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 

The "Hard Site" and the Failure of "Intelligence" at Abu Ghraib

6. At Abu Ghraib, a separate location was prepared for the housing of high security prisoners and women and children. These locations were known as the “hard site”. Between six to seven guards were charged with holding security on 1,000 prisoners. It was reported the hard sites contained members of various terrorist organizations to include Al Qaeda, Taliban, and Hussain loyalist. Intelligence officers had been stationed at Abu Ghraib and tasked with the collecting data form the hard sites. These Intel. Officers would find that the quality of information was not worth reporting as seventy five to eighty percent of the hard site detainees did not have any information

 

Abu Ghraib - The Location, Atmosphere, and Situation at Abu Ghraib by September 2003

5. The 372^nd Military Police Company would find that Abu Ghraib was located in a desolate area of Iraq surrounded by desert and infected with intense heat. The abandoned prison was dark with the intense odder of human excrement which had to first be ride of wild hogs that had been feasting on the reported remains of 30,000 former prisoners of Saddam Hussain. Larger murals of Hussain adorn the walls of the prison as Military personnel would locate a room, known as the death chamber, that contained an elevated deck with two square wholes with a hook adhered to the ceiling above the wholes and ropes suspended from the hooks for the execution of a reported 80 to 100 hangings per day. In addition, military personnel located two large incinerators for the cremation of bodies. The 372^nd had been trained to support combat operation, upon reassignment the 372^nd were instructed that they were augment over to prison guards, with no training, and assume control of Abu Ghraib. The prison was reported to a prime target and was frequently attacked with mortars shells, refile fire, and bombs. The road leading to Abu Ghraib was described as the most dangerous road on the planet. By the end of September 2003 Abu Ghraib housed 6,000 prisons with a 300 military police providing security.

http://time.is/map/Abu_Ghraib

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Iraq_map_Abu_Ghraib.png

 

American Techniques of War and Iraqi Civilians

4.  The goal of the war with Iraq was to remove Saddam Hussain from power based on the idea that he had weapons of mass destruction of a nuclear nature. The first phase of the war was to conduct aerial bombardments to pave the way for a ground invasion. In theory the plan was sound but the reality of the events was distorted. An exceptionally vast portion of the American forces had never been outside the United States or in a middle eastern country and thus were unfamiliar with the enemy that they would be facing. The result was the indiscriminate bombing and shooting of nonmilitary targets. Efforts to gain intelligence on the enemy would lead the roundup of civilians believed to information. Housed were searched, during late night hours and without regard for material loss or damage, as women and children were separated for the men of the house. The males hands where restrained behind their backs and forced to remain in the middle of streets in full view of the community. 

The Justice Department and the UN Convention Against Torture

3.  John Yoo held that UN Convention against Torture did not adequately define many of terms used to describe torture. Yoo cited, for example, the term severe was explained as well as the reference to physical pain or suffering. Yoo position was the UN document was “vague, ambiguous, and had not been interpreted before”. In August of 2002 the Justice Department issued a memo that would redefine the meaning of torture and relegate it to narrow parameters. The result of the memo would sanctions the use of extreme interrogation techniques. Many of the individuals that viewed this memo believed that such a gross interpretation should never have come to the public forefront much less US policy. Many critics cited the many of the condemned torture activities committed by Saddam Hussain would be sanctioned under the Yoo memo.  

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/y3gctpw.htm

http://www.redcross.org/images/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3640104_IHL_SummaryGenevaConv.pdf

The Geneva Conventions and the War on Terror

2. The Geneva Convention was a set of standards adopted into international laws, signed in 1949, that protected detainees from torture, disgraces against personal dignity, any degrading or humiliating treatment, and insured humane treatment of combatant forces. As the war in Afghanistan was being waged in 2001, the Defense Department began to question the status of the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters that where being detained. DOD officials desired to know if the Geneva Convention laws applied to terrorist organizations. The Geneva Convention had significant importance to American forces, since the frequent wide spread mobilization of American forces worldwide elevated the risk of capture of American servicemen, for the reason that laws would insure the protection and humane treatment of Americas fighting forces. John Yoo and Justice Department held the position that Al Qaeda and Taliban had not signed the Geneva Convention agreement and where not fighting a conventional war therefore they were not subject to protection under the Geneva Convention. President George W. Bush decided, in early 2002, to endorse the recommendations of the Justice Department that terrorist groups would not be afforded the protection of the Geneva Convention and classified terrorist group detainees as “unlawful combatants”. 

 

 

 

The Context of the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal

1. After the disbanding of the Iraqi army, many of the Iraqi men found themselves unemployed which the insurgents utilized to their advantage by offering payment to those who could confirm the killing of American and coalition forces. With financial gain as a motivation many of these former, trained and still equipped, military began to bomb, assassinate and snip at American and coalition forces. American forces were now faces with fighting an unconventional war conventionally. American commander, General Ricardo Sanchez, lacked in providing a plan of operation for combating the emerging conflict. Consequently, many of the frustrated officers chose to combat the issues that only way they knew how to by implementing force. The force tactic would result in increased local alienation, violence and a surge in the emerging insurgency problem. The need for intelligence came to the forefront after the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy and the United Nations building. Without clear direction on how to accomplish the intelligence gathering. Many commander felt that the strategic means to gathering actionable intelligence was by conducting huge sweeps of military age men and detain them for questioning in, Saddam Hussain’s most feared, Abu Ghraib prison. American commanders, unfamiliar with Iraqi culture, unknowingly crated hatred for American forces which would hamper the free flow of information. Additionally, the large numbers of detainees quickly exposed that the intelligence operation was undermanned, under equipped, and lacked the organizational structure to analyze and disseminate counter insurgency operations. Donald Rumsfeld, unsatisfied with the quality of intelligence, issued orders for an increased use of harsh interrogation techniques to facilitate the needed intelligence.