Posted on 08/10/2006 1:52:10 PM PDT by TexKat
NEW YORK - The soldier who triggered the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal by sending incriminating photos to military investigators says he feared deadly retaliation by other GIs and was shocked when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mentioned his name at a Senate hearing.
Within days, Joe Darby was spirited out of Iraq at his own request. But his family was besieged by news media, and close relatives called him a traitor. Ultimately he was forced to move away from his hometown in western Maryland.
"I had the choice between what I knew was morally right and my loyalty to other soldiers. I couldn't have it both ways," the 27-year-old military policeman said in the just-released September issue of Gentleman's Quarterly.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Darby said that if presented with the same circumstances at Abu Ghraib today, he would do the same thing. "It was a hard decision to make when I made it, but it had to be done," he said.
Darby also said he later learned that Rumsfeld was not the first to identify him, and he did not see "anything intentional or malicious" on the Pentagon chief's part.
Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib were brutalized and sexually humiliated by military police and intelligence agents in the fall of 2003. Photos of the abuse — the same ones that Darby provided to investigators — stirred global condemnation of U.S. military practices in Iraq.
At least 11 U.S. soldiers have been convicted in the scandal. Spc. Charles Graner of Uniontown, Pa., and Pfc. Lynndie England of Fort Ashby, W.Va., who were depicted in the photos, are serving 10 years and three years in prison respectively.
Darby has not previously detailed his role at Abu Ghraib to the media, according to Dan Scheffey, a spokesman for GQ.
In the as-told-to article by Wil S. Hylton, Darby said he never expected the Abu Ghraib story to "explode the way it did."
The abuse of prisoners, he said, was going on before his Army Reserve MP unit was assigned there in October 2003.
"The day we arrived ... we saw like 15 prisoners sitting in their cells in women's underwear," and MPs explained they were being punished for firing mortars at the compound, he said. "After we took over it just basically escalated."
Former Brig. Gen. Janet Karpinski, who commanded the jail housing hundreds of known criminals and suspected terrorists, was there only when dignitaries visited, Darby said. "Other than that, she had no idea what was going on," he said.
Karpinski was demoted to colonel last May. The Army cleared four other generals of wrongdoing, while 17 other officers drew lesser penalties after a broader inquiry into abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Darby said he discovered the abuse photos inadvertently in January 2004 while flipping through other pictures on a CD that Graner had given him. "To this day I'm not sure why he gave me that CD," he said. "He probably just forgot which pictures were on it, or he might have assumed I wouldn't care."
At first amused by some of the photos, Darby finally decided "it just didn't sit right with me," and sent the CD to the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Although he did so anonymously, CID agents quickly pinpointed him as the source.
Darby said he was still being interviewed when Graner and two others were brought in, and the agents had to smuggle him out wrapped in rugs and blankets to conceal his identity.
Stunned when Graner and the others returned for a month's duty at the prison, he slept with a loaded pistol. "They'd be walking around with their weapons all day long, knowing somebody had turned them in and trying to find out who. That was one of the most nervous periods of my life," Darby said.
His worst moment, he said, came on May 7, 2004, during lunch with 10 fellow MPs in a mess hall filled with 400 troops.
"It was like something out of a movie," he recalled. Rumsfeld appeared on television, dropped Darby's name, "and the guys at the table just stopped eating and looked at me. I got up and got the hell out of there."
Only later did he learn he had been named in a New Yorker magazine article a few days earlier, he told AP in the telephone interview.
In response to queries from AP, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said he recalled no effort to protect Darby's identity. It was known "very early and quickly became common knowledge," and people were "talking about his courage in coming forward," he said.
Darby is scheduled to leave the Army and the Reserves, after eight years of duty, on Aug. 31. He no longer lives in his hometown of Cumberland, Md., where "a lot of people up there view me as a traitor. Even some of my family members think I'm a traitor."
He said he has returned home only twice, for a wedding and his mother's funeral.
"I'm not welcome there. People there don't look at the fact that I knew right from wrong," he said. "They look at the fact that I put an Iraqi before an American."
Much ado about nothing, IMO.
Does John Kerry have a long lost son?
"Oh, the humanity of it all."
"They look at the fact that I put an (Iraqi = terrorist, murderer of innocents, women and children) before an ( American = one who makes iraqis wear underwear on head)."
hmmm, did i get the facts right here?
bad american soldier
poor abused terrorists
You always hear about the abuse, but nothing about the prisoners or why they were there.
Sounds like a 60s frat party...
Give me a choice between an American run detention center or any foreign run one, and I'd choose the USA everytime. 9 out of 10 terrorist agree ;-)
Lets break out the ABu Gharib stories now to take our eyes off the ball (In the words of CT's Lamont)
Traitor? Not really. Slimey weasel SOB might work better. Hey, what did they do with guys like this in Nam?
While the whole incident is/was over blown, this soldier did the right thing. He saw something that he thought was not in compliance with his understanding of the required conduct of his fellow soldiers ... and contacted the military investigators with his concerns.
Didn't these pictures first end up on the Internet and that's where the "scandal" got started?
If so, then this guy is revising history.
Devout muslim men are so queer.
Entirely respectable behavior.What has been despicable was the publication of those photos for the purpose of embarassing the government, event though the government was handling the investigation properly. But that is simply pecking order behavior by journalism; the establishment known not as the establishment but as "objective journalism" will always pick on anyone whose success at getting necessary things done promotes their reputation above that of the journalist.
The only way to escape pecking by journalism is to take on journalism's political coloration - then journalism will say nice things about you, just as they do about Ted Kennedy. For a conservative, the pecking is inevitable.
Blanket party at the least
Sending the pictures anonymously to CID doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing for him to have done.
It's how the situation was handled by others that has been unacceptable.
This should have been handled within the military. Those who deserved to be punished for their actions should have been punished for those actions. However, those photos should not have become public while we are at war.
There is nothing to indicate that such publicity was needed in order to see that justice was served.
Whoever leaked those photos to the public is the person who is a traitor.
Those two really give the military a bad name...they are the trashiest people I have ever seen. How they made a baby I can't believe it. He is just plain a$$ stupid or blind. Loved the picture of her smoking. That was just so attractive (I don't have a problem with anyone smoking, but she was just plain trashy about it).
This jerk should have shown his higher ups and made sure it didn't get to the NY Slimes. He should've known better. Cry baby.
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