General Is Said To Have Urged Use of Dogs

By R. Jeffrey Smith

A U.S. Army general dispatched by senior Pentagon
officials to bolster the collection of intelligence
from prisoners in Iraq last fall inspired and promoted
the use of guard dogs there to frighten the Iraqis,
according to sworn testimony by the top U.S.
intelligence officer at the Abu Ghraib prison.

According to the officer, Col. Thomas Pappas, the idea
came from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who at the time
commanded the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, and was implemented under a policy approved by
Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top U.S. military
official in Iraq.

"It was a technique I had personally discussed with
General Miller, when he was here" visiting the prison,
testified Pappas, head of the 205th Military
Intelligence Brigade and the officer placed in charge
of the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib prison where abuses
occurred in the wake of Miller’s visit to Baghdad
between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9, 2003.

"He said that they used military working dogs at Gitmo
[the nickname for Guantanamo Bay], and that they were
effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you
know, you could get information" from the prisoners,
Pappas told the Army investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio M.
Taguba, said a transcript provided to The Washington
Post.

Pappas, who was under pressure from Taguba to justify
the legality and appropriateness of using guard dogs to
frighten detainees, said at two separate points in the
Feb. 9 interview that Miller gave him the idea. He also
said Miller had indicated the use of the dogs "with or
without a muzzle" was "okay" in booths where prisoners
were taken for interrogation.

But Miller, whom the Bush administration appointed as
the new head of Abu Ghraib this month, denied through a
spokesman that the conversation took place.

"Miller never had a conversation with Colonel Pappas
regarding the use of military dogs for interrogation
purposes in Iraq. Further, military dogs were never
used in interrogations at Guantanamo," said Brig. Gen.
Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq.

Pappas’s statements nonetheless provide the fullest
public account to date of how he viewed the
interrogation mission at Abu Ghraib and Miller’s impact
on operations there. Pappas said, among other things,
that interrogation plans involving the use of dogs,
shackling, "making detainees strip down," or similar
aggressive measures followed Sanchez’s policy, but were
often approved by Sanchez’s deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter
Wodjakowski, or by himself.

The claims and counterclaims between Pappas and Miller
concern one of the most notorious aspects of U.S.
actions at Abu Ghraib, as revealed by Taguba’s March 9
report and by pictures taken by military personnel that
became public late last month. The pictures show
unmuzzled dogs being used to intimidate Abu Ghraib
detainees, sometimes while the prisoners are cowering,
naked, against a wall.

Taguba, in a rare classified passage within his
generally unclassified report, listed "using military
working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and
frighten detainees" as one of 13 examples of "sadistic,
blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" inflicted by U.S.
military personnel at Abu Ghraib.

Experts on the laws of war have charged that using dogs
to coerce prisoners into providing information, as was
done at Abu Ghraib, constitutes a violation of the
Geneva Conventions that protect civilians under the
control of an occupying power, such as the Iraqi
detainees.

"Threatening a prisoner with a ferocious guard dog is
no different as a matter of law from pointing a gun at
a prisoner’s head and ordering him to talk," said James
Ross, senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch.
"That’s a violation of the Geneva Conventions."

Article 31 of the Fourth Geneva Convention bars use of
coercion against protected persons, and Common Article
Three bars any "humiliating and degrading treatment,"
Ross said. Experts do not consider the presence in a
prison of threatening dogs, by itself, to constitute
torture, but a 1999 United Nations-approved manual
lists the "arranging of conditions for attacks by
animals such as dogs" as a "torture method."

But Pappas, who was charged with overseeing
interrogations at Abu Ghraib involving those suspected
of posing or knowing about threats to U.S. forces in
Iraq, told Taguba that "I did not personally look at
that [use of dogs] with regard to the Geneva
Convention," according to the transcript.

Pappas also said he did not have "a program" to inform
his civilian employees, including a translator and an
interrogator, of what the Geneva Conventions stated,
and said he was unaware if anyone else did. He said he
did not believe using force to coerce, intimidate or
cause fear violated the conventions.

Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, who commanded the prison
guards at Abu Ghraib’s cellblocks 1A and 1B until Nov.
19, when Pappas assumed control, said in an interview
that Navy, Army and Air Force dog teams were used there
for security purposes. But she said military
intelligence officers "were responsible for assigning
those dogs and where they would go."

