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at ABCNBCBCCNN you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use then as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punch line in a propaganda headline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to TV media who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.
I would rather you just said "thank you," and you go back to reporting the real news. Otherwise, I suggest that you get off that elitist throne, put down the microphone equipment, push away from the feeding trough, waddle your fat ass outta my sight! Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to." Chicagofarmer
So they weren't terrorists after all?
The miedia has latched on this story like a pit bull with lockjaw. The only cure is to put them out of their misery.
What did we do before Scripture was written down?
Is God alive and still able to speak to us?
Did He stop speaking to us 1600 years ago and that's all we get to go on?
If God chose the medium of the day to reach you... would you listen?
Just some thoughts for you to consider. I'd have Freepmailed you on the subject but my office firewall won't allow it.
Good question. I'd say the FReepers touting the "Abuse yields info" line have egg on their faces.
A question to start off:
Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God?
(I'd have FReepmailed you too, but not sure if your office firewall will allow it?)
Can't help but wonder that many of the same people who seemed to be most concerned about this abuse are also very liberal and would think nothing of the ultimate abuse committed against the innocent; abortion. How come all of a sudden these people are so concerned about mistreatment of non us citizens criminals while millions of innocent people are being killed in our own country, this nation gone insane!
Oh my God! Are we going to see these soldiers posing with bunch of naked Thanksgiving turkeys?
I'm willing to bet the the plot will solidify once they start publishing the pictures of the porn-pig princesses in smut-hog heaven sexually fondling the male prisoners, themselves stripped naked and having sex for the camera. I think the release of these photos will solidify this story rock hard.
Of course. I also believe He has more to say. Can you find anything in the Bible that says God will speak to us no more? I know people like to point to the end of Revelation--but that is one book of many. Revelation is part of a library of books... the prohibition of adding what isn't written in that book doesn't extend beyond that book.
Need a better argument? Revelation was written somewhere around 70 AD. The last book included in the NT compilation was written around 100 AD...should this book be disallowed because it added to what was written? Of course not. Each of the books (and letters) stood alone as part of the faith until compiled into a volume of faith. One doesn't speak for the others. Neither do they contradict.
Before The Word was written, it was spoken. It was handed down through generations by oral tradition. You can't recreate the old Jewish rituals prescribed by Law with the written word alone and you can't fully understand the entirety of the Word in both Testaments without tradition to fill the gaps.
No gaps, you say? How many times does a Gospel have to say that Jesus went somewhere and did some things with no further information for you to believe that He did and said more than is recorded? The Gospel of John says very clearly that Jesus did far more than what was recorded... are these other things not allowed to be part of our faith? What is recorded is the necessity of the faith, yes. The rest was instructed and handed down through practice.
The Gospels note that Jesus spent 40 days with us after His resurrection. This period gets a couple of paragraphs. One day of testimony before Congress fills volumes larger than the whole of the books of the Bible. Surely you can believe that Jesus didn't use this period to do only what was recorded and twiddle His thumbs for the rest. Tradition tells us He spent this time establishing His Church. Can you repudiate this by simply saying that because it wasn't recorded in the Bible it didn't happen?
Sola Scriptura doesn't add up.
I have to go now. I'll check for more messages later. To everyone else... sorry for highjacking of the thread but, given my firewall, it seemed the only way to have this conversation.
Of course.
Excellent--just wanted to make sure that wasn't the source of our possible disagreement.
As a bit of background, my current tagline was inspired by a discussion of birth control on another thread. I briefly considered replacing the word "Anything" with something a little more specific like "A belief system" but decided to leave it alone for the sake of aesthetics.
Let me try to answer your earlier questions:
What did we do before Scripture was written down?
Not sure that's relevant. The context of my tagline is the here and now. We have the Scriptures. We read them and (hopefully) apply them to our lives today.
Is God alive and still able to speak to us?
Most definitely.
Did He stop speaking to us 1600 years ago and that's all we get to go on?
Of course not.
If God chose the medium of the day to reach you... would you listen?
You mean if God appeared on my TV set? Nothing is impossible for Him, but that would definitely be a first for me. I think a preliminary question should be "How do I know whether or not it's God speaking through the medium of the day?" The answer to that is Scripture and the Holy Spirit, which enable us to "test everything" (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
With all due respect, perhaps our misunderstanding is rooted in your thinking that I believe because something wasn't recorded in the Bible it didn't happen?
I believe no such thing.
With all due respect, perhaps it's because the following tagline sure sounds like that's what you mean to say...
Anything that claims to come from God but can't be confirmed in Scripture, hasn't.
Not trying to be argumentative. We probably have no disagreement... just thought it was an interesting tagline that called for a discussion. Happy Monday!
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