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The Secret File of Abu Ghraib
New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi
prisoners
By OSHA GRAY DAVIDSON
It has been months since the now-infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib
revealed that American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners -- yet the Bush
administration has failed to get to the bottom of the abuses."There are
some serious unanswered questions," says Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican
on the Armed Services Committee. The Pentagon is stalling on several
investigations, and congressional inquiries have ground to a halt. The
foot-dragging is astonishing, given that Congress has access to classified
documents detailing the abuses outlined by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his
report on Abu Ghraib. Rolling Stone obtained those files in June and
offers this report on their contents.
-The Editors
The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what
happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and
translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106
"annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last
spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails,
reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers,
officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in
complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in
squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and
wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served
as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners
inside.
The files make clear that responsibility for what Taguba called "sadistic,
blatant and wanton" abuses extends to several high-ranking officers still
serving in command positions. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who is now in
charge of all military prisons in Iraq, was dispatched to Abu Ghraib by
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last August. In a report marked secret,
Miller recommended that military police at the prison be "actively engaged
in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees."
After his plan was adopted, guards began depriving prisoners of sleep and
food, subjecting them to painful "stress positions" and terrorizing them
with dogs. A former Army intelligence officer tells Rolling Stone that the
intent of Miller's report was clear to everyone involved: "It means treat
the detainees like shit until they will sell their mother for a blanket,
some food without bugs in it and some sleep." In the files, prisoner after
prisoner at Abu Ghraib describes acts of torture that Taguba found
"credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence
provided by other witnesses." The abuses took place at the Hard Site, a
two-story cinder-block unit at the sprawling prison that housed Iraqi
criminals and insurgents, not members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist
organizations. In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee
number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu
Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military
uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The
kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape,
Hilas said.
During the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, Hilas saw Spc. Charles Graner
Jr. and an unnamed "helper" tie a detainee to a bed around midnight. "They
. . . inserted the phosphoric light in his ass, and he was yelling for
God's help," the prisoner testified. Again, the same female soldier
photographed the torture.
Another prisoner, Abd Alwhab Youss, was punished after guards accused him
of plotting to attack an MP with a broken toothbrush. Guards took Youss
into a closed room, poured cold water on him, pushed his head into urine
and beat him with a broom. Then the guards "pressed my ass with a broom
and spit on it," Youss said.
Mohanded Juma, detainee number 152307, testified that on his first day at
Tier 1A, the west wing of the Hard Site where prisoners were brought for
interrogation, he was stripped and left naked in his cell for six days.
Graner, the guard in charge of the tier, entered Juma's cell at 2 a.m.,
cuffed his hands and feet, and took him to the shower room, where a female
interrogator questioned him. After she left, Graner and another man threw
pepper in Juma's face, beat him with a chair until it broke and choked him
until he thought he was going to die. The assault lasted for half an hour.
"They got tired from beating me," Juma told investigators. "They took a
little break, and then they started kicking me very hard with their feet
until I passed out." In another instance, Graner and a fellow guard
reportedly beat a detainee until his nose split open.
Torin Nelson, one of thirty-two private contractors who worked as
interrogators at Abu Ghraib, told investigators that he spoke with an
interpreter who witnessed an interrogator toss a handcuffed prisoner from
a car. "The interrogator then yells at him for falling on the ground and
starts dragging or pulling the detainee by the cuffs," Nelson testified.
He believed the story, Nelson added, "based on the stuff that I have heard
and seen."
The sworn statement of Amjed Isail Waleed, detainee number 151365, is
especially graphic. On his first day at the Hard Site, he told
investigators, guards "put me in a dark room and started hitting me in the
head and stomach and legs." Then, one day in November, five soldiers took
him into a room, put a bag over his head and started beating him. "I could
see their feet, only, from under the bag. . . . Some of the things they
did was make me sit down like a dog, and they would hold the string from
the bag, and they made me bark like a dog, and they were laughing at me."
A soldier slammed Waleed's head against the wall, causing the bag to fall
off. "One of the police was telling me to crawl, in Arabic," he testified,
"so I crawled on my stomach, and the police were spitting on me when I was
crawling and hitting me on my back, my head and my feet. It kept going on
until their shift ended at four o'clock in the morning. The same thing
would happen in the following days."
