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The Abu Ghraib files
http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/index.html
279 photographs and 19 videos from the Army’s internal investigation record a harrowing three months of detainee abuse inside the notorious prison — and make clear that many of those responsible have yet to be held accountable.
Editor’s note: On Thursday, the Department of Justice released four memos produced by its Office of Legal Counsel under former President George W. Bush. The so-called “torture” memos provided the Bush administration’s legal justification for CIA interrogation methods like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and “insects placed in a confinement box.” In 2006, Salon published the most extensive archive of photos and videos capturing detainee abuse at the U.S. Army’s Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, some of it carried out by CIA agents. It’s worth noting that when we did so, the Pentagon claimed we were damaging national security by publishing such inflammatory images — the same argument former Bush admininistration officials are making about Obama’s decision to release the memos this week. Shortly after we published “The Abu Ghraib Files,” the Pentagon released much of the same material to the ACLU.
The 10 galleries of photos and videos appear chronologically in the left column, followed by an additional Salon report on prosecutions for abuse and an overview of Pentagon investigations and other resources. The nine essays accompanying the photo galleries were reported and written by Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin. Photo and video captions were compiled by Page Rockwell. Additional research, reporting and writing for “The Abu Ghraib Files” were contributed by Jeanne Carstensen, Mark Follman, Page Rockwell and Tracy Clark-Flory.
By Joan Walsh
The human rights scandal now known as “Abu Ghraib” began its journey toward exposure on Jan. 13, 2004, when Spc. Joseph Darby handed over horrific images of detainee abuse to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID). The next day, the Army launched a criminal investigation. Three and a half months later, CBS News and the New Yorker published photos and stories that introduced the world to devastating scenes of torture and suffering inside the decrepit prison in Iraq.
Today Salon presents an archive of 279 photos and 19 videos of Abu Ghraib abuse first gathered by the CID, along with information drawn from the CID’s own timeline of the events depicted. As we reported Feb. 16, Salon’s Mark Benjamin recently acquired extensive documentation of the CID investigation — including this photo archive and timeline — from a military source who spent time at Abu Ghraib and who is familiar with the Army probe.
Although the world is now sadly familiar with images of naked, hooded prisoners in scenes of horrifying humiliation and abuse, this is the first time that the full dossier of the Army’s own photographic evidence of the scandal has been made public. Most of the photos have already been seen, but the Army’s own analysis of the story behind the photos has never been fully told. It is a shocking, night-by-night record of three months inside Abu Ghraib’s notorious cellblock 1A, and it tells the story, in more graphic detail than ever before, of the rampant abuse of prisoners there. The annotated archive also includes new details about the role of the CIA, military intelligence and the CID itself in abuse captured by cameras in the fall of 2003.
The Bush administration, which recently announced plans to shut the notorious prison and transfer detainees to other sites in Iraq, would like the world to believe that it has dealt with the abuse, and that it’s time to move on. But questions about what took place there, and who was responsible, won’t end with Abu Ghraib’s closure.
In fact, after two years of relative silence, there’s suddenly new interest in asking questions. A CID spokesman recently told Salon that the agency has reopened its investigation into Abu Ghraib “to pursue some additional information” after having called the case closed in October 2005. Just this week, one of two prison dog handlers accused of torturing detainees by threatening them with dogs went on trial in Fort Meade, Md. Lawyers for Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith argue that he was only implementing dog-use policies approved by his superiors, and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the former commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony at Smith’s trial.
Meanwhile, as Salon reported last week, the Army blocked the retirement of Major Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former Guantánamo interrogation commander who allegedly brought tougher intelligence tactics to Abu Ghraib, after two senators requested that he be kept on active duty so that he could face further questioning for his role in the detainee abuse scandal. Miller refused to testify at the dog-handler trials, invoking the military equivalent of the Fifth Amendment to shield himself from self-incrimination, but Pappas has charged that Miller introduced the use of dogs and other harsh tactics at the prison. Also last week, Salon revealed that U.S. Army Reserve Capt. Christopher R. Brinson is fighting the reprimand he received for his role in the abuse. Brinson, currently an aide to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., supervised military police Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and some of the other guards who have been convicted in the scandal. Now Brinson joins a growing chorus of Abu Ghraib figures who blame the higher command structure for what happened at the prison.
Against this backdrop of renewed scrutiny, we think the CID photo archive and related materials we present today merit close examination. In “The Abu Ghraib Files,” Salon presents an annotated, chronological version of these crucial CID investigative documents — the most comprehensive public record to date of the military’s attempt to analyze the photos from the prison. All 279 photos and 19 videos are reproduced here, along with the original captions created by Army investigators. They have been grouped into chapters that follow the CID’s timeline, and each chapter has been narrated with the facts and findings of the Taguba, Schlesinger, Fay-Jones and other Pentagon investigations (see sidebar).
But the documentation in “The Abu Ghraib Files” also draws from materials that have not been released to the public. Among these is the official logbook kept by those military soldiers who committed the bulk of the photographed abuse. Salon has also acquired an April 2005 CID interview with military police Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., one of the ringleaders of the abuse. (One hundred seventy-three of the 279 photos in the archive were taken with Graner’s Sony FD Mavica camera.) The interview was conducted several months after Graner was court-martialed and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He received a grant of immunity against further prosecution for anything he revealed. The documentation also draws from the unpublished testimony of Brinson to the CIA’s Office of Inspector General about the death of a prisoner at the hands of the CIA.
Thanks in part to that additional sourcing, “The Abu Ghraib Files” sheds new light on the 3-year-old prison abuse scandal. While many of the 279 photos have been previously released, until this point no one has been able to authenticate this number of images from the prison, or to provide the Army’s own documentation of what they reveal. This is the Army’s forensic report of what happened at the prison: dates, times, places, cameras and, in some though not all cases, identities of the detainees and soldiers involved in the abuse. (Salon has chosen to withhold detainee identities not previously known to the public, and to obscure their faces in photographs, to protect the victims’ privacy.)
Some of the noteworthy revelations include:
- The prisoner in perhaps the most iconic photo from Abu Ghraib, the hooded man standing on a box with electrical wires attached to his hands, was being interrogated by the CID itself for his alleged role in the kidnapping and murder of two American soldiers in Iraq. As noted in Chapter 4, “Electrical Wires,” a CID spokesman confirmed to Salon that a CID agent was suspended in fall 2004 pending an investigation and later found “derelict in his duties” for his role in prisoner abuse. Salon could not confirm whether the agent was punished for his role in the abuse of the hooded man connected to electrical wires, known to military personnel as “Gilligan.”
- The CID documentation, as well as other reporting, confirmed that a March 11 New York Times article identifying the prisoner in the iconic photo as Ali Shalal Qaissi, a local Baath Party member under Saddam Hussein and now a prisoners’ rights advocate in Jordan, was incorrect. The CID photo archive confirms that a prisoner matching Qaissi’s description — he has a deformed left hand — and known by the nickname “The Claw” was held at the prison and photographed by military police on the same night as the mock electrocution, but he was not the one standing on the box and attached to wires. The CID materials say all five photos of the hooded man were the prisoner known as “Gilligan.” It remains possible that Qaissi received similar treatment, but there is no record of that abuse.
- Chapter 5, “Other Government Agencies,” tells the story behind photos of the mangled corpse of Manadel al-Jamadi, known as the “Ice Man,” who died during interrogation by a CIA officer. No one at the CIA has been prosecuted, even though al-Jamadi’s death was ruled a homicide. The chapter adds new detail about the CIA’s role in the prison drawn from Christopher Brinson’s testimony to CIA investigators.
- As explained in Chapter 1, “Standard Operating Procedure,” some of the 279 photos and 19 videos in the archive depict controversial interrogation tactics employed in cellblock 1A. Among the examples of abuse on display in the photos were techniques sanctioned by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for use on “unlawful enemy combatants” in the “war on terror.” These include forced nudity, the use of dogs to terrorize prisoners, keeping prisoners in stress positions — physically uncomfortable poses of various types — for many hours, and varieties of sleep deprivation. Some of these techniques migrated from Guantánamo and Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003. (The abuse depicted in the Abu Ghraib photos did not occur during interrogation sessions, but in some cases military guards allege they were encouraged to “soften up” detainees for interrogation by higher-ranking military intelligence officers.)
- Military intelligence personnel and civilian contractors employed by the military appear in some of the photographs with the military guards, and entries from a prison logbook captured in the archive show that in some cases military police believed their tough tactics were being approved by — and in some cases ordered by — military intelligence officers and civilian contractors. The logbook also documents prisoner rioting and the regular presence of multiple OGA (other government agency) detainees held in the military intelligence wing.
Three years and at least six Pentagon investigations later, we now know that many share the blame for the outrages that took place at Abu Ghraib in the fall of 2003. The abuse took place against the backdrop of rising chaos in Iraq. In those months the U.S. military faced a raging insurgency for which it hadn’t planned. As mortar attacks rained down on the overcrowded prison — at one point there were only 450 guards for 7,000 prisoners — its command structure broke down. At the same time, the pressure from the Pentagon and the White House for “actionable intelligence” was intense, and harsh interrogation techniques were approved to obtain it. Bush administration lawyers, including Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, had already created a radical post-9/11 legal framework that disregarded the Geneva Conventions and other international laws governing the humane treatment of prisoners in the “war on terror.” Intelligence agencies such as the CIA were apparently given the green light to operate by their own set of secret rules.
