[NYTr] Army Adds Farce to Abu Ghraib Shame

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Consortium News - Aug 27, 2007
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/082707a.html

Army Adds Farce to Abu Ghraib Shame

By Sam Provance
(NCO at Abu Ghraib from 9/03 to 2/04)

Breaking News: The Army officer in charge of the interrogation/torture
operation at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 is being court-martialed. My first
thought was: Finally an officer is being held accountable. In view of
the repeated rebuff to my own attempts to stop the torture and identify
those responsible, however, you will perhaps excuse my skepticism that
justice will be done.

An Army intelligence analyst, my job at Abu Ghraib was systems
administrator (“the computer guy”). But I had the bad luck to be on the
2000 to 0800 night shift. And so I saw the detainees dragged in for
interrogation, heard the screams, and saw many of them dragged out.

Watching Act I of the faux-trial of Lt. Col. Steven Jordan last week at
Fort Meade, Maryland, confirmed my worst suspicions. I know Jordan; I
was in place for his entire tenure at Abu Ghraib, including when
prisoners were being tortured; he was my immediate boss.

Enter from the wings reserve Maj. Gen. George Fay. MG Fay was
handpicked to run interference for then-Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld by conducting the same kind of “full and thorough
investigation” that former President Richard Nixon ordered for
Watergate.

With Fay, too, I speak from personal experience. Shortly after photos
of the torture at Abu Ghraib were published, I found myself being
interviewed by Fay on May 1, 2004. It was a surreal performance, with
Fay seeming to take his cue at times from Peter Seller’s Inspector
Clouseau.

Except it wasn’t funny then; and it is not funny now. To me, Fay showed
himself singularly uninterested in what really was going on at Abu
Ghraib. I had to ask him repeatedly to listen to my eyewitness account.
Whereupon he said he would recommend action against me for not
reporting what I knew sooner for, if I had done that, I could have
prevented the abuse. Right.

In my view, it was clear that Fay’s job was to quiet any discordant
notes from noncommissioned officers like me and help Rumsfeld push the
responsibility down to “rotten apples” at the bottom of the chain of
command.

When Maj. Gen. Taguba’s Abu Ghraib investigation report was leaked to
the press on May 4, 2004, I was very surprised to find myself listed as
the only military intelligence soldier to witness to the truth. And for
my conscientiousness, the Army imposed a gag order on me 10 days later;
a week after that my top-secret clearance was suspended, and eventually
I was reduced in rank.

Memory Loss

So it came as no surprise to me that Fay would continue to play a
disingenuous role at the court-martial of Lt. Col. Jordan.

Jordan is the only officer and the last of the 12 persons charged in
the scandal to go to trial. Eleven enlisted soldiers have been
convicted of crimes, with the longest sentence, 10 years, given to
former Cpl. Charles Graner, Jr., in January 2005.

Two of the charges against Jordan (together punishable by eight years
in prison) were obstruction of justice and lying to Fay.

On the day before Jordan’s trial began, Fay contacted Army prosecutors
to claim that he “misspoke” in earlier testimony that he had advised
Jordan of his rights before interviewing him in 2004. The Army judge
was quick to approve a defense motion to dismiss the false-statement
and obstruction of justice charges.

Eight years off a possible sentence even before the trial begins! Not
bad.

The next stiffest possible sentence was five years for disobeying Fay’s
ban on discussing the investigation with others. But not to worry.
Testifying last Wednesday, Fay could not remember when he had told
Jordan to avoid discussing the investigation.

Enter Defense Attorney Maj. Kris Poppe: (To Fay) “Today you testified
you gave a specific order not to discuss—to speak to no one. And that
testimony is based on your memory, is it not, sir?”

“It is,” Fay replied.

So, presumably, we can now strike five more years off a possible
sentence.

What’s left of the charges? Cruelty and maltreatment of detainees
punishable by one year in prison.

But the Army prosecutor amended that particular count by reducing its
scope from three months to a single day. The only other charges are
failure to obey a regulation (a possible two-year sentence) and
dereliction of duty (six months).

It seems a safe bet that Jordan, like his immediate supervisor, Col.
Thomas Pappas, will get off with a reprimand and a minor fine.

If They Had Asked Me

According to press reports, other witnesses will be called to testify
at the Jordan court-martial.

Strange. Although I was at Abu Ghraib for the entire time Lt. Col.
Jordan was there, for some reason the Army does not seem interested in
my testimony.

I could, for example, provide testimony demolishing the myth that
Jordan was not really all that much involved in interrogations.

