Soldier Gets Time To Bolster Case (she returns to Iraq to locate potentially supportive witnesses)

Judge lets her go to Iraq to find witnesses; he also drops some counts in Abu Ghraib case

FORT HOOD -- A female soldier accused in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal won't be tried on indecency charges and will be allowed to return to Iraq to locate potentially supportive witnesses, a military judge ruled Saturday.

Spc. Sabrina Harman, 26, of Lorton, Va., was told to be ready for court-martial on March 7, when the government will prosecute her for conspiring to hurt and mistreat detainees. She took and appeared in several photographs that documented the abuses.

The allegations carry a potential maximum sentence of at least six years, but the total would have been more than 11 years if the judge, Col. James Pohl, hadn't agreed to withdraw the most severe counts of indecency.

Some of the indecency accusations resulted from photos showing Harman posing by the corpse of an Iraqi detainee in a body bag. She also was accused of being a bystander when several Iraqi men were ordered to masturbate while other soldiers took photos, actions the government said she should have reported to her superiors.

The remaining charges allege she and six other soldiers, five of whom have already been convicted of abuse, conspired to mistreat detainees. The conspiracy resulted in her posing and giving a thumbs-up sign as she and another soldier stood next to naked detainees who were ordered to form a human pyramid, her charges state.

Her lawyer, Frank Spinner, has described her as "at the bottom of the totem pole" among those who were snared in the scandal. But in her pretrial hearing, when attorneys discussed potential witnesses and evidence, Spinner gave no indication that her defense would attempt to justify her actions by asserting she was ordered to torment the detainees, although she has stated that's what happened.

The defense raised questions about the validity of remaining charges that resulted from her taking several of the widely circulated photos that depicted abuse. One argument was that the detainees were hooded as they were being photographed, so they couldn't have known they were being mistreated. However, at least temporarily, the judge refused to dismiss those charges.

Pohl did agree to her request to quickly return to Baghdad with her lawyer to interview detainees who she claims she treated kindly, providing them comfort items including clothing and food.

Harman was a pizza store assistant manager when she was activated for duty in Iraq in early 2003. Her unit, the 372nd Military Police Company, arrived there that summer, and after three months providing convoy security and other combat tasks, they were assigned to the Baghdad prison, despite having little prison-guard training.

Harman became one of nine soldiers charged with various abuse-related crimes. Seven of them have been convicted, most recently Sgt. Javal Davis, who was sentenced to six months in prison Friday. Another female, PFC Lynndie England, who is awaiting court-martial, is expected to be the last MP to face trial.

Although most of the defendants have pleaded guilty, many have asserted they were acting on orders or suggestions from military, CIA and other agents to torment detainees so they would surrender "actionable intelligence" that could save the lives of U.S. soldiers in battle.

But that defensive posture has not cleared any of the accused, and several defendants have conceded that at least some of their criminal acts were not part of interrogations or authorized by their commanders.

In questioning to qualify them for jury service, numerous soldiers have said they didn't remember details of news stories about Abu Ghraib but vividly recalled the image of a female soldier posing by detainees, which could have been either England or Harman.

I love our military and it's to their credit they crack down on things like:

We're better than that, and if Harman can find witnesses to explain her presence in the photos, than I really hope she can because that's just disgusting.

I wonder if anyone ever checked for hidden bank accounts on any of those people, especially that one soldier who seemed to be the ring leader in all this Abu Ghraib mess?

Can't remember his name. But I've always wondered if there was a hidden money connection between them and CBS, Mary Mapes or Dan Rather. Especially after Rather and Mapes got caught with their forged document's fiasco.

Agreed, nobody in Abu Ghraib under American control were decapitated, electrically shocked (particularly to the genitals), had parts of their bodies removed, were stuck in metals boxes, were hung from the ceiling by their arms or fingers and beaten, or were forced to watch their wives/daughters being raped in front of them.

There was no end of ideas that Saddam's torturers could come up with, and there's NO comparison to our troops' behavior, in this war or any other.

It would be interesting to know if the Abu Grahbi defendents claims that they were following orders, or suggestions from a maverick agency like the CIA is true. It would be constructive to find out if they just did that nonsense on their own, or if they were instructed by some that are now walking away.

And you know, we're the only people in the world that hold ourselves to these standards. Maybe it's completely unfair, it's too much when you put it in any kind of comparision to the enemy. Maybe we're letting the left-winger anti-American media cut our throats.....

That's very good. It was Mary Mapes credited with 'exposing' the Abu Graib humilitions, and no one officially knows who her source(s) were. And the Abu Graib business was aimed at critizing Donald Rumsfield, although it didn't bring him down.

Mapes's connection could well be good old Col. Hackworth , who was also brought in later to verify the Killeen memos aimed at President Bush.

It is a fact that Mapes was the one driving the Abu Graib story and the Killeen Memos story. If that woman didn't have an agenda, then 1+1 doesn't equal 2.

Frank Spinner, has described her as "at the bottom of the totem pole" among those who were snared in the scandal.

He has this mostly right.She is at the bottom for sure. The dregs of humanity.

I just wish there were a way to see if money was passed from one to another. Some people wouldn't mind doing jail time if they knew that when they got out they would have a couple of million stashed away waiting on them.

Maybe I'm just too suspicious. But then again? Who knows?

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