But while the Pentagon’s own probes have acknowledged that military commanders, civilian contractors, the CIA and government policymakers all bear some responsibility for the abuses, to date only nine enlisted soldiers have been prosecuted for their crimes at Abu Ghraib (see sidebar). An additional four soldiers and eight officers, including Brinson, Pappas and Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of military police at Abu Ghraib, have been reprimanded. (Pappas and Karpinski were also relieved of their posts.) To date no high-level U.S. officials have been brought to justice in a court of law for what went on at Abu Ghraib.
Our purpose for presenting this large catalog of images remains much the same as it was four weeks ago when we first published a much smaller number of Abu Ghraib photos that had not previously appeared in the media. As Walter Shapiro wrote, Abu Ghraib symbolizes “the failure of a democratic society to investigate well-documented abuses by its soldiers.” The documentary record of the abuse has come out in the media in a piecemeal fashion, often lacking context or description. Meanwhile, our representatives in Washington have allowed the facts about what occurred to fester in Pentagon reports without acting on their disturbing conclusions. We believe this extensive, if deeply disturbing, CID archive of photographic evidence belongs in the public record as documentation toward further investigation and accountability.
While we want readers to understand what it is we’re presenting, we also want to make clear its limitations. The 279-photo CID timeline and other material obtained by Salon do not include the agency’s conclusions about the evidence it gathered. The captions, which Salon has chosen to reproduce almost verbatim (see methodology), contain a significant number of missing names of soldiers and detainees, misspellings and other minor discrepancies; we don’t know if the CID addressed these issues in other drafts or documents. Also, the CID materials contain two different forensic reports. The first, completed June 6, 2004, in Tikrit, Iraq, analyzed a seized laptop computer and eight CDs and found 1,325 images and 93 videos of “suspected detainee abuse.” The second report, completed a month later in Fort Belvoir, Va., analyzed 12 CDs and found “approximately 280 individual digital photos and 19 digital movies depicting possible detainee abuse.” It remains unclear why and how the CID narrowed its set of forensic evidence to the 279 images and 19 videos that we reproduce here.
Although the photos are a disturbing visual account of particular incidents inside Abu Ghraib prison, they should not be viewed as representing the sum total of what occurred. As the Schlesinger report states in its convoluted prose: “We do know that some of the egregious abuses at Abu Ghraib which were not photographed did occur during interrogation sessions and that abuses during interrogation sessions occurred elsewhere.” Also, the documentation doesn’t include many details about the detainees who were abused and tortured at Abu Ghraib. While the International Committee of the Red Cross report from February 2004 cited military intelligence officers as estimating that “between 70 to 90 percent of persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake,” much remains unknown about the detainees abused in the “hard site” where the Army housed violent and dangerous detainees and where much of the abuse took place.
Finally, it’s critical to recognize that this set of images from Abu Ghraib is only one snapshot of systematic tactics the United States has used in four-plus years of the global war on terror. There have been many allegations of abuse, torture and other practices that violate international law, from holding prisoners without charging them at Guantánamo Bay and other secretive U.S. military bases and prison facilities around the world to the practice of “rendition,” or the transporting of detainees to foreign countries whose regimes use torture, to ongoing human rights violations inside detention facilities in Iraq. Abu Ghraib in fall 2003 may have been its own particular hell, but the variations of individual abuse perpetrated appear to be exceptional in only one way: They were photographed and filmed.
About the writer
Joan Walsh is Salon’s editor in chief.
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“Standard operating procedure”
Chapter 1: Oct. 17-22, 2003
Read more: Michael Scherer, Abu Ghraib, Mark Benjamin
Salon Directory (browse by topic)
The Abu Ghraib Files
1. Oct. 17-22, 2003
“Standard operating procedure”
2. Oct. 24-25, 2003
“Dehumanization”
3. Oct. 28-29, 2003
“Sexual exploitation”
4. Nov. 1-4, 2003
“Electrical wires”
5. Nov. 4-5, 2003
“Other government agencies”
6. Nov. 7-9, 2003
“Dog pile”
7. Nov. 14-Dec. 9, 2003
“Lacerations”
8. Dec. 12-30, 2003
“Working dogs”
9. Nov. 4-Dec. 2, 2003
“Mentally deranged”
10. Video
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II. Most of the photos depict detainees shackled naked in stress positions with women’s underwear or hoods on their heads. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, civilian contractor Adel Nakhla and a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Sgt. Cathcart.
In the fall of 2003, the military police at Abu Ghraib systematically abused detainees using interrogation techniques similar to those once approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — forced nudity, stress positions, hooding and sleep deprivation, to name a few. Rumsfeld had approved harsh interrogation methods on Dec. 2, 2002, in a then classified memo for interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The memo was leaked to the media and eventually released by the White House in June 2004, sparking heated debate, domestically and internationally, about whether these tougher U.S. interrogation policies amounted to approval of torture and violation of international law.
In the year following Rumsfeld’s memo, the Bush administration’s legal framework for employing these interrogation techniques, and the approved techniques themselves, changed multiple times. The techniques Rumsfeld approved ostensibly were intended for use only on suspected terrorists and so-called unlawful enemy combatants, with trained interrogators receiving case-by-case approval. Instead, they spread widely through the military’s interrogation operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and spiraled out of control, Army documents show. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, U.S. soldiers and intelligence personnel began to use these techniques in Iraq, where they were informally “accepted as SOP [standard operating procedure] by newly arrived interrogators,” according to an August 2004 report on Abu Ghraib abuses by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. By September 2003, Gen. Geoffrey Miller had arrived at Abu Ghraib, allegedly with a mandate to “Gitmo-ize” interrogation procedures at the prison.
The official guidance for proper interrogation techniques in Iraq became confused, even contradictory. “By mid-October, interrogation policy in Iraq had changed three times in less than 30 days,” explained Fay. An Army investigation by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones found that the military command in Iraq, led by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, failed to provide proper oversight of interrogators at Abu Ghraib, contributing to the abuse. Some soldiers involved were inadequately trained in interrogation, investigators found.
These failures set the stage for many of the abuses apparent in these photographs. Military intelligence officers and civilian contractors began ordering military police to “set the conditions” for interrogations, Army investigators found. “This is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agendas assigned to each of these respective specialties,” Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba said in his March 2004 report.
“It is clear that pressure for additional intelligence and the more aggressive methods sanctioned by the Secretary of Defense memorandum resulted in stronger interrogation techniques. They did contribute to a belief that stronger interrogation methods were needed and appropriate,” concluded a Defense Department review of detainee operations, led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and released in August 2004. “We cannot be sure how much the number and severity of abuses would have been curtailed had there been early and consistent guidance from higher levels. Nonetheless, such guidance was needed and likely would have had a limiting effect.”
The abuses at Abu Ghraib that were photographed on Oct. 18 and 19, along with detainee testimony, show the visceral effects of the interrogation tactics once sanctioned for detainees at Guantánamo by Rumsfeld. Many of the photos depict a single detainee shackled naked to a bed with underwear on his head. A July 1, 2004, report on Abu Ghraib by the Army’s CID said this man was “possibly” a detainee named H—–. Graner, however, whose camera was used to take most of these photos, told CID investigators on April 6, 2005, that these pictures showed another detainee named W—–, whom Graner called “Taxi Driver.” Graner said he was ordered by a civilian interrogator working at Abu Ghraib to strip, shackle and hood the detainee as part of a sleep deprivation program.
Regardless of which detainee these pictures show, both H—– and W—– told eerily similar tales to Army investigators. “They stripped me of all my clothes, even my underwear,” H—– told CID investigators on Jan. 18, 2004. “They gave me woman’s underwear that was rose color with flowers in it, and they put the bag over my face. One of them whispered in my ear, ‘Today I am going to fuck you,’ and he said this in Arabic.”
“I faced more harsh punishment from Grainer [sic],” H—– continued. “He cuffed my hands with irons behind my back to the metal of the window, to the point my feet were off the ground and I was hanging there for about 5 hours just because I asked about the time, because I wanted to pray. And then they took all my clothes and he took the female underwear and he put it over my head. After he released me from the window, he tied me to my bed until before dawn.”
W—– gave a similar account of being hung up by his hands — like the detainee pictured here — in a statement to CID investigators on Jan. 21, 2004. “[T]he American police, the guy who wears glasses, he put red woman’s underwear over my head. And then he tied me to the window that is in the cell with my hands behind my back until I lost consciousness,” he said in a statement.
The Fay report found that there was “ample evidence of detainees being forced to wear women’s underwear.” Fay concluded that the use of women’s underwear may have been part of the military intelligence tactic called “ego down,” adding that the method constitutes abuse and sexual humiliation.
The Fay report also indicates that W—– was a military intelligence detainee “of potentially high value.” Fay concluded that it was difficult to ignore the circumstantial likelihood that military intelligence had ordered the military police to “set conditions” for interrogation. “MI [military intelligence] should have been aware of what was done to this detainee,” Fay wrote.
On Oct. 21, a few days after most of these photos were taken, the International Red Cross began a three-day tour of Abu Ghraib to evaluate the conditions for detainees. At the end of the visit, the Red Cross told the military leaders at the prison about incidents of “handcuffing, nakedness, wearing of female underwear and sleep deprivation,” according to the Fay report.
The military took no action, initially. Two months later, on Dec. 24, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the head of military police at Abu Ghraib, sent the Red Cross a letter that glossed over the problems “close to the point of denying the inhumane treatment, humiliation and abuse,” according to Fay.
