Posted on 01/14/2005 3:01:58 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
Geez, I wonder if he's from around these parts. http://www.recordnet.com/daily/news/articles/011405-gn-5.php
Alternatively, wouldn't a bored Iraqi prisoner welcome this sort of western-style entertainment? With dirty panties and dog-leashes to top it off?
I'm surprised no one has looked into his conduct as a prison guard in the US.
I agree. This punk cast a shadow on all of the courageous men and women who liberated Iraq. He gave the enemies of this country, the media, the Democrats and liberals, a lever to smear our efforts!
That is what a lot of people don't understand. They get hung up on how the left hypocritically goes on the offensive if an American is caught doing something wrong. The bigger truth is that one unprofessional stupid jerk can undermine the work of many people.
Just like C BIAS---- the upper level of authority get off scott free
What is wrong is simple. Graner would have done this to anyone, rag or American. He is an irresponsible, sadistic perv who was getting his rocks off forcing others into submission.
Yes, I have to agree. It is , as you said , "SIMPLE"-- The guy is not fit to serve.
Good. Judging from accounts by his fellow soldiers, he was no angel. I don't buy the higher-ups/military intel people ordering him to do this.
Even if you rationalize this by saying that the prisoners were probably teorrists anyways, you still have to consider what impact those photos had on the level anti-Americanism, and how many of our soldiers have died because what he did inspired more people to join the insurgency.
Yes, yesterday it was reported that an inmate at the prison where he was a guard had brought a lawsuit against Graner for putting a razor blade in his food but had dropped the lawsuit.
Good riddance.
Graner made a statement on camera earlier this week stating that now we would see what kind of monster he is.
We did.
Good. Another sadistic prisoner guard off the streets. Lets see how he likes being sexually abused by his fellow inmates. People like him and Lyndie England (and their superiors) give this country a bad name.
I agree if that all there was.
But I tended to suspect that female general in charge of the prison. She even looked guilty (is that sexist?). Has she been fully exonerated?
NO! Ten years in Leavenworth with Marine MPs in charge of his keep would be better.
An Iraqi detainee told the court that he was among a group of prisoners stripped by Graner and other Abu Ghraib guards, stacked up naked in a human pyramid while female soldiers watched, and later told to masturbate.
Graner was accused of creating the human pyramid and later ordering prisoners to masturbate while other soldiers took photographs. He also allegedly punched one man in the head hard enough to knock him out, and struck an injured prisoner with a collapsible metal stick.
Amin al-Sheikh, testifying via videotaped deposition shown in court Tuesday, said Graner also made him eat pork and drink alcohol, in violation of his Muslim faith, and that he listened through his cell wall while Graner and other Americans forced a Yemeni prisoner eat from a toilet.
He said Graner, whom he described as the "primary torturer," jumped on his injured leg and struck it with a collapsible stick. That is the basis for one of the assault charges.
No, she was not exonerated. She did not order that behavior, though. Her problem was she did not do her job and know what was going on---or turned a blind eye.
I forget what happened to her, but she was removed from that post, I know that. Karpinski is her name.
Not yet.
She was on Paula Zahn this week, Wednesday I believe.
I did not know that Saddam Hussein was put into her watch after his capture.
None of this qualifies as torture.
Abuse, yes. But not torture.
Don't let anyone get away with trying to give this the "torture" label.
BRIG. GEN. JANIS KARPINSKI, COMMANDER, 800TH MILITARY POLICE BRIGADE: He was told to look for a reason to get Janis Karpinski and the 800th M.P. Brigade. And nobody will ever convince me of anything differently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: My exclusive interview with Brigadier General Janis Karpinski right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAHN: At Fort Hood, Texas today, the defense started making its case in the court-martial of specialist Charles Graner, the former Abu Ghraib prison guard who is accused of being the ringleader in Abusing Iraqi prisoners. The defense said Graner was only following orders when cameras caught him and others humiliating and beating up prisoners.
Well on the stand today, the top non-commissioned officer in Graner's unit testified that Graner often failed to follow instructions, testimony that could undermine his defense.
