Where are Lynndie England and Charles Graner now?

13.  After serving a year and half of her three sentence Lynndie England returned to her home town of fort Ashby, West Virginia. She resides with her parents and young son, fathered by Charles Graner during her deployment in Iraq at Abu Ghraib, Carter. England spends her days looking for work, raising her son, and avoiding old friends. England struggles with finding employment (her felony record and her negative notoriety greatly impede the process) nightmares and struggles with depression. England’s face was the most remembered, of seven charged with the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and life after being physical imprisoned has rendered the former solider a recluse and outcast by society. Charles Graner, the reported leader of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, served six and a half years of the ten year sentence issued for his involvement. Graner’s release was conditional to his agreement to serve the remainder of his sentence on probation until December 2014. Graner, prior to his incrassation, married Megan Ambuhl, a fellow defendant in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal, and is reported to have joined her in an unknown location after his release. 

                                                                         Lynndie England

Lynndie England

                                                                         Charles Graner

                                                                          Charles Graner

Megan Ambuhl

       

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

12.  After completing a eighteen month investigation, that included the review of hundreds of thousands of documents and extensive interviews of 70 individuals associated with the alleged allegation of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, concluded that the Bush administration and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were crucial participants in the of the abuses committed by American troops in interrogations. The report also rebuffed prior claims, made by Rumsfeld, that Department of Defense policies had no factor in the manifestation of abuse on prisoners, by military personnel, at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities. The report further indicated that Rumsfeld and other top officials ascribed that “that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.” A principal focus was placed on the use of Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) training techniques used by American military personnel to counter interrogations by enemy forces that are reluctant to follow international law and the Geneva Convention. The committee’s investigation revealed that senior officials concluded the use of these training techniques could be used against detainees based on a loss interpretation of American and International law. The techniques utilized during SERE training were never intended to be used on American detainees and the authorized use by senior officials damaged American world standing and security. 

http://www.levin.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/supporting/2008/Detainees.121108.pdf

Antonio Taguba and his report, May 2004

11.  The purpose of General Taguba’s report was to investigate the allegations of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison facility. The training and procedures of the military personnel charged with providing security to the detainees of Abu Ghraib. Taguba was limited in his investigation in that he was only allowed to focus his investigation on the 880^th Military Police Brigade. Taguba would rapidly locate signs of the involvement by the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, commanded by Colonel Thomas Pappas, and the CIA early in his investigation. Taguba reported that several of the Military Police implicated involvement of Lieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan, who served as liaison officer for intelligence to Army headquarters in Iraq, as a principal leader that was providing the guidance for the tactics used on the detainees at Abu Ghraib. As Taguba began to report the factual findings of his investigation thru the military command structure, it became apparent to him, that many of the officials reading his reports where aware of the abuses a practices that occurred at Abu Ghraib. Taguba would report, and testified to Senate Armed Services Committee on May 11^th, that senior military officials had sent Major General Geoffrey Miller, commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, to Iraq to make suggestions on how to use military police personnel in the per-interrogation process. Taguba never directly implicated high level official involvement but suggested that they had knowledge of the activities and that they may have been sanctioned. With the advent of the public release of the photos and Taguba report, High ranking officials from the president downward would downplay or denied any knowledge of the activities that occurred at Abu Ghraib until news reports released to information.

Antonio Taguba

 

How did the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal become known and what was the immediate result?