Finally, after several beatings so severe that he lost consciousness,
Waleed was forced to lay on the ground. "One of the police was pissing on
me and laughing at me," the prisoner said. He was placed in a dark room
and beaten with a broom. "And one of the police, he put a part of his
stick that he always carries inside my ass, and I felt it going inside me
about two centimeters, approximately. And I started screaming, and he
pulled it out and he washed it with water inside the room. And the two
American girls that were there when they were beating me, they were
hitting me with a ball made of sponge on my dick. And when I was tied up
in my room, one of the girls, with blond hair, she is white, she was
playing with my dick. I saw inside this facility a lot of punishment just
like what they did to me and more. And they were taking pictures of me
during all these instances."
In the classified files, some of the photographed soldiers also provide
firsthand accounts of the abuses. Pvt. Lynndie England testified that on
November 8th -- the evening of her twenty-first birthday -- she went to
the Hard Site to visit Spc. Graner, her boyfriend. Just after midnight,
seven Iraqi detainees accused of taking part in a fight at one of the many
tent compounds used to house prisoners at Abu Ghraib were brought to Tier
1A. For England, the evening was a break from the tedium of her job
processing prisoners. For Nori Al-Yasseri, detainee number 7787, it
quickly became a "night which we felt like 1,000 nights."
Al-Yasseri and the other prisoners arrived at the Hard Site with empty
sandbags over their heads to prevent them from seeing where they were and
their hands bound behind their backs with plastic handcuffs. The guards
threw the men against the walls until they collapsed on the floor in what
England called a "dog pile." Some of the MPs took turns running across the
room and leaping on top of the men. "A couple of the detainees kind of
made an 'ah' sound, as if this hurt them or caused them some type of
pain," Spc. Jeremy Sivits testified in a sworn statement. While the Iraqis
were on the floor, England and Sgt. Javal Davis stomped on their fingers
and feet. Sivits was certain that the men felt pain this time because he
heard them scream.
So did Sgt. Shannon Snider, who was working in an office on the top tier.
Drawn by the cries of pain, Snider leaned over the railing and in a fury
yelled down to Davis to stop abusing the prisoners. Davis stepped away
from the men, and Snider left.
"I believe that Sgt. Snider thought it was an isolated incident," Sivits
testified, "and that when he ordered Sgt. Davis to stop, it was over." But
it was just getting started.
After Snider had gone, the MPs pulled the prisoners to their feet one by
one and removed their handcuffs. Graner, who had learned a few key phrases
in Arabic, ordered the detainees to strip. As one prisoner took off his
clothes, Graner cradled the man's head in one arm and smashed his fist
into the naked and hooded man's temple. "Damn, that hurt!" Graner
complained, waving his hand in the air. The prisoner went limp, and
someone removed his hood. "I walked over to see if the detainee was still
alive," Sivits testified. "I could tell that the detainee was unconscious,
because his eyes were closed and he was not moving, but I could see his
chest rise and fall, so I knew he was still alive."
According to England, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick made an X on another
prisoner's chest with his finger and said, "Watch this." Then the
six-foot-tall Fredericks punched the man in the chest. The hooded prisoner
lurched backward and fell to his knees. He gasped for air. "Frederick said
he thought he put the detainee in cardiac arrest," Sivits later told
investigators. England was asked why she thought Frederick assaulted the
man. "I guess just because he wanted to hit him," she said.
Eventually, all seven Iraqis were standing naked and hooded, and the MPs
got out their cameras. A few pictures had been taken earlier in the
evening, but now the abuse turned into a photo-op. Men taught to be
ashamed of appearing naked in front of other men were forced to assume a
series of humiliating and bizarre poses. Graner had them climb on top of
each other to form a human pyramid, and the MPs took turns taking each
other's picture standing behind the men. In one photo, Graner and England
smile and give the thumbs-up sign behind the men, who are naked except for
the green sandbags covering their heads. The Iraqis were made to crawl
across the floor on their hands and knees while the guards rode on their
backs. Two were posed as if performing oral sex on each other, and others
were lined up against the wall and forced to masturbate while England
pointed at their genitals and leered. And all the while, the Americans
were laughing, cracking jokes and taking pictures.