“Dehumanization”
Chapter 2: Oct. 24-25, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken with a camera owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. They depict two major events of abuse: the leashing of a detainee referred to by U.S. soldiers as “Gus” and the punishment of three Iraqi detainees who had been accused of raping a 15-year-old boy in the prison. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Pfc. Lynndie England, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, civilian contractor Adel Nakhla, Spc. Roman Krol, Spc. Armin J. Cruz Jr. and Spc. Sabrina Harman, as well as a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Spc. Rivera, three soldiers the CID identifies as “possibly Smith, Davis K. and Cinzano” and one soldier the CID identifies as unknown.
Unlike the first set of photos, the abuses depicted on Oct. 24 and 25 have not been formally connected with specific orders from military leaders. Army investigators found that these incidents showed military police (M.P.) and military intelligence (M.I.) soldiers deciding on their own to punish and embarrass detainees. In his report, Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones categorized these abuses as “intentional violent or sexual abuses” that soldiers and contractors did not believe “were permitted by any policy.”
Other investigators concluded, however, that the worst abuses by military police and others arose from an “atmosphere of permissiveness” that pervaded Abu Ghraib. In one example of this, the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay noted that the systematic use of nudity to humiliate detainees in preparation for interrogation “likely contributed to an escalating ‘de-humanization’ of the detainees and set the stage for additional and more severe abuses to occur.”
The first set of pictures, showing England holding the leash of a detainee, was taken by Graner, according to military police statements. In April 2005, Graner told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command that he had put the leash around the detainee and then handed the end of the leash to England, his girlfriend at the time. The detainee, who is identified by the CID as A—– H—–, was called “Gus” by Graner and England.
Graner claimed to investigators that the detainee crawled out of the cell under his own power. “I asked England to hold the end of the tether that I had because he wasn’t aggressive at this point,” Graner said. England gave a similar account to investigators. “He [Graner] gave me the end of the strap and took a picture,” England told the CID investigators on Jan. 14, 2004. “I did not drag or pull on the leash. I simply stood with the strap in my hand.” According to the CID, Ambuhl can be seen standing at the left side of the frame.
Several hours later, shortly after 11 p.m. on Oct. 25, a second incident was captured by Graner’s digital camera. Army investigators found that three men were delivered to the military intelligence wing at Abu Ghraib, all of them accused of being involved in the rape of an Iraqi teenager. According to the CID, a medical log that night reported the following: “15-year old Iraqi male treated for hemorrhage of his anus. Patient was raped in his hard cell.”
The three men were delivered to a group of military police and military intelligence soldiers, including four military police soldiers — Graner, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II, Harman and Sgt. Javal S. Davis — and two military intelligence soldiers, Cruz and Krol.
The soldiers stripped the accused rapists and positioned them in the hallway in a variety of sexual positions, according to the Fay report. “The detainees were naked, being yelled at by an MP through a megaphone. The detainees were forced to crawl on their stomachs and were handcuffed together,” the report said. Fay also noted that one soldier poured water on the detainees from a cup, while another threw a foam football at them.
The detainee named H—–, who may have been shown in an earlier photo with underwear on his head, later told Army investigators that he had witnessed this event. “I saw Grainer [sic] punching one of the prisoners right in his face very hard when he refused to take off his underwear,” the detainee claimed on Jan. 18, 2004. “I heard them begging for help.”
Nakhla, a civilian translator employed by the Titan Corp., told CID investigators on Jan. 18, 2004, that he helped translate the verbal abuse of the other soldiers. “Don’t try to run away. Stop right there. Are you gay? Do you like what is happening to you? Are you all gays? You must like that position. These were some of the questions or things that I told them,” Nakhla said.
England claimed in her January statement that military intelligence had instructed the military police to “rough them [the rape suspects] up.” An appendix to the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba also pointed to involvement by military intelligence, apparently based on England’s statement. The Fay report, too, concluded that there was direct military intelligence involvement in the abuse by the soldiers present. However, Fay said the abuse of the three men, which continued over several days, did not appear “to be based on MI orders.” Fay found that the three accused rapists “were incarcerated for criminal acts and were not of intelligence interest.”
“Sexual exploitation”
Chapter 3: Oct. 28-29, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using the camera owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. They consist of a series of posed pictures of female detainees, including two detainees who were reportedly arrested on charges of prostitution, and one picture of a male detainee with his hands cuffed behind his back. One photo shows a female detainee exposing her breasts. In the first few photos, Spc. Sabrina Harman is shown posing with the female detainees.
Graner told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) in April 2005 that the guards at Abu Ghraib would sometimes allow female detainees to roam around in a common area at night. On the night of Oct. 28, 2003, Graner said he remembered taking multiple pictures of two young women, who were later identified by investigators as criminal detainees who had been arrested on suspicion of prostitution.
According to Graner’s statement, two other soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and a soldier Graner identified as military intelligence, were flirting with the girls. He said one of the women wanted to pose for several pictures. “I took the one, and then she called me back for another one,” Graner said. “She pulled her top off.” Graner said he gave a disk with the photographs to the person he said was from military intelligence.
A report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay found “no evidence to confirm if these acts were consensual or coerced; however in either case sexual exploitation of a person in US custody constitutes abuse.” Although Graner stated he gave a disk with the photos to someone from military intelligence, Fay concluded that there did not appear to be any direct military intelligence involvement.
Military investigations of Abu Ghraib turned up other incidents of abusive treatment of female detainees that were not shown in photographs. According to the Fay report, one of the most horrific incidents occurred on Oct. 7, when three military intelligence soldiers allegedly assaulted a female detainee. The unnamed detainee told investigators that she was taken to an empty cell, where a soldier held her hands behind her back while another soldier forcibly kissed her. She was then taken to another cell, where she was shown a naked male detainee and told that she would be stripped if she did not cooperate. Finally, she was returned to her cell, and forced to kneel and raise her arms while one of the soldiers removed her shirt. She said she began to cry, and her shirt was returned to her, with a warning that the soldiers would return each night if she did not cooperate. The Fay report found that there was no record of an authorized interrogation of this detainee on that night.
When CID investigators questioned the three military intelligence soldiers, they refused to provide statements. According to the Fay report, the three soldiers, who have never been named publicly, received nonjudicial punishment for failing to get authorization to interrogate the female detainee. They were also removed from future interrogation duty.
“Electrical wires”
Chapter 4: Nov. 1-4, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict soldiers removing stitches from a detainee with a cut on his ear, a number of posed shots of the prison guards, including one in which Frederick urinates in a prison cell and two in which Harman wears women’s underwear over her uniform, and the abuse of a detainee referred to by U.S. personnel as “Gilligan.” In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Harman, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Spc. Goodman and two soldiers the CID identifies as unknown.
One of the most iconic images of abuse to emerge from Abu Ghraib showed a detainee perched on top of a cardboard box, with a hood on his head, a blanket around his shoulders and electrical wires extending from his hands. To the soldiers at Abu Ghraib, this detainee was known as “Gilligan.” In early November 2003 an agent from the Army’s CID — the same agency that would later investigate abuse at Abu Ghraib and assemble the evidence and timeline reproduced in this photo archive — allegedly ordered military police to soften up the detainee by making his life “a living hell.”
According to CID documents obtained by Salon, the detainee in this iconic image was most likely a man named Saad, whose full name is being withheld by Salon to protect his identity. On March 11, the New York Times, possibly in error, reported that the detainee was an Iraqi man named Ali Shalal Qaissi. In addition to other evidence to the contrary detailed in a Salon report Tuesday, a CID spokesman confirmed to Salon that Qaissi “is not the detainee who was depicted in the photograph” that appeared in the Times.
CID documents do place a man with Qaissi’s description — including a deformed left hand — in the military intelligence wing at Abu Ghraib on the night that electrical wires were used. In an e-mailed statement following the Times report, Qaissi told Salon that he remembered another detainee, Saad, who was abused in a similar manner at the same time. “I have seen at least two dreadful pictures showing this horrible experience,” Qaissi wrote. “One is me. The other I believe could be Saad because he went before me to the area I had to go, where I was to be interrogated.” It is also possible the CID is wrong about the detainee in the photo published by the Times. Lingering questions about the detainee’s identity underscore the many details that remain unknown about what happened inside Abu Ghraib.
As part of its mission, the CID has the dual responsibility of investigating crimes committed against U.S. forces and crimes committed by U.S. forces. In November, a CID agent was interviewing Saad as a suspect in the kidnapping and murder of two U.S. soldiers, according to a CID spokesman. In a journal he kept at the time, Frederick alleged that the CID agent ordered the harsh treatment of the detainee. A report including details from Frederick’s journal by the Baltimore Sun in May 2004 led the CID to open a new investigation.
In October 2004, the Sun reported that the CID agent named in Frederick’s journal was Sgt. Ricardo Romero. In April 2005, Graner repeated that claim, telling investigators that Romero had specifically given orders to mistreat the detainee. “You know his [Romero's] words were, ‘Make his life a living hell for the next three days,’” said Graner. “He was to be kept awake for three days and pretty much harassed.”