Graner is one of seven enlisted personnel charged in the scandal. But what about the officers above him? The military investigation into the abuse came down heavily on the commander of Abu Ghraib, Brigadier General Janice Karpinski. And she spoke with me in an interview you can see it here only on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIG. GEN. JANICE KARPINSKI, U.S. ARMY RESERVES: Now, I was offended by those photographs. I was sickened by those photographs the first time I saw them at the end of January 2004. I could not understand what would make soldiers behave in such a manner. And I know that they don't decide, on their own, to get up and change everything about their training, abandon what they know to be right and decent, and take actions like this on their own. So, do I think that they were ordered to do this? That's my belief, yes.
ZAHN (voice-over): Brigadier General Janice Karpinski claims she didn't order her soldiers to soften up detainees. That her soldiers were corrupted by influence outside her command and the Abuse at Abu Ghraib was kept hidden from her.
In June of 2003, the insurgency against the U.S. occupation was already under way. Karpinski was put in charge of all 17 U.S. detention centers in Iraq. Abu Ghraib was one of her prisons, run by the 800th Military Police Brigade, a reserve unit.
Karpinski has served in the Army or the reserves for the last 25 years, has won a bronze star and served in special forces and the military police. But she had no prior experience in running prisons when she arrived in Iraq, and was given command of some 3,400 soldiers.
(on camera): And you were in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison at that time?
KARPINSKI: Not correct. My MP's were certainly doing the detention operations. But in November of 2003, without any coordination whatsoever, the prison, Abu Ghraib only, was transferred from the military police brigade to the M.I. Brigade. The whole prison.
ZAHN (voice-over): The Abuse of prisoners is believed to have happened in October and November of 2003. But even in November, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez says, he transferred only the interrogation operation to M.I.: Military intelligence, the rest was still under Karpinski's military police command.
GEN. RICARDO SANCHEZ, U.S. ARMY: The prison operations remained with the 800 brigade commander. And there was never a time General Karpinski surfaced to me any objections to that tactical control order.
ZAHN: A central question is whether Karpinski's military police soldiers were taking order from military intelligence at the time of these photos.
I asked Ken Davis, who was at Abu Ghraib in the 800th Military Police Brigade. He is No. 2 in this photo.
KEN DAVIS, 800TH MILITARY POLICE BRIGADE: It was explicit. It was told to us military intelligence is in charge of this compound.
ZAHN: But a former military intelligence interrogator gave me a different answer. Roman Krol is No. 1 in this photo.
ROMAN KROL, FRM. ABU GHRAIB INTERROGATOR: That's probably their only line of defense, to blame everything on military intelligence. What happened here was obviously directed by MP's.
Karpinski vehemently denies this.
ZAHN (on camera): You actually claim there was a conspiracy to introduce torture at Abu Ghraib. Whose conspiracy?
KARPINSKI: I don't know.
ZAHN: What would be their motivation for doing that, though?
KARPKINSKI: Because they had been so successful apparently in Guantanamo Bay in extracting information from these so-called terrorists or associates, that they were trying to apply the same techniques at Abu Ghraib.
And, remember, Saddam Hussein was still out there. We hadn't captured him yet. There was a lot of pressure being placed on the M.I. Brigade, military intelligence brigade commander, to get more and better information. He had a finger from General Sanchez poked in his chest, telling him, I want more information. You find Saddam.
And if you put enough pressure on an individual, no matter what their rank, they're going to do whatever it takes to get you what you're asking for.
ZAHN: So you're saying the torture grew out of internal pressure to get more information out of these detainees?
KARPINSKI: Yes.
ZAHN (voice-over): Pressures were a factor. Investigators still fault Karpinski for not preventing the abuse.
(on camera): If you had done your job differently, if you had visited that prison more, you don't think you could have stopped those activities?
KARPINSKI: Well, I can tell you this: that if a soldier or commander, whether under my command or out there doing other work at Abu Ghraib had suggested to me, hinted to me, dropped a note to me, told my aide or my security guy, General Karpinski needs to be with aware of this, or this is what I heard is going on, I would have investigated it immediately myself. And I would have stopped it. It wouldn't have happened on my watch.
ZAHN: But no matter what you say about how vigilant you were, in your operation of these facilities, you had General Taguba come out with a stinging report. And here's what he had to say about your leadership at Abu Ghraib.
