Torture Scandal: High level officers encouraged mistreatment of detainees

FORT HOOD, Tex., Jan. 16 - The Army reservist accused of being the ringleader of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison failed to convince a jury he was following orders when he mistreated detainees, but higher-ranked officers still may be prosecuted, military officials and lawyers for the officers say.

The reservist, Specialist Charles A. Graner Jr., who was sentenced here on Saturday to 10 years in prison, could offer no witnesses or evidence to prove that higher-ups authorized the treatment seen in the photographs that set off the abuse scandal: naked detainees leashed and crawling, or forced to masturbate, simulate oral sex or stack in a pyramid.

But the scandal, which exploded last spring, has led to several Pentagon investigations that have found what one called "personal responsibility at higher levels," not only for failure to supervise and enforce discipline, but also in some cases for condoning and encouraging mistreatment of detainees in cell blocks and during interrogations.

And at Specialist Graner’s trial, prosecutors did not deny sworn testimony that military intelligence soldiers, civilian interrogators and some officers asked soldiers to carry out questionable treatment, like striking detainees and having female soldiers point and laugh as male detainees showered.

A lawyer for one of the officers, who did not want to be named before his client is charged, said prosecution seemed more likely now. "Maybe six weeks ago we thought that the worst that was going to happen was a slap on the wrist, and he was not going to be charged," the lawyer said. "Things seem to be moving to the forefront."

Several witnesses at the Graner trial testified that Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, and Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, the head of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the prison, had either known about or specifically encouraged tactics like using dogs to threaten detainees.

The two men were among five officers recommended for discipline in a Pentagon report in August, which said they bore responsibility for what happened even though they were not directly involved in abuse.

That report implicated 29 other military intelligence soldiers in at least 44 cases of abuse from July 2003 to February 2004, including one death, beatings, using dogs to threaten adolescent detainees, and having prisoners stripped naked and left for hours in dark, poorly ventilated cells that were stifling hot or freezing cold.

The report said that while the claims of Specialist Graner and other military police soldiers that they had been acting at the behest of military intelligence were "self-serving," they did "have some basis in fact."

A classified portion of the report said Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, approved the use there of some interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Five investigations have been completed; four others, including one announced two weeks ago into Federal Bureau of Investigation reports of abuse at Guantánamo Bay, are continuing.

Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said Sunday that he did not know whether other people would be charged, or when the results of two investigations that are now months overdue would be completed. "There is no timetable associated with the inquiry process," Colonel Venable said. "As individuals are identified for potential wrongdoing they’ll be dealt with appropriately."

Three low-ranking military police soldiers face courts-martial for the abuse at Abu Ghraib.

Paul Bergrin, a lawyer for Sgt. Javal Davis, whose trial is to begin here Feb. 2, said that following orders was only one part of his defense. He would also emphasize how interrogators set a bad example, chaining detainees naked to the bars of their cells, striking them and leaving them in isolation units.

"There’s a lot of things that Sgt. Javal Davis saw and lived through that wasn’t portrayed" in the Graner case, Mr. Bergrin said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/n...