ASHINGTON, May 3 — The senior American commander in
Iraq has ordered the first punishments in the abuse of prisoners by
American soldiers there, issuing severe reprimands to six who served in
supervisory positions at Abu Ghraib prison and a milder "letter of
admonishment" to a seventh.
The officers and noncommissioned officers received penalties that most
likely will end their military careers, although they were not demoted or
discharged. They have not been charged with crimes; six subordinates
accused of carrying out the abuse already face criminal charges.
"They did not know or participate in any crimes," a senior American
officer in Baghdad said of the officers who received the reprimands,
issued by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior American commander in
Iraq. "Their responsibility is to set the standards in the organization.
They should have known, but they did not."
As more details emerged of widespread problems in the detention system
in Iraq, President
Bush on Monday telephoned Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld "to make
sure that appropriate action was being taken against those responsible for
these shameful, appalling acts," said Scott McClellan, the White House
spokesman.
Officials with contractors whose employees at Abu Ghraib have been
implicated in the abuses said that they had heard nothing from the
Pentagon and that their employees remained in Iraq. [Page A6.]
The military's investigative report into abuses of detainees in Iraq,
by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, described broader problems in the prison
system and pervasive flaws in the leadership, training and morale of the
military police at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. It suggested that these
problems had contributed to abuse even after earlier instances were
reported and punished.
The report found, for example, that after several detainees were beaten
in May 2003 at Camp Bucca, another detention site in Iraq, nothing was
done to make clear to the military police elsewhere that such actions were
not to be tolerated. Soldiers responsible for those earlier abuses were
charged and punished late last year. The report found at least 27 cases of
escapes by prisoners and said the number was probably higher but could not
be verified because the rolls of prisoners had been so poorly
maintained.
It cited "riots, escapes and shootings" of prisoners over many months,
adding that "the same types of deficiencies" were found repeatedly but
"little to nothing was done."
A key recommendation of the Taguba report was to immediately send to
Iraq a team of specialists to train soldiers who are assigned to run
prisons. The report said the team should include experts on internment
operations, international law, interrogation, intelligence gathering and
Arab cultural issues.
Among the problems at Abu Ghraib, the report said, was "a potentially
dangerous contingent" of Iraqi guards who had given inmates contraband,
weapons and information and had helped at least one inmate to escape.
Edward Diamantis, a captain with the 800th Military Police Brigade,
which has its headquarters in Uniondale, N.Y., has returned to the United
States. He said the reservists' monthly weekend training sessions had
often been spent learning military policy on things like sexual harassment
and homosexuality. Other times, drug tests took up the training day, or
instructors were absent from training sessions.
"Some relevant mission readiness training gets pushed aside by things
that don't seem all that relevant," he said. "The last comprehensive,
top-to-bottom training was in 1998. I'd call that a problem."
But military officers have said there was no excuse for the behavior
documented in photographs now circling the globe. All Army personnel in
their basic training and their advanced individual training receive
courses on the laws of armed combat that include clear instructions
against such abuse and torture, and these officers say that common decency
should have prevented the soldiers from such actions.
Captain Diamantis served directly under Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski at
the brigade's headquarters just east of the runways of the Baghdad
International Airport. He spent most of his days there, but made several
journeys to the Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities.
Captain Diamantis said he had first heard rumors of the mistreatment at
Abu Ghraib in January, and during a conversation with General Karpinski
later that winter she told him that something "very, very bad" had been
happening in the prison, he said. "There's some very, very stupid people,
and they're going to bring some stuff down on our heads," Captain
Diamantis recalled the general saying.
The Maryland unit whose soldiers are charged with abusing prisoners at
Abu Ghraib was not trained in Uniondale, Captain Diamantis said.
The Central Intelligence Agency is also investigating reports of
detainees dying during incarceration, and even in interrogation, while in
American custody in Iraq, a C.I.A. official said Monday. The official said
the agency's inspector general was investigating the possible involvement
of C.I.A. personnel in the deaths of two prisoners in Iraq, one at Abu
Ghraib in November and another elsewhere at an unspecified time.
The prisoner at Abu Ghraib died hours after being taken into custody,
the official said. The official said he did not know the cause of the
death in that case or the other one being looked into by the inspector
general.
But the C.I.A. official said abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was "not
something to the best of our knowledge my agency has any involvement in."
