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BALTIMORE – The only officer charged in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has been cleared of criminal wrongdoing, his attorney said Thursday. A military jury convicted Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan in August of disobeying an order to not talk about an investigation into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the fall of 2003. Jordan was acquitted of allegations that he failed to supervise 11 lower-ranking soldiers previously convicted for their roles at Abu Ghraib. Now the conviction has been thrown out. Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe, commanding general of the Military District of Washington, sent Jordan's attorney...

ABU GHRAIB — Iraqi Police personnel traveled to Abu Ghraib warehouse to pick up 70 new vehicles, Dec. 31. The vehicles will be painted and transformed into patrol cars for the Iraqi Police Force throughout the country. “The way this system works is that the different ministries of Iraq go out to assess and submit the requirements needed to fulfill a certain mission,” said U.S. Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer Edward Polzin, deputy site commander, Abu Ghraib warehouse. “The equipment requested is then ordered and sent here to the warehouse for staging and awaiting delivery or pickup for whoever placed...

Iraqi police (IP) celebrate their gradation from the Baghdad police college in the Rusafa district, Sept. 20. The first class of its kind graduated 744 IPs of Abu Ghraib province from the 30-day course, which provides training before returning the local police officers to their communities. Photo by U.S. Army Spc. Leith Edgar, 7th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment. BAGHDAD — Iraq’s capital gained 744 more police officers as the newest members of the Iraqi Security Force graduated from the Baghdad Police College in the Rusafa District, Sept. 20.The graduation ceremony followed 30 days of training in which the Iraqi Police...

Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the only officer to face trial over the Abu Ghraib detainee-abuse scandal, was issued a reprimand yesterday by a military jury, a punishment that spares him all prison time after he was convicted this week on one count of disobeying an order. The jury could have sentenced Jordan to as much as five years in prison and ordered his dismissal from the Army. Instead, he received one of the lightest punishments available. Jordan was convicted for contacting other soldiers about the military's 2004 investigation into the Abu Ghraib abuse after he was ordered not...

FORT MEADE, Md. - A military court Tuesday acquitted an Army officer of failing to control U.S. soldiers who abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, but it found him guilty of disobeying an order not to discuss the abuse investigation. Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan was the only officer and the last of 12 defendants to go to trial in the 2003 Abu Ghraib scandal, which embarrassed the Pentagon and shocked the Muslim world. The allegations at the U.S.-run prison came to light with the release of pictures of U.S. soldiers smiling while detainees, some of them naked,...

FORT MEADE, Md. -- An Army officer who once was in charge of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison was a failed leader whose errors set the stage for abuses committed by military police under his control, a military prosecutor told jurors Tuesday. However, a defense lawyer and a prosecution witness said Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan was a solid leader who didn't have command responsibility for the MPs who helped prepare prisoners for interrogation. The conflicting characterizations of Jordan's role comprise the central dispute at his trial for decisions that allegedly set the stage for detainee abuses at...

Associated Press The nation's largest group of psychologists scrapped a measure Sunday that would have prohibited members from assisting interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. military detention centers. The American Psychological Association's policy-making council voted against a proposal to ban psychologists from taking part in any interrogations at U.S. military prisons "in which detainees are deprived of adequate protection of their human rights." Instead, the group approved a resolution that reaffirmed the association's opposition to torture and restricted members from taking part in interrogations that involved any of more than a dozen specific practices, including sleep deprivation and forced...

SAN FRANCISCO - Stung by reports implicating mental health specialists in prisoner abuse scandals at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the nation's largest group of psychologists is considering banning its members from interrogations of terror suspects. The American Psychological Association, which is holding its annual meeting in San Francisco, is scheduled to vote Sunday on two competing measures concerning its 148,000 members' participation in military interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. military detention centers. One measure would bar members from any involvement in interrogations at U.S. detention facilities where foreigners are held. The moratorium would not be backed by...

"Impeach or else!" That was the headline that one liberal Web site ran over a recent interview with the antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, who has been demanding that President Bush and Vice President Cheney be chucked out of office. But the Bush administration isn't her only target. Sheehan is so frustrated with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- who declared impeachment "off the table" even before the Democrats took control of Congress -- that she is threatening to run against her. The speaker may think impeachment is off the table, but the I-word is being tossed about pretty freely in some...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

Ex-Abu Ghraib guard named to rec board 21 minutes ago Lynndie England, one of the most recognizable figures of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, has a new role as a member of this Eastern Panhandle city's volunteer recreation board. England, 24, contributed her knowledge of computers, electronics and graphics for Keyser's Strawberry Festival, which helped her land the unpaid position, said Roy Hardy, the England family's attorney. "When (council members) saw how hard she worked for the festival, they didn't hesitate to put her on the board," said Hardy, who is also a board member. "If it wasn't...

