Some GIs tried but failed to end Iraq prison abuses

By Richard A. Serrano

Two months before the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ignited an international scandal, a small group of soldiers tried to stop the assaults but never took the extra step of alerting the military’s high command that detainees were being mistreated - a failure that allowed the misconduct to continue.

That account emerged for the first time yesterday in a military preliminary hearing for Army Pfc. Lynndie England, 21, who is facing several criminal charges in connection with the abuse that could send her to prison for nearly 40 years.

Testifying by telephone from Fort Lee, Va., where members of the 372nd Military Police Command returned this week from Iraq, two soldiers said they were angered by the mistreatment of prisoners and confronted some of the military police allegedly responsible.

But Spec. Matt Wisdom and Sgt. Robert Jones II said that they did little else about what they saw and heard on the prison’s Tier 1A, and that it was not until January that another soldier anonymously tipped off Army criminal investigators about the abuse.

"It was wrong," said Wisdom, recalling how detainees were beaten and forced to perform humiliating sexual acts. "It was morally wrong. It was ethically wrong." Added his supervisor, Jones: "I knew you’re not allowed to beat prisoners. I knew you’re not allowed to make prisoners commit heinous sex acts, no matter what they’ve done."

England, 21 and seven months’ pregnant, is one of six soldiers facing possible court-martial in the Abu Ghraib scandal. A seventh has pleaded guilty. The hearing this week is designed to gather information for an investigating officer, Col. Denise Arn, to make a recommendation to Lt. Gen. John Vines, who will decide whether England stands trial.

Witnesses said England, who was not assigned to Tier 1A, was repeatedly disciplined for sneaking off to meet boyfriend Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., one of the accused soldiers. They said she would hang around that part of the prison and pose, smiling, for photos with naked inmates in sexually humiliating positions.

But much of the testimony yesterday was about other soldiers. Wisdom testified that in early November, he and other guards were escorting seven inmates to Tier 1A after a prison riot. He said their heads were covered and that suddenly other guards began striking them for no reason.

He said Graner and two other accused soldiers - Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II and Sgt. Javal S. Davis - "began to rotate around the detainees and abuse and hit them." He said Graner posed for a photograph with his fist cocked near a detainee’s head. "Right after the picture was taken, he actually hit him," Wisdom said.

"Sgt. Davis was walking around and stomping on prisoners’ toes. And Sgt. Frederick hit a detainee in the side of his chest," Wisdom said. Then, he testified, Frederick "looked at me and said: ’Wisdom, you’ve got to get some of this,’ meaning I should hit the detainees as well." Wisdom said that he told Davis not to stomp on toes, and that Davis told him: "Who are you to tell me to stop?"

Meanwhile yesterday, 12 former judges, seven past presidents of the American Bar Association, a former FBI director and more than 100 other legal experts called for a thorough investigation of Bush administration memos that explored ways to skirt the laws against torture.

The group also asked the administration to release all memos on the subject and urged Congress to probe how Bush officials decided to treat detainees captured in the war on terrorism.

"The most senior lawyers in the Department of Justice, the White House, Department of Defense and the vice president’s office have sought to justify actions that violate the most basic rights of all human beings," said the group’s statement, signed by 130 officials and lawyers, including former FBI chief William Sessions.

A spokeswoman for President Bush, Jeanie Mamo, said yesterday that the White House had not received the request from the group, adding that Bush "has not condoned torture and has never authorized the use of torture."

The statement cites a series of memos written between early 2002, when the administration decided not to give detainees POW status, and April 2003, when the CIA and military were trying to get more information from captives but were concerned about the legal consequences of any mistreatment. FORT BRAGG, N.C.

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