10. The reported abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred after Specialist Joseph M. Darby came across photos on a CD, given to him by Specialist Charles A. Graner, which contained the torturing of detainees. Darby contacted the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and recounted the event. Darby turned over the disk and provided CID an official statement which prompted CID would initiate an internal investigation into the reposted abuses by the soldiers of the 372^nd Military Police charged with the security of the detainees at Abu Ghraib. The theory of “”Animal House on the Night Shift” suggest that the abuse scandal that occurred at Abu Ghraib was the act of individuals unconsciously preforming spontaneous sadistic activities. In reality the activities that occurred were well planned, organized and known techniques used for torturing prisoners. Analysts of the photos and videos, obtained during the investigation, point out that for military personnel, that had no prior training in interrogation techniques, would not have been able to spontaneously come with and execute known torture techniques developed in other countries. An illustration of the photo released to the public of an Iraqi man standing on a box, head covered, and electrical wires strapped to his appendages is known as the Vietnam and was developed in Brazil. Analyst regarded the Animal House theory as highly unlikely but rather a well-coordinated effort to provided low ranking military personnel with onsite instruction of systematic techniques, used repeatedly, and authorized by higher levels of administration. All of the soldiers, implicated with the abuses at Abu Ghraib, provided statements that support the analytical interpretation of the photos. 

 

 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Events-and-Awards/Profile-in-Courage-Award/Award-Recipients/Joseph-Darby-2005.aspx                  

What happened at Abu Ghraib?

9. Prisoners awaiting interrogation by Military Intelligence where separated from the general population and placed in a special location in Abu Ghraib call the “Hard Site”. Military Intelligence personnel, which included CIA, linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense, would instruct military personnel to “soften up” detainees prior to interrogation. Member of the 372^nd Military Police Company, which included Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, senior enlisted man, Specialist Charles A. Graner, Sergeant Javal Davis, Specialist Megan Ambuhl, Specialist Sabrina Harman, Private Jeremy Sivits, and Private Lynndie England, would inflict deliberate sadistic dehumanization that included physical, mental, and sexual abuse. The torturing of detainees was elevated after the Prison Riot of 2003 was neutralized. The instigators of the riot where beaten, striped of their clothing and forcibly restrained in stress positions. The actions of the soldiers were sanctioned by high racking administrative officials for the purpose of gaining actionable intelligence. During these interrogations, detainees where further subjected to torture and beatings that would result in regurgitated confections, false or inaccurate intelligence in exchange for a halt to the activities. On occasions, when the interrogations did not go a quickly as the interrogators desired some the detainees succumbed to the torture and were killed. 

Military Police Moved from Incarceration Staff and Placed Under Military Intelligence (MI)

8.  When the Military Police were placed under the command of Military Intelligence they effectively became a part of the interrogation process. They were charged with softening up the detainees, prior to interrogations, by implementing elements contained in Sanchez’s memo such as stress positions, light deprivation, noise saturation, solitary confinement, and exposure to phobias.  Many of the Military Police were faced with ordeal of performing acts they felt were not moral and ethical but at the same time felt pressured to perform the requested acts.

 

 

 

Major General Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez and Interrogation Techniques

7. Geoffrey Miller was favored by Donald Rumsfeld because of the similarities and views toward the disregard for past practices and tradition with the focus solely on results. With this frame of mind Miller implemented a series of harsh interrogation techniques with the intent of gathering information from the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Rumsfeld, in a memo issued in November 2002, would sanction the use of the extreme interrogation techniques used by Miller to include stress positions, light deprivation, noise saturation, solitary confinement, and exposure to phobias. In August 2003, Rumsfeld dissatisfied the amount of actionable intelligence coming out of Iraq sent, Miller to Iraq to teach them the techniques that he was using in Guantanamo. Upon arrival to Iraq Miller would advise that the treatment of the prisoners to that point had been to civil and drastic changes need to be implemented to degrade the prisoners and imprint on them who the leadership was. Faced the pressures of Rumsfeld, General Ricardo Sanchez issued a memorandum on September 14, 2003 that instituted many of the same extreme interrogation techniques used by Miller despite the Bush administrations protocol that the Geneva Convention applied in Iraq. One month after issuing the memorandum, Sanchez would rescind portions of the original memo because of questions about violations with the Geneva Convention. This created confusion with what was acceptable or unacceptable interrogation practices. Many of the American forces at Abu Ghraib where uncomfortable with execution of the memo interrogation practices but continued to perform the duties assigned to them.

                                                               Donald Rumsfeld

                                                               General Ricardo Sanchez