The CID acknowledged that an agent was found derelict for behavior at Abu Ghraib, but would not confirm that the agent was Romero. “One Special Agent who was reportedly identified in Sgt. Frederick’s journal as being involved in potential abuse visited the detainee facility to interview an Iraqi suspect as part of an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of two U.S. soldiers,” CID spokesman Chris Grey wrote in an e-mail to Salon. “A thorough and impartial investigation found reason to believe that the agent in question was derelict in his duties by making unprofessional and inappropriate comments during his visit to the Abu Ghraib facility.” Grey also told Salon that the CID agent investigated for abusing Saad did not participate in the CID’s later investigation into abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Some of the techniques military police used on Saad can be traced to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s Dec. 2, 2002, memo, including yelling, hooding, forced stress positions and sleep deprivation. “It was him [Sgt. Javal S. Davis] and I, and basically, just yelling at him the whole night, you know, more or less repeating the first half of — was it ‘Full Metal Jacket?’ — loud as you could to him, and then asking him what his name was,” Graner told Army investigators. Harman gave a statement to the CID on Jan. 15, 2004, claiming to have put the wires on the detainee’s hands. “I was joking with him, and told him if he fell off, he would get electrocuted,” Harman said. One year later, Graner spoke to investigators about forcing detainees to stand on boxes, a tactic he claims to have employed with the approval of military intelligence. “You fell asleep, you fell down. Wow, you just woke yourself up,” Graner explained.
After the photos were given to CID investigators, the agency interviewed Saad about the abuse. During this interview, on Jan. 16, 2004, the CID did not treat Saad as a hostile detainee but as a cooperating witness. “A tall black soldier came and put electrical wires on my fingers and toes and on my penis, and I had a bag over my head,” Saad said in his statement. “Then he was saying ‘which switch is for electricity.’ And he came with a loudspeaker and he was shouting near my ear. And then he brought the camera and he took some pictures of me, which I knew because of the flash of the camera.”
When one night of abuse ended, Saad said he was taken back to his cell. He said he was able to sleep for about an hour before guards came through to conduct the morning head count. “I couldn’t go to sleep after that because I was very scared,” Saad said.
This set of photographs also includes two images of a bearded detainee with stitches in his ear. According to Graner, this was W—–, the detainee known as “Taxi Driver.” The criminal investigation confirmed the possibility that the photos were of W—–.
In a statement, W—– said, “The police started beating me on my kidneys and then they hit me on my right ear and it started bleeding and I lost consciousness.” The report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay said that this detainee blamed the blow to his ear on an unnamed civilian interpreter from the Titan Corp. The military police had a different story. An entry in the military police logbook indicates that W—– “fell and hit bunk due to wet floor in cell” after “PT” (common military shorthand for “physical training”). “[I]nmate received one (1) stitch on Right Ear,” the logbook reads.
The Fay report could not confirm if the photos of a detainee with a wounded ear showed W—–.
“Other government agencies”
Chapter 5: Nov. 4-5, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict a dead Iraqi detainee, Manadel al-Jamadi, whose body had been stored by CIA personnel overnight in a shower room at Abu Ghraib. Two of the photos show Graner and Harman posing with al-Jamadi’s corpse.
On the night of Nov. 4, 2003, someone in the military intelligence wing at Abu Ghraib wrote an entry in the military police logbook: “Shift change normal relief 1 OGA in 1B shower not to be used until OGA is moved out.”
In military lingo, OGA stands for “other government agency” and denotes clandestine operations conducted independent of the military chain of command. At Abu Ghraib, OGA referred “almost exclusively” to the Central Intelligence Agency, according to the investigation by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. According to logbook entries, OGA detainees sometimes accounted for roughly one-fifth of the 30 to 50 inmates included in the daily head count in the military intelligence wing.
Military police told investigators that they believed CIA personnel followed their own rule book. “You know these guys can kill people,” Graner said in an April 2005 statement to the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID). “The OGA guys do whatever they want. They don’t exist.”
Several Army and Department of Defense investigations found that the CIA presence may have contributed to the abuse committed by military police. “There was at least the perception, and perhaps the reality, that non-DOD agencies had different rules regarding interrogation and detention operations,” an investigation report by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones concluded. “Such a perception encouraged soldiers to deviate from prescribed techniques.”
A subsequent CID investigation showed that the OGA detainee entered into the logbook was Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi man who had been detained by the CIA. According to the investigation, al-Jamadi had been captured by a Navy SEAL team, which suspected him of involvement in an attack against the Red Cross. “He was reportedly resisting arrest, and a SEAL Team member butt-stroked him on the side of the head to suppress the threat he posed,” the Fay report found. Two CIA operatives brought al-Jamadi to Abu Ghraib shortly after 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 4.
On April 7, 2004, Sgt. Walter A. Diaz, a military police soldier on shift at the time al-Jamadi arrived, gave a statement to the CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG), which was later obtained by Salon. He described al-Jamadi walking into the prison under his own power. Diaz said that al-Jamadi was wearing a shirt, but no pants, and appeared to be shivering from the cold. Diaz said he had helped to shackle al-Jamadi, at the direction of the OGA, to a window in the shower room in preparation for interrogation.
“They used two pairs of handcuffs and secured Al-Jamaidi [sic] in a standing position with his arms over and behind his head,” the CIA OIG reported. Some time later, Diaz said the OGA agents asked him to return to the shower room to reposition al-Jamadi higher on the window. Diaz said he remembers the OGA interrogator telling him, “This guy doesn’t want to cooperate.” Diaz reported that at this point, the detainee’s face was swollen and deformed, and he was bleeding from the mouth. Diaz said he also realized that al-Jamadi no longer had a pulse.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology later ruled al-Jamadi’s death a homicide, caused by “blunt force injuries to the torso complicated by compromised respiration.” According to the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, al-Jamadi’s death occurred less than an hour after his arrival at the prison.
Military police Capt. Christopher R. Brinson also gave a statement, on April 5, 2004, to the CIA OIG, which was obtained by Salon. He said he reported to the shower area on the morning of Nov. 4, 2003, where a CIA interrogator and a translator were waiting next to al-Jamadi’s body. According to the interview with the CIA inspector general, Brinson told investigators that “the interrogator seemed shaken up and had said something like, ‘The guy just died on us.’” At that point, according to Brinson, al-Jamadi was lying on the ground face up. One of his eyes was bloody, and there was a smudge of blood on the floor about the size of a man’s palm. Brinson said there were ligature marks on al-Jamadi’s wrists consistent with the handcuffs used during interrogation.
At the direction of an OGA official, Brinson said, he ordered the military police to put al-Jamadi’s body in a bag and pack it with ice. The body was left in the shower room overnight, and a notation was made in the military logbook.
According to Graner’s April 2005 testimony to CID investigators, shortly after he and Harman came on the night shift, he remembered noticing that an odd fluid was leaking out of the 1B shower into his office. He said he pulled a spare key he had to the shower room and opened the door. Graner said that there, on the far side of the room, he and Harman saw a sealed body bag leaking fluid across the floor. “We opened it up and looked at it,” Graner said. “No one told us not to go into the shower.”
Graner and Harman decided to pose for pictures with the body. At one point, Harman gave a thumbs-up sign above the Iraqi’s mutilated face. A close-up shot was taken with Harman’s camera of the dead man’s thumb, which had bruising that Graner said he found “out of the ordinary.” Graner said he cleaned up the leaking fluid with cleaning crystals and chlorine.
The next morning the CIA directed the removal of al-Jamadi from the prison by placing him on a stretcher and placing an I.V. in his arm, according to Brinson’s statement. The goal, according to the Fay report, was to make it appear as if al-Jamadi “was only ill, thereby not drawing the attention of Iraqi guards and detainees.”
Both Fay and Jones concluded that this working relationship between OGA and military personnel, without any formal written arrangement, directly put Army soldiers at risk of breaking the law. “It is clear that the interrogation practices of other government agencies led to a loss of accountability at Abu Ghraib,” concluded Fay and Jones in a joint introduction to their reports. “Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines should never be put in a position that potentially puts them at risk for non-compliance with the Geneva Convention or Laws of Land Warfare.”
The Department of Defense review of detainee operations led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger noted that the CIA conducted interrogations at a number of Department of Defense facilities. “In some facilities these interrogations were conducted in conjunction with military personnel, but at Abu Ghraib the CIA was allowed to conduct interrogations separately,” the report found. The Fay report blamed part of this variation on Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the director of the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib.
“LTC Jordan became fascinated with the ‘Other Government Agencies,’” the Fay report said. “LTC Jordan allowed OGA to do interrogations without the presence of Army personnel.” As a result, Fay concluded, Jordan “did not help the situation,” contributing to a sense among soldiers and civilians that they did not need to follow Army rules.
On Feb. 24, 2004, Jordan gave a statement to Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba about the al-Jamadi death. Jordan said he had been instructed to work with OGA by Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, because of Jordan’s “clearance level back at Langley” — a reference to CIA headquarters in Virginia. Jordan’s military records show he is a specialist in tactical and strategic intelligence.
After al-Jamadi’s death, Jordan told Taguba that he remembered Pappas saying, “Well if I go down, I’m not going down alone. The guys from Langley are going with me.” To date, no criminal charges have been filed against any CIA personnel for the death of al-Jamadi.
“Dog pile”
Chapter 6: Nov. 7-9, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict a long night of physical and sexual abuse of seven detainees accused of inciting a riot inside the prison. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Harman, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, Pfc. Lynndie England and a soldier CID identifies as unknown.