An Army investigator later asked one of the seven Iraqis how he felt that
night. "I was trying to kill myself," replied Hussein Al-Zayiadi, detainee
number 19446, "but I didn't have any way of doing it."
The secret files make clear that day-to-day living conditions at Abu
Ghraib were "deplorable" for soldiers as well as prisoners. The facility
was under constant attack from mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The
files make no reference to the number of attacks, but a partial list
obtained by Rolling Stone indicates that there were more than two dozen
explosions between July and September alone. Six detainees and two
soldiers were killed, and seventy-one were injured. But officers at Abu
Ghraib told Taguba that their repeated requests for combat troops and
armored vehicles to protect the facility were ignored by top brass. "I
feel, and my soldiers feel, that we're just sitting out there, waiting to
die," said Cpt. James Jones of the 229th MP Company. "As a commander, I'm
charged with bringing my soldiers home, but how do I control that? It's
frustrating. It's frightening."
The prison was filled far beyond capacity. Some 7,000 prisoners were
jammed into Abu Ghraib, a complex erected to hold no more than 4,000
detainees. Prisoners were held in canvas tents that became ovens in the
summer heat and filled with rain in the cold winter. One report found that
the compound "is covered with mud and many prisoner tents are close to
being under water." Another report described the conditions in one
compound: "The area is littered with trash, has pools of water standing
around latrines, and the bottles of water carried by detainees for water
consumption are filthy. The tents lack floors and are inadequate to
provide protection from the elements." Detainees wore soiled clothes
because laundry facilities were inadequate; mentally ill detainees were
"receiving no treatment."
In a series of increasingly desperate e-mails sent to his higher-ups, Maj.
David DiNenna of the 320th MP Battalion reported that food delivered by
private contractors was often inedible. "At least three to four times a
week, the food cannot be served because it has bugs," DiNenna reported.
"Today an entire compound of 500 prisoners could not be fed due to bugs
and dirt in the food." Four days later, DiNenna sent another e-mail marked
"URGENT URGENT URGENT!!!!!!!!" He reported that "for the past two days
prisoners have been vomiting after they eat."
Officers reported that their repeated pleas for adequate food and supplies
went unheeded, even though prisoners were attacking soldiers. "I don't
know how they're not rioting every day," Jones told Taguba. The worst riot
occurred on November 24th. According to an internal investigation,
prisoners in one compound "were marching and yelling, 'Down with Bush,'
and 'Bush is bad' and other slogans to that effect." The detainees threw
rocks at guard towers and at soldiers on the other side of the concertina
wire. One guard said that "the sky was black with rocks"; another added
that he "feared for his life." The riot quickly spread to other compounds,
where several guards were injured by flying debris. The soldiers fired
nonlethal ammunition at the mob but quickly exhausted their meager
supplies. Fearing they were on the verge of a mass prison break, the
guards were given the go-ahead to use deadly force, and they opened fire
with live ammunition. Three detainees were killed and nine were wounded.
Nine soldiers were also injured in the riot.
That same evening, a detainee in Tier 1A told an MP that a prisoner had a
gun and several knives. The informant even knew where he was: Cell 35. The
guards instructed every prisoner on the tier to put their hands through
the cell bars to be handcuffed, a standard precaution before searching a
cell or moving a prisoner. But when the MPs came to Cell 35, the man
inside refused to put his hands out. Instead, he told the guards he "had
no gun."
No one had used the word gun around the prisoner. Sgt. William Cathcart,
one of the MPs on duty that night, immediately made a grab for the man's
wrists. The prisoner pulled away and fell to his knees to say a prayer.
"At that point," Cathcart told investigators, "I knew it would be a gun
battle." He was right. The detainee suddenly turned, withdrew a 9 mm
pistol from under his pillow and opened fire on Cathcart from close range.
A bullet struck the MP in the chest. Fortunately, before beginning the
search, Cathcart had put on his "full battle rattle" - a Kevlar vest with
pockets holding ceramic plates - and wasn't injured. Another MP shot the
inmate with two nonlethal rounds, knocking the man down. But the prisoner
jumped back up and continued to fire. An MP finally ended the incident by
firing a load of buckshot into the man's legs.