Altogether, the official said, the agency was involved in the
interrogation of no more than two dozen individuals at Abu Ghraib between
September and December.
The commander of the military police battalion at Abu Ghraib, who
confirmed that he had received a serious rebuke, known as a General
Officer Memorandum of Reprimand, wrote in an e-mail message that the abuse
had been carried out by a handful of soldiers who sought to hide their
behavior from commanders by demeaning and humiliating detainees late at
night.
"If they thought these acts were condoned, then why were they only done
a few nights between 0200 and 0400 instead of during any time between 0600
and 2400 when there were many others around?" wrote the officer, Lt. Col.
Jerry L. Phillabaum, a reservist and 1976 graduate of West Point.
Colonel Phillabaum, who has been relieved of command of the 320th
Military Police Battalion and whose performance was severely criticized in
General Taguba's report, said he was aware that military intelligence had
asked M.P.'s to "deprive some prisoners of clothing to humiliate them" and
to "limit their sleep to 4 hours in a 24-hour period. But "taking these
prisoners out of their cells and staging bizarre acts were the thoughts of
a couple of demented M.P.'s," he wrote, "who well know such acts are
prohibited."
Military officers would not say publicly whether General Karpinski,
commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and the senior officer at
Abu Ghraib, was among the seven who received reprimands. But General
Taguba's 53-page report on the military's inquiry into abuse at Abu Ghraib
said she had received a General Officer Memorandum of Admonishment from
General Sanchez.
In the criminal portion of the investigation, six enlisted personnel or
noncommissioned officers of the 372nd Military Police Company — who were
assigned to the sprawling prison west of Baghdad that was notorious under
Saddam Hussein for overcrowding and torture — face charges of assault,
cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees.
The Taguba report indicates that the military police may have been used
to "soften up" detainees in Afghanistan before interrogations there as
well. Without providing details, the report includes a reference stating
that recent intelligence collection in support of the Afghan operation
used the military police to "actively set favorable conditions for
subsequent interviews. Such actions generally run counter to the smooth
operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population
in a compliant and docile state."
Arabic language television networks showed interviews on Monday with
two of the Iraqis said to be depicted in the photographs taken with the
American guards.
In a brief interview on Al Jazeera, Haishem Mohsen, a man who said he
was depicted in the photos, described his abuse at the hands of Americans.
Mr. Mohsen said that when he was detained in January, he was interrogated
by American intelligence officers and Iraqi and Egyptian interpreters.
"They covered our heads with bags, they beat us with the butts of their
guns without any fear that we would die of the blows," he said. "They made
us take our clothes off and they pushed us against the wall. They did
things to us that I am unable to talk about."
The other Iraqi, Haider Sabar, said an American intelligence officer,
along with an Iraqi and an Egyptian translator, showed him "immoral photos
of the acts that took place," apparently to frighten him.
The names of both the men in the report by Al Jazeera roughly matched
those on a list of abused Iraqi detainees named in an investigation by the
American military.
In addition to General Karpinski and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander
of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, the Taguba report identifies a
number of other officers and enlisted personnel who have either already
been disciplined or who now face disciplinary action. Among them is
Colonel Phillabaum, who was criticized for failing to properly supervise
his soldiers in a section at Abu Ghraib, for failing to ensure his
soldiers knew and understood the protections afforded to detainees in the
Geneva Convention, and for other reasons, according to the report.
The report also recommended that several more junior officers in the
320th Military Police battalion as well as officers and senior enlisted
personnel in the 372nd Military Police Company face disciplinary actions.
The report recommended that Maj. David W. DiNenna Sr., the operations
officer of the 320th, be relieved of his position, while Capt. Donald J.
Reese, commander of the 372nd, should be relieved of command along with
First Lt. Lewis C. Raeder, a platoon leader in the 372nd.
The report also cites Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, former director of the
Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center and liaison officer to the 205th
Military Intelligence Brigade, and says he should be relieved from duty
and reprimanded for making misrepresentations to investigators, among
other reasons.
The Taguba report concludes that several soldiers committed egregious
acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca,
and that senior leaders failed to comply with policies and commands to
prevent abuses at the two prisons between August 2003 and February
2004.
James Risen and Douglas Jehl contributed reporting from Washington
for this article, and Patrick Healy contributed from Uniondale,
N.Y.