At approximately 7 p.m. on the night of Nov. 7, military police at Abu Ghraib noted in their logbook that a riot had broken out at Camp Ganci, a detainee facility that was part of the Abu Ghraib complex. In response, the military intelligence wing was put in a state of lockdown. Word filtered through that a detainee had managed to escape, according to the log. At 10:15 p.m., it was noted in the log that the military police had received “seven inmates from the Ganci Riot.”
For at least two hours, these seven suspected rioters were subjected to some of the worst documented abuse at Abu Ghraib. They were verbally abused, stripped, slapped, punched, jumped on, forced into a human pyramid, forced to simulate masturbation, and forced to simulate oral sex, several Army reports concluded. The Army’s investigation identified Frederick, Graner, Harman, Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Sivits and England as involved in the abuse. “CPL Graner knocked at least one detainee unconscious and SSG Frederick punched one so hard in the chest that he couldn’t breath and a medic was summoned,” a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay found.
England told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) on Jan. 14, 2003, that she had visited the military intelligence wing in the early morning hours of Nov. 8, because it was her birthday and she wanted to see her friends. She said Graner and Frederick told her they were bringing in seven prisoners from a riot at Ganci. “The prisoners were brought in in handcuffs and bags on the heads and wearing civilian clothes,” England said. She said she initially watched the ordeal from a higher tier. “Everyone else was downstairs pushing the prisoners into each other and the wall. Until they all ended up in a dog pile.” Later, England was photographed smiling and pointing at naked detainees.
Sivits told CID investigators on Jan. 14, 2004, that he believed he saw Davis run across the room twice and jump on the pile of detainees. “A couple of the detainees kind of made an AH sound as if this hurt them or caused them some type of pain,” Sivits said in his statement. The Fay report concluded that Davis, Frederick and Graner all jumped on the detainees. On Jan. 15, 2004, Davis admitted to investigators, “I did fall on the inmates on purpose and not on purpose. I was very upset at the inmates for wanting to kill some of my fellow soldiers.” At one point, Sivits said he remembered Graner saying, “Damn that hurt,” after punching a detainee.
Once they were stacked, Harman and Graner posed for photographs behind the pile. At some point, Frederick told the detainees to simulate masturbation, the Fay report found. England told investigators that she saw Frederick move a detainee’s arm in a masturbating motion. “He let go of the prisoner’s arm and the prisoner continued to masturbate,” England said.
Two detainees later gave statements to the Army’s criminal investigators, describing their experience that night. One detainee told investigators on Jan. 20, 2004, that the guards were laughing during the abuse. “They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees,” he said. “And we had to bark like a dog and if we didn’t do that, they start hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy.”
Another detainee also described the forced masturbation in a Jan. 18, 2004, interview with Army investigators. According to the criminal file, this detainee’s ripped pant leg can be seen on the far left of a photo in which Graner sits atop a pile of detainees, his arm cocked in preparation for a punch. “How did you feel when the guards were treating you this way?” an investigator asked the detainee.
The detainee replied: “I was trying to kill myself but I didn’t have any way of doing it.”
“Lacerations”
Chapter 7: Nov. 17-Dec. 9, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II. They depict two instances of soldiers providing medical attention to detainees with cuts on their faces, and several detainees who are naked or hooded. One naked and hooded detainee is shown with a number written on his chest and smiley faces drawn on his nipples. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Sgt. Wallin, a soldier the CID identifies as Spc. Christopherson, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Pfc. Lynndie England, civilian contractor Adel Nakhla, a soldier the CID identifies as Sgt. Evans and several soldiers the CID identifies as unknown.
In addition to humiliation and abuse, the military police at Abu Ghraib photographed and documented detainee injuries. These photographs, which were taken partly as a boast and partly for official records, according to military police testimony, show two detainees with significant cuts on their faces.
The first of this series of photographs was taken on Nov. 14, after six detainees, including at least four who claimed to be Iraqi generals, were brought into the military intelligence wing, all of them charged with attempting to incite a riot at Camp Vigilant, a nearby detainee facility.
One of those prisoners, identified as G—– by Army investigators, was photographed several times with Graner’s camera. According to an entry in the military police log, the detainee received treatment for a “1.5 inch laceration on the right side of his chin.” In his April 2005 statement to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, Graner said the injury was caused when he shoved the hooded detainee against a wall. “I had brought him over to the wall where we were processing people and he had been resisiting [sic] me the whole time,” Graner said. “When I put him up near the wall, he had come back on me. I pushed him forward against the wall, blood started coming from underneath his sandbag.”
A report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay repeats this account of events, adding that a medical corpsman was called to stitch up the detainee’s chin. Nonetheless, Graner can be seen working on the wound in one photo. A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba notes that a military police guard was improperly allowed “to stitch the wound of a detainee.” The Fay report did not reach a conclusion about whether G—–’s injury was caused by “reasonable force.” “When, where and by whom this detainee suffered his injuries could not be determined,” Fay concluded.
As part of the same incident, another detainee claimed to investigators that he was “slammed to the ground, punched, and forced to crawl naked to his cell with a sandbag over his head,” according to the Fay report, though the report gives no indication of who allegedly committed the abuse. These two detainees, as well as four others who arrived on Nov. 14, were considered “high value Iraqi General Officers or senior members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.”
About two hours later, Graner made another log entry saying he was told by military police Sgt. Hydrue S. Joyner — who was in turn told by Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, one of the commanders in charge of interrogation operations — to “strip out” and “PT” the six detainees. In his report, Fay said he was unable to conclude whether “PT,” which commonly means “physical training,” meant physical stress or abuse. Fay also did not determine whether “strip out” meant isolation or removal of clothing. Nonetheless, Fay found that the facts suggest that “MI [military intelligence] could have provided direction or MP [military police] could have been given the perception they should abuse or ‘soften up detainees.’” According to Graner’s log entry, Capt. Christopher R. Brinson overrode the orders to “strip out” the detainees. The detainees were, instead, placed in jumpsuits in their cells. “Having them stand in their cells would be their PT,” Graner wrote in the log.
On Dec. 1, Graner’s camera captured a similar set of photographs of a man Graner identified as an Iraqi corrections officer accused of smuggling weapons into the prison and giving them to a detainee. According to the CID investigation, on Nov. 24 a detainee had obtained weapons and fired several rounds at the military police guards. Soldiers fired shotgun rounds at the detainee’s legs, and the detainee was dragged from his cell and sent to the hospital. According to an appendix to the Taguba report, when this detainee returned to the prison, Graner “beat him severely, including direct blows to his leg wounds.”
Graner told CID investigators that a contract interrogator told him to rough up the Iraqi corrections officer. Graner said that he and Frederick tried to move the hooded corrections officer out of the cell to a shower, but the detainee tried to escape. “He ran right into the top bunk of a metal bunk bed,” Graner said.
The Fay report discusses at length other abuses that occurred in the course of finding the Iraqi policeman who had smuggled in the gun. “During the interrogations of the Iraqi Police, harsh and unauthorized techniques were employed to include use of dogs … and the removal of clothing,” Fay wrote. “It was the general understanding that evening that LTG [Ricardo] Sanchez and COL [Thomas M.] Pappas had authorized all measures to identify those involved, however, that should not have been construed to include abuse.” Fay determined Jordan was responsible for the harsh and humiliating treatment of the Iraqi police suspects.
A few days later, in the early morning hours of Dec. 6, several more naked detainees had their pictures taken. According to Graner, a number of these hooded detainees were OGA (other government agency) prisoners. At one point a person whom Graner identifies as a medic — CID documentation further identifies him as Sgt. Evans — can be seen filling out paperwork while one of these OGA detainees stands nearby. Nakhla, a Titan Corp. interrogator, can also be seen in this photo.
Another series of photos taken later that night shows two naked detainees shackled together. One of these men has what appear to be several cuts on his head.
“Working dogs”
Chapter 8: Dec. 12-30, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Sgt. Ivan Frederick II, as well as a third camera whose owner is not identified by the Criminal Investigation Command (CID). They depict two incidents of detainees being confronted with military dogs, a detainee who has been bitten by a military dog and a detainee receiving medical attention from soldiers for his wounds. The photos also show a detainee who has apparently been shot in the buttocks using nonlethal ammunition. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner; Frederick; Sgt. Michael Smith; Sgt. Santos Cardona; civilian contractor Adel Nakhla; Spc. Sabrina Harman; a soldier the CID identifies as Spc. Strothers; persons the CID identifies only as “Hofecker,” “Richards,” “S. Hubbard” and “Barhouti”; a soldier the CID identifies as Sgt. Cathcart; several soldiers the CID identifies as unknown; and at least one person the CID identifies as a member of the Iraqi police.
Dogs arrived at Abu Ghraib on Nov. 20, 2003, and were used to abuse detainees just a few days later, according to Army reports. The use of dogs had been recommended two months earlier by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the U.S. prison facility at Guantánamo Bay, as part of his plan to improve interrogation in Iraq, according to a Department of Defense investigation led by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. Miller brought with him Guantánamo Bay interrogation guidelines and 200 pages of operating procedures that he used in Cuba, according to a statement Miller made to defense attorneys on Aug. 21, 2004. Miller later told Army investigators that he never intended for the dogs to be used during interrogations. But soldiers and officers on the ground in Iraq say they received a different message.
Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who became commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib in November 2003, said Miller told him military working dogs were effective in “setting the atmosphere for interrogations,” according to a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. Then, in a Sept. 14 memo approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, interrogators were authorized to use dogs in interrogations under controlled circumstances. On Oct. 12, Sanchez issued another, more narrow set of guidelines allowing for the selective use of muzzled dogs during interrogations.