MAJ. GEN. ANTONIO TAGUBA, U.S. ARMY: I held her accountable and responsible not exclusively and solely for the Abuse cases there at Abu Ghraib, but the context of her leadership, the lack of leadership on her part, overall in terms of her training, the standards, supervisory omission, the command climate in her brigade.
ZAHN: Do you concede?
KARPINSKI: I do not.
ZAHN: That you were a poor manager?
KARPINSKI: Absolutely not. Here are people, all of them, that never knew Janice Karpinski before, never knew my career. And him talking about I failed to train them, my leadership abilities were poor, or non-existent, he didn't know what we were facing, because he was told to look for a reason to get Janice Karpinski and the 800th M.P. Brigade. And nobody will ever convince me of anything differently.
ZAHN: Why would he want to scapegoat you?
KARPINSKI: Well, perhaps he was encouraged to -- to put this situation, with these photographs to rest as quickly as possible.
ZAHN: But you're a smart woman. You've been in the Army for ages. Is this part of some kind of political plot that you were victimized by?
KARPINSKI: I think that's always a possibility.
ZAHN: And for what purpose?
KARPINSKI: Well...
ZAHN: To make someone a four star general?
KARPINSKI: Perhaps. Or to ensure there were no other females that got this idea that women could serve in a combat zone equally well, or perhaps I was a convenient scapegoat because I was a reservist. And after all, no matter what they did to me, I was going to go back to my comfortable civilian life, as they saw it, because I was not active duty. Why wasn't he ordered to do an investigation on how did this happen? He was ordered to do an investigation on Karpinski.
ZAHN (voice-over): Since the Abu Ghraib prison scandal came to light, Brigadier General Janice Karpinski has driven a vigorous campaign to salvage her reputation.
(on camera): Do you think you were a good leader?
KARPINSKI: Absolutely. Does anybody believe whether they were active duty or previous military experience, do they think that Janice Karpinski was selected for promotion to brigadier general because why? I was at the right place at the right time?
I took the challenging jobs, I took the toughest jobs. I had a -- in 2001, in April, I had a fire in my home, it destroyed 60 percent of the house. I never missed an hour of reserve duty time. I had a hurricane in South Carolina and the island evacuated. I never missed even so much as a minute of active duty time with the reserve components.
My husband fell from the roof, broke his leg in three places, both of his arms and his elbows and I would throw him in the back of the truck and take him to wherever I needed to go, because I felt an obligation to do my duty and do it the best with of my abilities.
ZAHN: Do you suspect you'll be spending the rest of your life defending your actions, as the person overseeing all these facilities during this brutal war in Iraq?
KARPINSKI: If I was such a terrible leader, why was I given high profile missions? Why was Saddam Hussein turned over to my control? You don't do that with people that you have serious doubts about.
ZAHN: When I hear you speak, not only do I hear anger, but I hear a lot of hurt in your voice.
KARPINSKI: Well, I -- look, I served in the United States Army, whether as active component officer or reservist for years. And I, like those soldiers, feel that everything good that was done was intentionally washed away over these photographs. And it is a terrible miscarriage of justice.
ZAHN (voice-over): Karpinski was suspended from her position. And Ricardo Sanchez, who was then the top general in Iraq, has now gone back to his command in Germany, with diminished prospects for high profile command.
(on camera) What are the implication of your being suspended?
KARPINSKI: They have to make a decision, they being people in Washington D.C., and the chief of the different components. Anybody that can spell the future for Janice Karpinski, they'll all get a vote.
And I'd like to believe that people will not be -- will not be afraid to do the right thing.
ZAHN: And what is the right thing?
KARPINSKI: They need to restore me to my position as the commander of the 800th M.P. brigade. They need to put me back with my soldiers. And I will work on getting my respect back, because I can do that.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ZAHN: When we asked the Army for comment about Karpinski's allegations, we were given this statement: "There still remain ongoing Army and Department of Defense investigations into allegations of detainee abuse. The federal government doesn't comment on pending investigations."
But an Army spokeswoman also pointed out today Major General Taguba's findings have been validated by subsequent investigations. General Taguba is traveling this week, not available for comment for us.
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