Monday, May 03, 2004
Seymour Hersh on Abu Gharaib
One of my favorite Pentagon reporters weighs in on Abu Gharaib here.
The prime rib:
As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.
According to Hersh's reporting--working primarily from General Taguba's investigation--General Karpinski was just not accepting ownership of the problem:
General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: “What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.”
Taguba also notes that Karpinski was rarely actually seen in the jails she was overseeing, according to Hersh.
Taguba also points out in his report that there was an apparent disconnect between the military intelligence side of the house--which had an interest in having prisoners arrive for an interrogation as exhausted and disoriented as possible, and the military police side of the house, whose primary concern is normally simply running a safe and humane detention facility. It looks like in the absence of command guidance, the balance of power shifted too far towards the military intelligence types.
That doesn't surprise me. The MI guys were likely to be higher ranking--often warrant officers, who have a lot of respect and a certain amount of mystique among the enlisted men. And the mystique factor is doubled when it comes to the OGA types.
I can attest to the fact that at the 3rd ACR detention facility at Al Asad Air Base, it was not unusual for certain prisoners to be placed on "sleep deprivation protocol" prior to an interrogation session. I can also verify that in mid May, all prisoners at Al Asad were placed on sleep deprivation. It was our own soldiers who were providing the guard detail briefly. The MI or OGA guys in charge of the facility told them that the prisoners were not allowed to sleep, and if they dozed off they were to bash the ground next to their heads with a large mallet until they sat up again.
I never received any reports or complaints from our soldiers about being ordered to abuse the detainees in any other way, though.
I had the opportunity to observe a few interrogation sessions--with fairly low-level suspects. The prisoner was made to stand in a corner and face a small "panel" of a chief warrant officer, an NCO, and an interpreter. A large guard stood by with a club big enough to crush a skull, but I didn't have a particular problem with that.
I sat at the back of the room.
It was fairly straightforward--the prisoner was just asked to answer question after question in rapid fire, and was confronted with every tiny inconsistency. It was rare for the interrogator to even raise his voice.
The prisoner was not physically threatened in any way, except for the presence of the guard. His hands remained cuffed in front of him.
The chief warrant officer in charge of the facility and I had many conversations about the transfer of prisoners, and were basically in agreement--it could possibly be useful to deliver certain people to the interrogation room already exhausted and mentally off balance.
I do specifically remember asking if there were any specific research conducted on this point that he was aware of. There was not.
At any rate, however useful it may have been, we also agreed that any such manipulation ought to be strictly supervised and carefully controlled by professionals to produce a certain effect at a certain time. It should not be left to garden variety guards with a double basic load of ignorance and a streak of sadism--as was clearly the case in Abu Gharaib.
Splash, out
Jason
The prime rib:
As the international furor grew, senior military officers, and President Bush, insisted that the actions of a few did not reflect the conduct of the military as a whole. Taguba’s report, however, amounts to an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels. The picture he draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority.
According to Hersh's reporting--working primarily from General Taguba's investigation--General Karpinski was just not accepting ownership of the problem:
General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: “What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.”
Taguba also notes that Karpinski was rarely actually seen in the jails she was overseeing, according to Hersh.
Taguba also points out in his report that there was an apparent disconnect between the military intelligence side of the house--which had an interest in having prisoners arrive for an interrogation as exhausted and disoriented as possible, and the military police side of the house, whose primary concern is normally simply running a safe and humane detention facility. It looks like in the absence of command guidance, the balance of power shifted too far towards the military intelligence types.
That doesn't surprise me. The MI guys were likely to be higher ranking--often warrant officers, who have a lot of respect and a certain amount of mystique among the enlisted men. And the mystique factor is doubled when it comes to the OGA types.
I can attest to the fact that at the 3rd ACR detention facility at Al Asad Air Base, it was not unusual for certain prisoners to be placed on "sleep deprivation protocol" prior to an interrogation session. I can also verify that in mid May, all prisoners at Al Asad were placed on sleep deprivation. It was our own soldiers who were providing the guard detail briefly. The MI or OGA guys in charge of the facility told them that the prisoners were not allowed to sleep, and if they dozed off they were to bash the ground next to their heads with a large mallet until they sat up again.
I never received any reports or complaints from our soldiers about being ordered to abuse the detainees in any other way, though.
I had the opportunity to observe a few interrogation sessions--with fairly low-level suspects. The prisoner was made to stand in a corner and face a small "panel" of a chief warrant officer, an NCO, and an interpreter. A large guard stood by with a club big enough to crush a skull, but I didn't have a particular problem with that.
I sat at the back of the room.
It was fairly straightforward--the prisoner was just asked to answer question after question in rapid fire, and was confronted with every tiny inconsistency. It was rare for the interrogator to even raise his voice.
The prisoner was not physically threatened in any way, except for the presence of the guard. His hands remained cuffed in front of him.
The chief warrant officer in charge of the facility and I had many conversations about the transfer of prisoners, and were basically in agreement--it could possibly be useful to deliver certain people to the interrogation room already exhausted and mentally off balance.
I do specifically remember asking if there were any specific research conducted on this point that he was aware of. There was not.
At any rate, however useful it may have been, we also agreed that any such manipulation ought to be strictly supervised and carefully controlled by professionals to produce a certain effect at a certain time. It should not be left to garden variety guards with a double basic load of ignorance and a streak of sadism--as was clearly the case in Abu Gharaib.
Splash, out
Jason
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