The idea of using dogs in interrogations was not an aberration. At least two other military memos referenced exploiting many Arabs’ known fear of dogs, including an Oct. 11, 2002, review of potential interrogation tactics for Guantánamo Bay, which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drew from for his Dec. 2, 2002, memo authorizing harsh tactics at that prison.
“The use of dogs in interrogations to ‘fear up’ detainees was generally unquestioned and stems in part from the interrogation techniques and counter-resistance policy,” the Fay report concluded.
The trainers from five dog teams that arrived at Abu Ghraib did not receive proper instruction on the intended use of the dogs, the Schlesinger report said. “Navy dog handlers indicated they had not previously worked in a prison environment,” the report said. One Navy handler explained to investigators that “he had not received an orientation on what was expected from his canine unit nor what was authorized or not authorized at the compound,” the Schlesinger report said. “He further stated he had never received instruction on the use of force in the compound.”
Most of the photographs in this set were taken on the night of Dec. 12, during a dog bite incident with a detainee. In his April 2005 statement to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, Graner said he had discovered that a sheet of plywood was missing from the window in the cell of the detainee named M—–, whom Graner called “the Iranian.” Graner said he decided that he needed to search the cell to make sure that no contraband or weapons had been smuggled to the detainee through the open window. He enlisted the help of Frederick and two dog handlers, Sgt. Michael Smith and Sgt. Santos Cardona. Other soldiers came down to watch. “You know, it’s a big deal having a canine there,” Graner said.
According to Graner’s account, he opened the cell and ordered M—– down on the ground. “He had been petrified,” Graner said of the detainee. “I went to go search his cell, and he bolted towards the door.” The detainee began punching and kicking him, Graner claims.
At least one of the dog handlers released his dog on the man, and the detainee was bitten several times in the legs. Graner said pictures were taken so that one of the dog handlers could use them in a report about the incident.
On Jan. 27, 2004, Smith gave a statement to the CID that also described the detainee attacking Graner. Smith said that Cardona released his dog twice on the detainee in defense of Graner. “Since the prisoner was attacking an MP [military police], he [Cardona] allowed his dog to go in and bite the detainee,” said Smith.
The Fay report concluded that this incident resulted from military police “harassment and amusement.” Both Smith and Cardona are scheduled to go on trial by summer 2006 on charges of misusing their dogs at Abu Ghraib.
A second set of images depicts a dog menacing a terrified Syrian detainee, named A—–, in an orange jumpsuit. The detainee cowers against a wall while a leashed dog barks at him from a few feet away. According to the Fay report, this detainee was considered a “high value” target by military intelligence. Fay said that the detainee had been transported to Abu Ghraib from a Navy ship, and was suspected of being involved with al-Qaida. The Fay report found that it was “highly plausible” that this abuse was directed by a contract interrogator from CACI International, who was later identified by the Associated Press as Steven Stefanowicz.
Though both the Fay and Taguba reports accused Stefanowicz of leading abuse at Abu Ghraib, the former interrogator has not been criminally charged.
“Mr. Stefanowicz’s conduct throughout was always done with respect to the policies and orders in effect,” his lawyer, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., told Salon.
“None of the individuals mentioned in any of the various reports and investigations are currently employed by CACI. Beyond that, CACI does not comment on personnel matters,” a CACI spokesperson told Salon in an e-mail. “CACI has cooperated fully with the U.S. Army and other organizations of the U.S. government in all its inquiries and investigations and will continue to do so.”
“Mentally deranged”
Chapter 9: Nov. 4-Dec. 2, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict several incidents of unusual behavior by a single detainee, whom the soldiers described as mentally deranged. The detainee is shown harming himself, and being restrained and otherwise toyed with by guards. In addition to the detainee, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Sgt. Javal S. Davis and civilian contractor Adel Nakhla.
In addition to “high value” intelligence targets, accused rioters and rapists, the military police at Abu Ghraib had to manage some mentally disturbed inmates, who had no apparent ties to any national security concern. The most prominent of these was a detainee named M—–, who was referred to by U.S. prison personnel as “Shitboy.” Over the course of five weeks, he was photographed dozens of times in various humiliating and self-destructive situations. At several points, soldiers chose simply to take photographs and video of M—– harming himself, instead of stepping in to stop him. When the detainee was in restraints, Graner posed for photographs alongside him like a big-game hunter displaying a catch.
A July 2004 report by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) concluded that the horrors depicted in these photos did not involve criminal acts by guards. This includes incidents in which the detainee sodomized himself with a banana, covered himself with his own feces, and banged his head repeatedly against a steel door until his head was bloody. At several points, military police claimed they put this detainee in restraints allegedly to “prevent the detainee from sodomizing himself and assaulting himself and others with his bodily fluids,” found a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay.
Nonetheless, Army investigators say these photographs show clear evidence of abuse. “A detainee with a known mental condition should not have been provided the banana or photographed,” the Fay report concluded. Military investigators did not further address the legal or moral consequences of U.S. soldiers’ allowing a debilitated prisoner in their custody to cause himself serious physical harm.
In his April 2005 statement to the CID, Graner describes several efforts by military police to control this detainee. At one point, Graner said he even injected M—– and another mentally deranged detainee with Benadryl to calm them down: “All our nut cases, we were just feeding them Benadryl because we had the psychotropic medications, but nobody would issue [them], which would have made life a lot easier for us.”
Graner said he believed that military intelligence had a psychiatrist at Abu Ghraib. But, Graner added, “he couldn’t help us out.”
Video from Abu Ghraib
Chapter 10: 19 digital video clips depicting possible detainee abuse.
Warning: Videos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and sexual humiliation.
This chapter contains 19 digital video clips that the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) determined to depict possible detainee abuse. The clips range from eight seconds to one minute and 39 seconds in length. Camera information is not available for all 19 videos; however, CID materials indicate that at least 13 of the videos were taken using a camera owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., and at least two of the videos were taken using a camera owned by Spc. Sabrina Harman.
The first two videos in this series depict a group of naked, hooded detainees who have apparently been forced to masturbate for the camera. The third and fourth videos in the series show three soldiers surrounding a detainee, apparently striking him and otherwise attempting to subdue him, and the same three soldiers directing a group of naked detainees to crouch side by side on their hands and knees. These videos seem to correspond to events depicted by photos in Chapter 6. Videos five through eight depict soldiers providing medical attention to a wounded detainee, an incident that is also documented by photos in Chapter 7. Videos nine through 19 in the series depict a detainee hitting his head against what appears to be a cell door, an incident that is also depicted by the last four photos in Chapter 9.
http://search.salon.com/salonsearch.php?breadth=salon&search=Iraqi+torture+photos
The Abu Ghraib files
http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/2006/03/14/introduction/index.html
279 photographs and 19 videos from the Army’s internal investigation record a harrowing three months of detainee abuse inside the notorious prison — and make clear that many of those responsible have yet to be held accountable.
Editor’s note: On Thursday, the Department of Justice released four memos produced by its Office of Legal Counsel under former President George W. Bush. The so-called “torture” memos provided the Bush administration’s legal justification for CIA interrogation methods like waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and “insects placed in a confinement box.” In 2006, Salon published the most extensive archive of photos and videos capturing detainee abuse at the U.S. Army’s Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, some of it carried out by CIA agents. It’s worth noting that when we did so, the Pentagon claimed we were damaging national security by publishing such inflammatory images — the same argument former Bush admininistration officials are making about Obama’s decision to release the memos this week. Shortly after we published “The Abu Ghraib Files,” the Pentagon released much of the same material to the ACLU.
The 10 galleries of photos and videos appear chronologically in the left column, followed by an additional Salon report on prosecutions for abuse and an overview of Pentagon investigations and other resources. The nine essays accompanying the photo galleries were reported and written by Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin. Photo and video captions were compiled by Page Rockwell. Additional research, reporting and writing for “The Abu Ghraib Files” were contributed by Jeanne Carstensen, Mark Follman, Page Rockwell and Tracy Clark-Flory.
By Joan Walsh
The human rights scandal now known as “Abu Ghraib” began its journey toward exposure on Jan. 13, 2004, when Spc. Joseph Darby handed over horrific images of detainee abuse to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID). The next day, the Army launched a criminal investigation. Three and a half months later, CBS News and the New Yorker published photos and stories that introduced the world to devastating scenes of torture and suffering inside the decrepit prison in Iraq.
Today Salon presents an archive of 279 photos and 19 videos of Abu Ghraib abuse first gathered by the CID, along with information drawn from the CID’s own timeline of the events depicted. As we reported Feb. 16, Salon’s Mark Benjamin recently acquired extensive documentation of the CID investigation — including this photo archive and timeline — from a military source who spent time at Abu Ghraib and who is familiar with the Army probe.
Although the world is now sadly familiar with images of naked, hooded prisoners in scenes of horrifying humiliation and abuse, this is the first time that the full dossier of the Army’s own photographic evidence of the scandal has been made public. Most of the photos have already been seen, but the Army’s own analysis of the story behind the photos has never been fully told. It is a shocking, night-by-night record of three months inside Abu Ghraib’s notorious cellblock 1A, and it tells the story, in more graphic detail than ever before, of the rampant abuse of prisoners there. The annotated archive also includes new details about the role of the CIA, military intelligence and the CID itself in abuse captured by cameras in the fall of 2003.
