Posted on 04/29/2005 6:30:23 PM PDT by wagglebee
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A female U.S. reservist soldier who posed before naked Iraqi detainees as they were abused at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison will plead guilty to seven of nine charges against her, her lawyer said on Friday.
Lynndie England, 22, became the face of the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal after photos of her posing before humiliated Iraqi prisoners were published last year. One showed her holding a naked Iraqi detainee on a leash.
She will agree on Monday at Fort Hood, Texas to a plea deal that could bring a maximum sentence of 11 years, her lawyer Capt. Jonathan Crisp told Reuters. He called her a pawn in the affair.
"Justice is being done based on the evidence that has been brought forward at this point," he said by telephone from Fort Hood where he met with prosecutors on Friday.
"The government has certainly been more amenable as of late than they were initially. I think they recognize her ultimate role in this is not what it was initially thought to be. She was a pawn."
England was facing a total of 16 and a half years in prison. After the scheduled plea on Monday, a military court will decide her punishment following the testimony of several witnesses. Crisp said he hoped it would be lower than the 11-year maximum.
"Monday she's going plead to two specifications of conspiracy, four specifications of cruelty and maltreatment and one specification of indecent acts," he said. "They are dismissing two of the charges."
She may very well be guilty of lacking common sense BUT she sure as hell doesn't deserve 11 years in the slammer?
She's an example of a piece of crap that should never be in the US military. She's trash.
She is the one who failed to do her job and blamed it on her subordinates.
That is the real criminal.
What? 11 years for posing besides a bunch of naked alleged terrorists? Big fricking deal. Never mind the atrocities committed by terrorists, but God forbid getting some naked pics of them.
Give her five years probation and a dishonorable discharge.
It's almost funny that it was CBS's Mary Mapes who 'broke' the Abu Ghraib story in April, 2004, and then developed the now infamous 60 Minutes 'Memogate' Bush hit-piece in September, 2004.
Mapes was fired from CBS afterwards (she got caught), and is writing a book about her experiences which is scheduled to go on sale next November. I've read some internet excerpts from her book and if they're real, it's going to be hilarious reading for those of us in the popcorn gallery.:)
This piece of garbage disobeyed a direct order to keep her butt out of the prison. She had no right to be there.
I could see if she was the one posing naked in front of them.That would be cruel and unusal punishment.
C'mon, she ain't that bad.
I don't think a twelve pack and a fifth of wild turkey would do any good.
I thought she already had pled guilty.
Lynndie, you ignorant slut.
Ah yes, Karpinski. She was on CNN with her lawyer denying responsibility up one side and down the other, 15 minutes after the story broke.
If she gets a long sentence, I hope it will be a lesson to any other members of our military who are tempted to behave as unprofessionally as she did. Aside from abusing Iraqis, she and her cohorts gave the USA and the Pentagon a huge PR black eye, and ammunition to the lamestream media and anti-America crowd. We have enough of an image problem around the world without this kind of garbage.
That the abuses photographed only happened on third shift with those troops and her behavior above leads me to believe the cause was these folks not anything in the orders or guidelines given to them but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or the Army.
If Bush's got Lynndie to get that kinky after passing the word down so many layers of organization, them Bush has better pick up lines than Slick Willie.
Actually I think your sentence is about right for this. 11 years? This is so political.
Concur.
Sure it would. Break the bottle and gouge your eyes out...
This was a terrible event which had repercussions in Europe and the Middle East. It reflected badly on hundreds of thousands of her fellow soldiers that were doing a great job under terrible combat conditions. It impaired our foreign policy. These were serious violations of regulations and military order.
In view of this eleven years is probably a little light. It is just too bad that they don't make them make big rocks into little rocks at Ft. Leavenworth anymore. She won't be getting a sun tan any time soon.
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