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who was the lead investigator of military personnel working at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, tells New Yorker magazine that he was forced into retirement because of his findings. Seymour Hersh, investigative reporter for the magazine, talks with Michele Norris about his interview with Taguba, who gave some details that were not made public before his comments were published this week in the magazine.

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, June 14, 2007 – The intelligence community reached a milestone earlier this month as leaders broke ground for the first joint detention training facility in the Defense Department. Maj. Gen. John DeFreitas, commander of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command; Col. Dan Meyer, U.S. Army South chief of staff; Col. Richard Saddler, former commander of 470th Military Intelligence Brigade; Col. Wendy Martinson, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Fort Sam Houston; and Staff Sgt. Martin Martinez of the 470th Military Intelligence Brigade, break ground June 5 at Camp Bullis, Texas, for the Defense Department’s first joint...

Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all got personal last night during a forum focused on something much less commonly mentioned on the campaign trail: their religious faith. During a wide-ranging discussion, each Democrat took the stage to discuss their views on religion, values and poverty. But the three front-runners for their party's 2008 nomination also fielded questions much more personal in nature about their sins and prayer habits. Mrs. Clinton, a senator from New York, told the audience of 1,300 that her faith helped her survive her husband's infidelity when he was in the...

The same media hacks that brought us countless images of Spc. Lynndie England doing her best John Dillinger imitation with an Iraqi prisoner while covering the Abu Ghraib scandal have suddenly gone mute on the release last week by US military officials of a graphic al-Qaeda torture manual that provides illustrations and instructions on how to use hammers, blow torches and meat cleavers to extract information from their victims in Iraq. This deliberate silence has been occurring as US forces are scouring Iraq looking for two US soldiers who presumably are being subject to the very tortures described in that...

Yet Top Media Ran More Than 6,000 Stories on Abu Ghraib Abuses ALEXANDRIA, VA—The U.S. Defense Department released photos last week of an al-Qaeda torture chamber in Iraq, which showed various torture tools—blow torches, meat cleavers, hammers, drills, metal files—drawings of torture methods, and photos of actual victims found in another house in Karmah who had been burned, mutilated, and tortured in myriad ways. To their credit, CNN and Fox News Channel ran stories on the declassified material. Yet nine days since the material was released, neither ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times nor The Washington Post has run...

Yesterday we noted that the lovely and talented John Edwards, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, had repudiated the "global war on terror," disparaging the entire enterprise as "a slogan designed only for politics" and "a bumper sticker, not a plan." But in 2004, when Edwards was the sunny No. 2 of Kedwards, he sang quite a different tune, as Greg Sargent of TPMCafe.com notes: On CNN on October 21, 2004, he said that stopping terrorists before they harm us is "by far the most effective way to win this war on terrorism." A few days earlier he said...

Torture, Al-Qaeda StyleDrawings, tools seized from Iraq safe house in U.S. military raid MAY 24--In a recent raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like "blowtorch to the skin" and "eye removal." Along with the images, which you'll find on the following pages, soldiers seized various torture implements, like meat cleavers, whips, and wire cutters. Photos of those items can be seen here. The images, which were just declassified by the Department of Defense, also include a picture of a ramshackle Baghdad safe house described as an...

Pakistani convicted for plot to bomb New York subway05-25-2006, 00h32 NEW YORK (AFP) In this courtroom illustration, James Elshafay (C) and Shahawar Matin Siraj (R) appear August 2004 in Federal District Court in New York, before Magistrate Kiyo Matsumoto (R rear) during an arraignment on charges related to an alleged plot to bomb a New York City subway station. Standing at left are Assistant US attorneys John Nathanson (L) and Kelly Currie (2nd L). (AFP/Getty Images/File) A Pakistani man was convicted of planning to blow up a New York subway station ahead of the Republican National Convention held before the...

How many Americans can name one American hero from the war on terror?During WWII and for years thereafter, I daresay virtually every American from school-age up knew of Audie Murphy and other war heroes. But while the MSM has spent incalculable resources informing Americans and the world about Abu Ghraib and Haditha, how often has the MSM told us about the new generation of heroes among our people serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere?I'd invite people to view Heroes in the War on Terror, assembled by the Defense Department, that tells the stories of a number of our heroes. Take...