The Bush administration, which recently announced plans to shut the notorious prison and transfer detainees to other sites in Iraq, would like the world to believe that it has dealt with the abuse, and that it’s time to move on. But questions about what took place there, and who was responsible, won’t end with Abu Ghraib’s closure.
In fact, after two years of relative silence, there’s suddenly new interest in asking questions. A CID spokesman recently told Salon that the agency has reopened its investigation into Abu Ghraib “to pursue some additional information” after having called the case closed in October 2005. Just this week, one of two prison dog handlers accused of torturing detainees by threatening them with dogs went on trial in Fort Meade, Md. Lawyers for Army Sgt. Michael J. Smith argue that he was only implementing dog-use policies approved by his superiors, and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the former commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony at Smith’s trial.
Meanwhile, as Salon reported last week, the Army blocked the retirement of Major Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former Guantánamo interrogation commander who allegedly brought tougher intelligence tactics to Abu Ghraib, after two senators requested that he be kept on active duty so that he could face further questioning for his role in the detainee abuse scandal. Miller refused to testify at the dog-handler trials, invoking the military equivalent of the Fifth Amendment to shield himself from self-incrimination, but Pappas has charged that Miller introduced the use of dogs and other harsh tactics at the prison. Also last week, Salon revealed that U.S. Army Reserve Capt. Christopher R. Brinson is fighting the reprimand he received for his role in the abuse. Brinson, currently an aide to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., supervised military police Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and some of the other guards who have been convicted in the scandal. Now Brinson joins a growing chorus of Abu Ghraib figures who blame the higher command structure for what happened at the prison.
Against this backdrop of renewed scrutiny, we think the CID photo archive and related materials we present today merit close examination. In “The Abu Ghraib Files,” Salon presents an annotated, chronological version of these crucial CID investigative documents — the most comprehensive public record to date of the military’s attempt to analyze the photos from the prison. All 279 photos and 19 videos are reproduced here, along with the original captions created by Army investigators. They have been grouped into chapters that follow the CID’s timeline, and each chapter has been narrated with the facts and findings of the Taguba, Schlesinger, Fay-Jones and other Pentagon investigations (see sidebar).
But the documentation in “The Abu Ghraib Files” also draws from materials that have not been released to the public. Among these is the official logbook kept by those military soldiers who committed the bulk of the photographed abuse. Salon has also acquired an April 2005 CID interview with military police Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., one of the ringleaders of the abuse. (One hundred seventy-three of the 279 photos in the archive were taken with Graner’s Sony FD Mavica camera.) The interview was conducted several months after Graner was court-martialed and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He received a grant of immunity against further prosecution for anything he revealed. The documentation also draws from the unpublished testimony of Brinson to the CIA’s Office of Inspector General about the death of a prisoner at the hands of the CIA.
Thanks in part to that additional sourcing, “The Abu Ghraib Files” sheds new light on the 3-year-old prison abuse scandal. While many of the 279 photos have been previously released, until this point no one has been able to authenticate this number of images from the prison, or to provide the Army’s own documentation of what they reveal. This is the Army’s forensic report of what happened at the prison: dates, times, places, cameras and, in some though not all cases, identities of the detainees and soldiers involved in the abuse. (Salon has chosen to withhold detainee identities not previously known to the public, and to obscure their faces in photographs, to protect the victims’ privacy.)
Some of the noteworthy revelations include:
- The prisoner in perhaps the most iconic photo from Abu Ghraib, the hooded man standing on a box with electrical wires attached to his hands, was being interrogated by the CID itself for his alleged role in the kidnapping and murder of two American soldiers in Iraq. As noted in Chapter 4, “Electrical Wires,” a CID spokesman confirmed to Salon that a CID agent was suspended in fall 2004 pending an investigation and later found “derelict in his duties” for his role in prisoner abuse. Salon could not confirm whether the agent was punished for his role in the abuse of the hooded man connected to electrical wires, known to military personnel as “Gilligan.”
- The CID documentation, as well as other reporting, confirmed that a March 11 New York Times article identifying the prisoner in the iconic photo as Ali Shalal Qaissi, a local Baath Party member under Saddam Hussein and now a prisoners’ rights advocate in Jordan, was incorrect. The CID photo archive confirms that a prisoner matching Qaissi’s description — he has a deformed left hand — and known by the nickname “The Claw” was held at the prison and photographed by military police on the same night as the mock electrocution, but he was not the one standing on the box and attached to wires. The CID materials say all five photos of the hooded man were the prisoner known as “Gilligan.” It remains possible that Qaissi received similar treatment, but there is no record of that abuse.
- Chapter 5, “Other Government Agencies,” tells the story behind photos of the mangled corpse of Manadel al-Jamadi, known as the “Ice Man,” who died during interrogation by a CIA officer. No one at the CIA has been prosecuted, even though al-Jamadi’s death was ruled a homicide. The chapter adds new detail about the CIA’s role in the prison drawn from Christopher Brinson’s testimony to CIA investigators.
- As explained in Chapter 1, “Standard Operating Procedure,” some of the 279 photos and 19 videos in the archive depict controversial interrogation tactics employed in cellblock 1A. Among the examples of abuse on display in the photos were techniques sanctioned by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for use on “unlawful enemy combatants” in the “war on terror.” These include forced nudity, the use of dogs to terrorize prisoners, keeping prisoners in stress positions — physically uncomfortable poses of various types — for many hours, and varieties of sleep deprivation. Some of these techniques migrated from Guantánamo and Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003. (The abuse depicted in the Abu Ghraib photos did not occur during interrogation sessions, but in some cases military guards allege they were encouraged to “soften up” detainees for interrogation by higher-ranking military intelligence officers.)
- Military intelligence personnel and civilian contractors employed by the military appear in some of the photographs with the military guards, and entries from a prison logbook captured in the archive show that in some cases military police believed their tough tactics were being approved by — and in some cases ordered by — military intelligence officers and civilian contractors. The logbook also documents prisoner rioting and the regular presence of multiple OGA (other government agency) detainees held in the military intelligence wing.
Three years and at least six Pentagon investigations later, we now know that many share the blame for the outrages that took place at Abu Ghraib in the fall of 2003. The abuse took place against the backdrop of rising chaos in Iraq. In those months the U.S. military faced a raging insurgency for which it hadn’t planned. As mortar attacks rained down on the overcrowded prison — at one point there were only 450 guards for 7,000 prisoners — its command structure broke down. At the same time, the pressure from the Pentagon and the White House for “actionable intelligence” was intense, and harsh interrogation techniques were approved to obtain it. Bush administration lawyers, including Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, had already created a radical post-9/11 legal framework that disregarded the Geneva Conventions and other international laws governing the humane treatment of prisoners in the “war on terror.” Intelligence agencies such as the CIA were apparently given the green light to operate by their own set of secret rules.
But while the Pentagon’s own probes have acknowledged that military commanders, civilian contractors, the CIA and government policymakers all bear some responsibility for the abuses, to date only nine enlisted soldiers have been prosecuted for their crimes at Abu Ghraib (see sidebar). An additional four soldiers and eight officers, including Brinson, Pappas and Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of military police at Abu Ghraib, have been reprimanded. (Pappas and Karpinski were also relieved of their posts.) To date no high-level U.S. officials have been brought to justice in a court of law for what went on at Abu Ghraib.
Our purpose for presenting this large catalog of images remains much the same as it was four weeks ago when we first published a much smaller number of Abu Ghraib photos that had not previously appeared in the media. As Walter Shapiro wrote, Abu Ghraib symbolizes “the failure of a democratic society to investigate well-documented abuses by its soldiers.” The documentary record of the abuse has come out in the media in a piecemeal fashion, often lacking context or description. Meanwhile, our representatives in Washington have allowed the facts about what occurred to fester in Pentagon reports without acting on their disturbing conclusions. We believe this extensive, if deeply disturbing, CID archive of photographic evidence belongs in the public record as documentation toward further investigation and accountability.
While we want readers to understand what it is we’re presenting, we also want to make clear its limitations. The 279-photo CID timeline and other material obtained by Salon do not include the agency’s conclusions about the evidence it gathered. The captions, which Salon has chosen to reproduce almost verbatim (see methodology), contain a significant number of missing names of soldiers and detainees, misspellings and other minor discrepancies; we don’t know if the CID addressed these issues in other drafts or documents. Also, the CID materials contain two different forensic reports. The first, completed June 6, 2004, in Tikrit, Iraq, analyzed a seized laptop computer and eight CDs and found 1,325 images and 93 videos of “suspected detainee abuse.” The second report, completed a month later in Fort Belvoir, Va., analyzed 12 CDs and found “approximately 280 individual digital photos and 19 digital movies depicting possible detainee abuse.” It remains unclear why and how the CID narrowed its set of forensic evidence to the 279 images and 19 videos that we reproduce here.
Although the photos are a disturbing visual account of particular incidents inside Abu Ghraib prison, they should not be viewed as representing the sum total of what occurred. As the Schlesinger report states in its convoluted prose: “We do know that some of the egregious abuses at Abu Ghraib which were not photographed did occur during interrogation sessions and that abuses during interrogation sessions occurred elsewhere.” Also, the documentation doesn’t include many details about the detainees who were abused and tortured at Abu Ghraib. While the International Committee of the Red Cross report from February 2004 cited military intelligence officers as estimating that “between 70 to 90 percent of persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake,” much remains unknown about the detainees abused in the “hard site” where the Army housed violent and dangerous detainees and where much of the abuse took place.
