Posted on 05/07/2004 11:02:41 PM PDT by saquin
CUMBERLAND, Md., May 7 — Ivan Frederick was distraught. His son, an Army reservist turned prison guard in Iraq, was under investigation earlier this year for mistreating prisoners, and photographs of the abuse were beginning to circulate among soldiers and military investigators.
So the father went to his brother-in-law, William Lawson, who was afraid that reservists like his nephew would end up taking the fall for what he considered command lapses, Mr. Lawson recounted in an interview on Friday. He knew whom to turn to: David Hackworth, a retired colonel and a muckraker who was always willing to take on the military establishment. Mr. Lawson sent an e-mail message in March to Mr. Hackworth's Web site and got a call back from an associate there in minutes, he said.
That e-mail message would put Mr. Lawson in touch with the CBS News program "60 Minutes II" and help set in motion events that led to the public disclosure of the graphic photographs and an international crisis for the Bush administration.
It is still not entirely clear who leaked the photos and how they got into the hands of a "60 Minutes II" producer. What is clear, however, is that the furor over the photos is unlikely to dissipate any time soon.
And it may only get worse.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disclosed Friday that there were "many more photos" and videos of abuse that have not yet become public. And he acknowledged in Senate testimony that the military might have mishandled the affair by not alerting members of Congress and the public to the growing seriousness of the military's investigation into the abuses before the images became public on "60 Minutes II."
"I wish I had been able to convey to them the gravity of this before we saw it in the media," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders. Mr. Lawson said he sent letters to 17 members of Congress about the case earlier this year, with virtually no response, and that he ultimately contacted Mr. Hackworth's Web site out of frustration, leading him to cooperate with a consultant for "60 Minutes II."
"The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.'s because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case."
Many of the incriminating photographs appear to have been taken on a digital camera by a soldier in the 372nd Military Police Company who is now facing a court-martial. From there, they appear to have circulated among military personnel in Iraq via e-mail and computer disks, and some may have found their way to family members in the United States.
But there are still numerous unresolved questions about the photographs. One is why they were taken. Some officials suggest that soldiers wanted the photographs as souvenirs, but some relatives said they believed that the photographs were going to be shown to other prisoners to pressure their cooperation.
Then there is the question of how the photographs became public.
Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of forces in the region, testifying Friday before Congress, said he was still unclear how that happened. "It was a surprise that it got out," General Smith said.
Military officials were aware of two disks with photographs on them that were part of continuing investigations, one in Iraq and another in Washington, he said.
"That was the limit of the pictures, and we thought we had them all," General Smith said.
Producers at "60 Minutes II" are not saying exactly how they got the photographs. But Jeff Fager, the executive producer, said, "We heard about someone who was outraged about it and thought that the public should know about it."
Digital cameras have become so ubiquitous in the military that many relatives of personnel in the 372nd and other units in Iraq said they routinely received photographs by e-mail. But the photographs were usually tourist-type photographs of smiling sons and daughters, relatives said.
Officials said that the photographs showing psychological or physical abuse numbered in the hundreds, perhaps more than 1,000, with Mr. Rumsfeld hinting Friday that more may come out.
Among some prison personnel in Iraq, the photographs were apparently an open secret. "Some soldiers in Iraq had them — I'm hearing that soldiers were showing them to everybody," Mr. Lawson said. He said he did not have the original photos and did not turn them over to anyone.
The photographs have now turned soldiers like Mr. Lawson's nephew, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, and Pfc. Lynndie R. England into graphic symbols of military abuse. But for Mr. Lawson, they are evidence of a complete breakdown in training and authority in the Iraqi prison system.
He shared his frustration in his March 23 e-mail message to Mr. Hackworth's Web site, writing: "We have contacted the Red Cross, Congress both parties, Bill O'Reilly and many others. Nobody wants to touch this."
Less than five weeks later, images of his nephew — interviewed on "60 Minutes II" with Mr. Lawson's help — would be shown around the world. Far from untouchable, the story would become unavoidable.
The problem there is he, and his willing associates in the press, would turn this into a media circus.
Of course there are good reasons for the military to have and use cameras;that's NOT what I was talking about.
Don't you mean what the ABUSERS IN THE PRISON did the military and the country? All this anger over the pictures getting out suggests you're fine with the behavior recorded on those pictures - you just don't want news of the behavior to get out.
You mean it isn't already? LOL
Oh blow it out your ear. No one is excusing the behavior. In fact it would be nice if the perpetrators would stop trying to excuse their behavior.
I think I can smell a crusty pantsuit involved in the leak of this report, See this thread below
Did Hillary reveal who leaked report in her questioning of Rumsfeld today?
They also have guys who know the system and how to cover their asses. Notice how when he got in trouble this stuff ends up on 60 Minutes II. The investigation starts in Jan. and as it looks bad for him (How could it look any other way with the photos) his Daddy calls Hack.
That does not explain why the photos were taken in the first place and kept in casual control. If Military intelligence ordered this as a method of breaking down prisoners they would have known to keep tight control of something so explosive.
It is possible that the photos are the acts of those soldiers with sadistic leanings and their enablers and were kept for their amusement as mementos in the same way serial killers often take items from their victims and for essentially the same reasons.
The danger of having something so incriminating adds to the spice.
Besides being in several pictures, the "woman" in the middle of this is PREGGERS,by the head "torturer" and was NOT assigned to this duty at all;she was just "visiting".
That IS what his unit did! Prisoners! What the HELL was he doing the last 20 years?????
You say "nuke the Middle East" and you call THEM 4th century idiots?
The situation will get a lot worse here based on what I read elsewhere.
“There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence toward prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he said. “... It’s going to get a good deal more terrible, I’m afraid.”
Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys."
The way I see this is a few American soldiers might deserve to hang from the neck under military law if some of the above information is true.
Even in WW2 which developed some of our best people, there were 70 soldiers hung for rape.
I apologize for the harsh information here, but what I am saying is there are a few bad seeds among the 250,000 heroes and the ones that went off-the-reservation and did the rape and other stuff will probably die as punishment.
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