BREAKING NEWS: Iraqi abuse probe widens; includes other facilities
The New Yorker via AP
NBC News and news services
Updated: 7:09 p.m. ET May 03, 2004
msnbc.msn.com
WASHINGTON - U.S. defense officials are conducting at least six separate investigations of alleged mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at a prison in Baghdad amid indications that abuse of detainees, including humiliating treatment and beatings, may have occurred at other U.S. facilities, NBC News has learned.
An official told The Associated Press on Monday that seven U.S. soldiers had been reprimanded in the alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Six other U.S. military police face criminal charges.
An investigation was continuing at Abu Ghraib, which came to attention last week when CBS’s “60 Minutes II” broadcast images allegedly showing Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by their U.S. captors.
But officials told NBC News that at least five other investigations were under way to determine whether similar mistreatment was taking place at other U.S. facilities and could be a symptom of a larger systemic problem.
In an interview with NBC News, a former Iraqi prisoner at a separate detention center said he was held down by six U.S. soldiers, who he said beat the bottoms of his feet with steel rods.
The former prisoner, who spoke only on condition that he not be identified, said that he cheered the ouster of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but that after his treatment at the hands of his U.S. captors, he considered the Americans to be as bad as “10 Saddams.”
Commander admonished
Publicly, the Defense Department blamed the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, for a breakdown in command at Abu Ghraib, slapping her with an “admonishment” after she left Iraq earlier this year as part of a rotation of U.S. forces.
But U.S. officials noted that Karpinski — who was not suspended or relieved of her command, her lawyer, Neal Puckett, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” — oversaw 25 other detention centers in addition to Abu Ghraib.
A secret Army report obtained Monday by NBC News found that irregularities in the treatment of Iraqi prisoners extended beyond Abu Ghraib, noting that “the various detention facilities operated by the 800th MP Brigade have routinely held persons brought to them by Other Government Agencies (OGAs) without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention.”
The report, whose existence was first disclosed by The New Yorker magazine, is devoted primarily to the alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, where, it says, Iraqi detainees were subjected to “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses.”
Military intelligence officers and civilian interrogators encouraged soldiers to abuse prisoners to “soften them up” for interrogation, it said, adding, “This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated.” It said its conclusions were supported by written confessions by some of the suspects, among other evidence.
Seven soldiers were reprimanded for the alleged abuse at the facility, six of whom — all officers and noncommissioned officers — received the most severe level of administrative reprimand in the U.S. military, a military official said on condition of anonymity. The seventh officer was given a more lenient admonishment.
The official said he believed that the investigations of the officers were complete and that they would not face further action or court-martial. However, the reprimands could spell the end of their careers.
Prisoners told U.S. investigators that their military guards beat them with broom handles and chairs, threatened to rape male prisoners, and sodomized them with chemical light sticks and broom handles.
There was no independent corroboration of the prisoners’ charges, but the chief military investigator wrote, “I find these witnesses to be credible.”
Meanwhile, the Arab-language television station Al-Jazeera broadcast an interview Monday with two Iraqis who said they were abused at Abu Ghraib. One, identified only as Hashim, said guards “covered our heads with bags. They beat us with the butts of their guns without any fear that we would die of the blows.”
“They made us take our clothes off, and they pushed us against the wall,” he said. “They did things to us that I am unable to talk about.”
The other Iraqi, Haider Sabar, said a U.S. intelligence officer, along with an Iraqi and an Egyptian translator, showed him “immoral photos of the acts that took place,” apparently to frighten him.
‘32 boots’ shown in photo
Karpinski accepted some responsibility for the treatment Monday on “Good Morning America,” but she said she did not know about the abuse as it was happening, and she accused other officers of condoning what was going on.
“They were despicable acts,” Karpinski said. “Had I known anything about it, I certainly would have reacted very quickly.” But she insisted that the cell blocks where some of the alleged abuses occurred were “under the military intelligence control.”
Karpinski said that in one photograph from the prison, there appeared to be more Americans involved in the alleged abuse than the six MPs who have already been charged.
“Absolutely. One photograph showed — it didn’t show faces completely, but the photograph showed 32 boots,” Karpinski said on ABC. “I’m saying other people than the military police.”
It was not clear whether that would include the seven soldiers whose reprimands were reported Monday.
Bush calls for punishment of perpetrators
President Bush called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before a campaign trip Monday and urged him to make sure that U.S. soldiers involved in the abuse were punished, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
“The president wanted to make sure appropriate action is being taken against those responsible for these shameful and appalling acts,” McClellan said.
The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council joined the chorus of international criticism of the apparent abuse, terming it a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions.
In a statement Monday, the council demanded that U.S. authorities allow Iraqi judges to take part in the interrogations of prisoners and open the detention centers to inspections by Iraqi officials.
Troops warned to beware of backlash
The official who spoke with the AP said the military was briefing troops on how to discuss the issue in conversation with Iraqis.
“We’ve made it very clear to commanders and all the way down to the lowest soldier, ‘You’ve got to get out there and explain what happened here,’ ” the official said.
A U.S. defense contractor whose employees are alleged to have led some of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners said Monday that it had not been informed of any such accusations by the government.
J.P. London, president and CEO of CACI International Inc., issued a statement saying, “In the event there is wrongdoing on the part of any CACI employee, we will take swift action to correct it immediately, but at this time we have no information from the U.S. government of any violations or wrongful behavior.”
CIA conduct under microscope
Separate from the Army investigation, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News that at least two of the other probes of alleged abuses of Iraqi prisoners were looking specifically at CIA personnel.
The officials said on condition of anonymity that one investigation by the agency’s inspector general had been under way for several months and that the second involved an instance in which a prisoner allegedly was abused in the field, not at Abu Ghraib.
Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, said it had uncovered a “pattern of torture” of Iraqi prisoners by coalition troops. The group called for an independent investigation into the claims and said it had received “scores” of reports of ill treatment of detainees.
NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Andrea Mitchell in Washington and Robert Windrem in New York, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. |