How did a detainee in the Army's toughest prison in Iraq get his hands on
a gun?
According to an internal Army investigation contained in the secret files,
the civilian-run Coalition Provisional Authority had hired at least five
members of Fedayeen Saddam -- a paramilitary organization of fanatical
Saddam loyalists -- to work as guards at the prison. An Iraqi guard,
probably one of "Saddam's martyrs," had smuggled the gun and two knives
into the prison in an inner tube, placed them in a sheet and tossed them
up to the second-story window of Cell 35. In May, when Taguba testified
before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen.Wayne Allard asked him a
direct question: "Did we have terrorists in the population at this
prison?" Taguba answered, "Sir, none that we were made aware of." His own
files make clear, however, that a more accurate response would have been:
"Yes, sir -- but only among the guards."
Taguba was only authorized to investigate the role of military police in
the torture at Abu Ghraib -- even though the Hard Site was controlled by
military intelligence when the worst abuses occurred. Nevertheless, the
classified annexes indicate that responsibility for the torture extends at
least as high as several top-ranking officers in Iraq who have yet to be
disciplined or removed from command. Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who remains
director of military intelligence in Iraq, was aware of the conditions at
Abu Ghraib and received regular reports from officers at the prison. Lt.
Col. Steven Jordan, who directed intelligence at the prison, admitted to
Taguba that he did not actually report to the British colonel who was
supposedly his supervisor. "On paper, I work directly for him," Jordan
told Taguba. "But between you, me and the fence post, I work directly for
General Fast." Fast is currently under investigation, but unlike
lower-ranking officers and soldiers, she has not been reprimanded or
charged in the abuses.
Miller, who was sent by Rumsfeld to speed up interrogations at Abu Ghraib,
spent ten days in Iraq touring prisons and meeting with intelligence
officials. The two-star general was commander of the military prison at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- known as Gitmo -- where "enemy combatants" were
already being subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, including the
use of military dogs to frighten prisoners. According to Col. Thomas
Pappas, who commanded the military intelligence brigade at Abu Ghraib,
Miller spoke with him about using dogs on prisoners: "He said that they
used military working dogs, and that they were effective in setting the
atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information." Brig. Gen.
Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of all military prisons in Iraq, told
Rolling Stone that Miller described his plan to "Gitmo-ize interrogation
operations" in Iraq and boasted that prisoners at Guantanamo "were treated
like dogs, because you can never let them be in charge."
Miller has denied making either statement. But whatever he said, his plan
to "rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence" was quickly
adopted at Abu Ghraib. A slide presentation in the classified files spells
out the new "Interrogation Rules of Engagement," specifying that soldiers,
with proper approval, may subject prisoners to dietary manipulation, sleep
deprivation, stress positions and the "presence of mil working dogs." In
at least one instance documented by Taguba and photographed by soldiers, a
prisoner at Abu Ghraib was bitten by a dog. Most of the MPs who have been
charged with crimes say they were told by military intelligence officers
to "soften up" prisoners prior to interrogations. "MI wanted to get them
to talk," Spc. Sabrina Harman told investigators, saying she was told to
keep detainees awake. Sgt. Davis, who jumped on the pile of seven
detainees on November 8th, said intelligence officers would tell guards to
"loosen this guy up for us" and "make sure he has a bad night."
The classified files also show that intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib
felt pressured to produce results. "Sir," Lt. Col. Jordan told Taguba, "I
was told a couple of times . . . that some of the reporting was getting
read by Rumsfeld, folks out at Langley [the Central Intelligence Agency],
some very senior folks."
In May, after photos of the torture were published, Rumsfeld declared that
he would take "all measures necessary" to ensure that such abuse "does not
happen again." But the defense secretary had already sent a clear signal
to commanders in Iraq about his position on the proper way to interrogate
prisoners. In April, Rumsfeld transferred Gen. Miller from Guantanamo to
Baghdad, putting him in charge of all military prisons in Iraq. Instead of
court-martialing the man who authored the plan to subject prisoners at Abu
Ghraib to harsh abuses, Rumsfeld has left him in charge of the facility.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have changed this," Miller told reporters in
May. "Trust us. We are doing this right."