One of the soldiers who worked very closely with Jordan verified that
he was fully familiar with the infamous “hard site,” where much of the
torture took place. Jordan had been seen there on more than one
occasion, hanging out laid back with his feet propped up. My soldier
informant also bragged that he had joined Jordan in beating up a
prisoner.

Jordan also took liberties with what were standard procedures, much
like the CIA and other civilians who did not seem to bother much with
such niceties. One of the sergeants with direct access to Jordan told
me that Jordan felt empowered to ignore regulations and interview
detainees alone, which was highly irregular even for swashbuckling CIA
interrogators.

I cannot tell whether the Army is deliberately oblivious to my
potential input or that it is simply not taking these things seriously.

Last month, a person from the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division
and one from the team prosecuting Jordan came to interview me. Why?
Because they had seen me in a documentary and learned from the film
that I was at Abu Ghraib at the same time as Lt. Col. Jordan. Never
mind the copious testimony I had given over the past several years.

Never have I been called to testify at any of the trials.

No One Accountable

In keeping with the Rumsfeld adage “Stuff Happens,” and the Senate
Armed Services Committee timidity, no senior U.S. Army officer or
defense official is likely to be held accountable for the torture,
“ghost” prisoners, and other abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Only the bad apples at the bottom; none of the ones at the top.

Not the Commander in Chief, who authorized torture by Memorandum of
Feb. 7, 2002, announcing and implementing a new policy that detainees
be treated “humanely, as appropriate, and as consistent with military
necessity.”

Not then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, nor his deputy Paul
Wolfowitz, nor U.S. pro-consul Paul Bremer, nor troop commander Lt.
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, nor Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller (in charge of
Gitmo-izing Abu Ghraib), nor Sanchez’s intelligence chief Maj. Gen.
Barbara Fast, nor National Security Council functionary Frances
Townsend.

All of the above visited Abu Ghraib during the torture year of 2003
before the photos surfaced the next year.

Had it never occurred to them that their incessant pressure on Army
interrogators to find non-existent WMD in Iraq and nonexistent ties
between Iraq and al-Qaeda, together with the expanded list of torture
techniques duly approved by hired-gun lawyers in the Pentagon, the
Office of the Vice President, and the Department of Justice, would lead
to the abuses of Abu Ghraib?

Not to mention things like the marginal notes from Rumsfeld, on the
list of torture techniques, “Make sure this happens.”

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Only one general officer passes the smell test, and he with flying
colors—Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.

On Jan. 31, 2004, he was asked to look into the abuses at Abu Ghraib. A
mark of his seriousness of purpose is the fact that Taguba completed
his investigation in two months and did not sugarcoat his findings:
“Systemic and illegal abuse of detainees ... numerous incidents of
sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses.”

In an attempt to explain how it could be that Taguba could deviate so
far from the official line, one wag speculated that, for some reason,
Taguba “didn’t get the memo.”

He did an honest job—and we would probably not ever have seen his
unvarnished findings, had not some patriotic truth-teller (aka leaker)
made it available. That was the end of Taguba’s Army career, however.
Several months after his report leaked, Taguba got a phone call from
his boss telling him to retire.

Looking back, Taguba recently told Seymour Hersh, “I assumed they
wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting.” [See The New Yorker,
June 25, 2007.]

The general spoke of his futile attempts to get senior generals to
focus on the problem of torture. One lieutenant general was at least
candid in rebuffing Taguba: “I don’t want to get involved...because
what do you do with that information, once you know?...”

Taguba also spoke of the indignities thrown his way by Rumsfeld and
martinets like Gen. John Abizaid who, like so many other high
officials—civilian, as well as military—seem to have forgotten the oath
we all took to defend the Constitution of the United States.

A few weeks after his report became public, Abizaid turned to Taguba
with a pointed warning: “You and your report will be investigated.”

Preferring to hold onto his belief in an Army led by generals with
integrity, Taguba later expressed his disappointment that Abizaid would
have that attitude.

Awakening to the new reality, though, Taguba let it all out in a very
telling way: “I had been in the Army 32 years by then, and it was the
first time that I thought I was in the Mafia.”


[Sam Provance, a former sergeant specializing in intelligence analysis,
refused to remain silent about the torture of Abu Ghraib, where he
served for five months at the height of the abuses.  He was punished
for refusing to take part in the cover-up, and pushed out of the Army.
For his sworn testimony to Congress, click here:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06214-usls-provance-statment.pdf ]