Using dogs to intimidate or attack detainees was very
much against regulations, Karpinski said. "You cannot
use the dogs in that fashion, to attack or be
aggressive with a detainee. . . . Why were there guys
so willing to take these orders? And who was giving the
orders? The military intelligence people were in charge
of them."

Taguba never interviewed Miller or any officer above
Karpinski’s rank for his report. Nor did he conduct a
detailed probe of the actions of military intelligence
officials. But he said he suspected that Pappas and
several of his colleagues were "either directly or
indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib."

In a Feb. 11 written statement accompanying the
transcript, Pappas shifted the responsibility
elsewhere. He said "policies and procedures established
by the [Abu Ghraib] Joint Interrogation and Debriefing
Center relative to detainee operations were enacted as
a specific result of a visit" by Miller, who in turn
has acknowledged being dispatched to Baghdad by
Undersecretary of Defense Stephen A. Cambone, after a
conversation with Secretary of Defense Donald H.
Rumsfeld.

Cambone told lawmakers recently that he wanted Miller
to go because he had done a good job organizing the
detention center at Guantanamo Bay and wanted him to
help improve intelligence-gathering in Iraq.

Some senators, however, have noted that the Bush
administration considers Guantanamo detainees exempt
from the protections of the Geneva Conventions, and
wondered if Miller brought the same aggressive
interrogation ideas with him to Iraq, where the
conventions apply.

When asked at a May 19 Senate hearing if he and his
colleagues had "briefed" military officers in Iraq
about specific Guantanamo interrogation techniques that
did not comply with the Geneva Conventions, Miller said
no.

He said he brought "our SOPs [standard operating
procedures] that we had developed for humane detention,
interrogation, and intelligence fusion" to Iraq for use
as a "starting point." He added that it was up to the
officers in Iraq to decide which were applicable and
what modifications to make.

But Pappas said the result of Miller’s visit was that
"the interrogators and analysts developed a set of
rules to guide interrogations" and assigned specific
military police soldiers to help interrogators — an
approach Miller had honed in Guantanamo.

After calling the use of dogs Miller’s idea, Pappas
explained that "in the execution of interrogation, and
the interrogation business in general, we are trying to
get info from these people. We have to act in an
environment not to permanently damage them, or
psychologically abuse them, but we have to assert
control and get detainees into a position where they’re
willing to talk to us."

Pappas added that it "would never be my intent that the
dog be allowed to bite or in any way touch a detainee
or anybody else." He said he recalled speaking to one
dog handler and telling him "they could be used in
interrogations" anytime according to terms spelled out
in a Sept. 14, 2003, memo signed by Sanchez.

That memo included the use of dogs among techniques
that did not require special approval. The policy was
changed on Oct. 12 to require Sanchez’s approval on a
case-by- case basis for certain techniques, including
having "military working dogs" present during
interrogations.

That memo also demanded — in what Taguba referred to
during the interview as its "fine print" — that
detainees be treated humanely and in accordance with
the Geneva Conventions.

But Pappas told Taguba that "there would be no way for
us to actually monitor whether that happened. We had no
formal system in place to do that — no formal
procedure" to check how interrogations were conducted.
Moreover, he expressed frustration with a rule that the
dogs be muzzled. "It’s not very intimidating if they
are muzzled," Pappas said. He added that he requested
an exemption from the rule at one point, and was turned
down.

In the interview transcript, Taguba’s disdain for using
dogs is clear. He asked Pappas if he knew that after a
prison riot on Nov. 24, 2003, five dogs were "called in
to either intimidate or cause fear or stress" on a
detainee. Pappas said no, and acknowledged under
questioning that such an action was inappropriate.

Taguba also asked if he believed the use of dogs is
consistent with the Army’s field manual. Pappas replied
that he could not recall, but reiterated that Miller
instigated the idea. The Army field manual bars the
"exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any
kind."

At least four photographs obtained by The Washington
Post — each apparently taken in late October or
November — show fearful prisoners near unmuzzled dogs.

One MP charged with abuses, Spec. Sabrina D. Harman,
recalled for Army investigators an episode "when two
dogs were brought into [cellblock] 1A to scare an
inmate. He was naked against the wall, when they let
the dogs corner him. They pulled them back enough, and
the prisoner ran . . . straight across the floor. . . .
The prisoner was cornered and the dog bit his leg. A
couple seconds later, he started to move again, and the
dog bit his other leg."

Staff writer Josh White contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55703-2004May25.html