Finally, it’s critical to recognize that this set of images from Abu Ghraib is only one snapshot of systematic tactics the United States has used in four-plus years of the global war on terror. There have been many allegations of abuse, torture and other practices that violate international law, from holding prisoners without charging them at Guantánamo Bay and other secretive U.S. military bases and prison facilities around the world to the practice of “rendition,” or the transporting of detainees to foreign countries whose regimes use torture, to ongoing human rights violations inside detention facilities in Iraq. Abu Ghraib in fall 2003 may have been its own particular hell, but the variations of individual abuse perpetrated appear to be exceptional in only one way: They were photographed and filmed.
About the writer
Joan Walsh is Salon’s editor in chief.
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“Standard operating procedure”
Chapter 1: Oct. 17-22, 2003
Read more: Michael Scherer, Abu Ghraib, Mark Benjamin
Salon Directory (browse by topic)
The Abu Ghraib Files
1. Oct. 17-22, 2003
“Standard operating procedure”
2. Oct. 24-25, 2003
“Dehumanization”
3. Oct. 28-29, 2003
“Sexual exploitation”
4. Nov. 1-4, 2003
“Electrical wires”
5. Nov. 4-5, 2003
“Other government agencies”
6. Nov. 7-9, 2003
“Dog pile”
7. Nov. 14-Dec. 9, 2003
“Lacerations”
8. Dec. 12-30, 2003
“Working dogs”
9. Nov. 4-Dec. 2, 2003
“Mentally deranged”
10. Video
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II. Most of the photos depict detainees shackled naked in stress positions with women’s underwear or hoods on their heads. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, civilian contractor Adel Nakhla and a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Sgt. Cathcart.
In the fall of 2003, the military police at Abu Ghraib systematically abused detainees using interrogation techniques similar to those once approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — forced nudity, stress positions, hooding and sleep deprivation, to name a few. Rumsfeld had approved harsh interrogation methods on Dec. 2, 2002, in a then classified memo for interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The memo was leaked to the media and eventually released by the White House in June 2004, sparking heated debate, domestically and internationally, about whether these tougher U.S. interrogation policies amounted to approval of torture and violation of international law.
In the year following Rumsfeld’s memo, the Bush administration’s legal framework for employing these interrogation techniques, and the approved techniques themselves, changed multiple times. The techniques Rumsfeld approved ostensibly were intended for use only on suspected terrorists and so-called unlawful enemy combatants, with trained interrogators receiving case-by-case approval. Instead, they spread widely through the military’s interrogation operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and spiraled out of control, Army documents show. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, U.S. soldiers and intelligence personnel began to use these techniques in Iraq, where they were informally “accepted as SOP [standard operating procedure] by newly arrived interrogators,” according to an August 2004 report on Abu Ghraib abuses by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. By September 2003, Gen. Geoffrey Miller had arrived at Abu Ghraib, allegedly with a mandate to “Gitmo-ize” interrogation procedures at the prison.
The official guidance for proper interrogation techniques in Iraq became confused, even contradictory. “By mid-October, interrogation policy in Iraq had changed three times in less than 30 days,” explained Fay. An Army investigation by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones found that the military command in Iraq, led by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, failed to provide proper oversight of interrogators at Abu Ghraib, contributing to the abuse. Some soldiers involved were inadequately trained in interrogation, investigators found.
These failures set the stage for many of the abuses apparent in these photographs. Military intelligence officers and civilian contractors began ordering military police to “set the conditions” for interrogations, Army investigators found. “This is not doctrinally sound due to the different missions and agendas assigned to each of these respective specialties,” Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba said in his March 2004 report.
“It is clear that pressure for additional intelligence and the more aggressive methods sanctioned by the Secretary of Defense memorandum resulted in stronger interrogation techniques. They did contribute to a belief that stronger interrogation methods were needed and appropriate,” concluded a Defense Department review of detainee operations, led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and released in August 2004. “We cannot be sure how much the number and severity of abuses would have been curtailed had there been early and consistent guidance from higher levels. Nonetheless, such guidance was needed and likely would have had a limiting effect.”
The abuses at Abu Ghraib that were photographed on Oct. 18 and 19, along with detainee testimony, show the visceral effects of the interrogation tactics once sanctioned for detainees at Guantánamo by Rumsfeld. Many of the photos depict a single detainee shackled naked to a bed with underwear on his head. A July 1, 2004, report on Abu Ghraib by the Army’s CID said this man was “possibly” a detainee named H—–. Graner, however, whose camera was used to take most of these photos, told CID investigators on April 6, 2005, that these pictures showed another detainee named W—–, whom Graner called “Taxi Driver.” Graner said he was ordered by a civilian interrogator working at Abu Ghraib to strip, shackle and hood the detainee as part of a sleep deprivation program.
Regardless of which detainee these pictures show, both H—– and W—– told eerily similar tales to Army investigators. “They stripped me of all my clothes, even my underwear,” H—– told CID investigators on Jan. 18, 2004. “They gave me woman’s underwear that was rose color with flowers in it, and they put the bag over my face. One of them whispered in my ear, ‘Today I am going to fuck you,’ and he said this in Arabic.”
“I faced more harsh punishment from Grainer [sic],” H—– continued. “He cuffed my hands with irons behind my back to the metal of the window, to the point my feet were off the ground and I was hanging there for about 5 hours just because I asked about the time, because I wanted to pray. And then they took all my clothes and he took the female underwear and he put it over my head. After he released me from the window, he tied me to my bed until before dawn.”
W—– gave a similar account of being hung up by his hands — like the detainee pictured here — in a statement to CID investigators on Jan. 21, 2004. “[T]he American police, the guy who wears glasses, he put red woman’s underwear over my head. And then he tied me to the window that is in the cell with my hands behind my back until I lost consciousness,” he said in a statement.
The Fay report found that there was “ample evidence of detainees being forced to wear women’s underwear.” Fay concluded that the use of women’s underwear may have been part of the military intelligence tactic called “ego down,” adding that the method constitutes abuse and sexual humiliation.
The Fay report also indicates that W—– was a military intelligence detainee “of potentially high value.” Fay concluded that it was difficult to ignore the circumstantial likelihood that military intelligence had ordered the military police to “set conditions” for interrogation. “MI [military intelligence] should have been aware of what was done to this detainee,” Fay wrote.
On Oct. 21, a few days after most of these photos were taken, the International Red Cross began a three-day tour of Abu Ghraib to evaluate the conditions for detainees. At the end of the visit, the Red Cross told the military leaders at the prison about incidents of “handcuffing, nakedness, wearing of female underwear and sleep deprivation,” according to the Fay report.
The military took no action, initially. Two months later, on Dec. 24, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the head of military police at Abu Ghraib, sent the Red Cross a letter that glossed over the problems “close to the point of denying the inhumane treatment, humiliation and abuse,” according to Fay.
“Dehumanization”
Chapter 2: Oct. 24-25, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken with a camera owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. They depict two major events of abuse: the leashing of a detainee referred to by U.S. soldiers as “Gus” and the punishment of three Iraqi detainees who had been accused of raping a 15-year-old boy in the prison. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Pfc. Lynndie England, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, civilian contractor Adel Nakhla, Spc. Roman Krol, Spc. Armin J. Cruz Jr. and Spc. Sabrina Harman, as well as a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Spc. Rivera, three soldiers the CID identifies as “possibly Smith, Davis K. and Cinzano” and one soldier the CID identifies as unknown.
Unlike the first set of photos, the abuses depicted on Oct. 24 and 25 have not been formally connected with specific orders from military leaders. Army investigators found that these incidents showed military police (M.P.) and military intelligence (M.I.) soldiers deciding on their own to punish and embarrass detainees. In his report, Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones categorized these abuses as “intentional violent or sexual abuses” that soldiers and contractors did not believe “were permitted by any policy.”
Other investigators concluded, however, that the worst abuses by military police and others arose from an “atmosphere of permissiveness” that pervaded Abu Ghraib. In one example of this, the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay noted that the systematic use of nudity to humiliate detainees in preparation for interrogation “likely contributed to an escalating ‘de-humanization’ of the detainees and set the stage for additional and more severe abuses to occur.”
The first set of pictures, showing England holding the leash of a detainee, was taken by Graner, according to military police statements. In April 2005, Graner told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command that he had put the leash around the detainee and then handed the end of the leash to England, his girlfriend at the time. The detainee, who is identified by the CID as A—– H—–, was called “Gus” by Graner and England.
Graner claimed to investigators that the detainee crawled out of the cell under his own power. “I asked England to hold the end of the tether that I had because he wasn’t aggressive at this point,” Graner said. England gave a similar account to investigators. “He [Graner] gave me the end of the strap and took a picture,” England told the CID investigators on Jan. 14, 2004. “I did not drag or pull on the leash. I simply stood with the strap in my hand.” According to the CID, Ambuhl can be seen standing at the left side of the frame.
Several hours later, shortly after 11 p.m. on Oct. 25, a second incident was captured by Graner’s digital camera. Army investigators found that three men were delivered to the military intelligence wing at Abu Ghraib, all of them accused of being involved in the rape of an Iraqi teenager. According to the CID, a medical log that night reported the following: “15-year old Iraqi male treated for hemorrhage of his anus. Patient was raped in his hard cell.”
The three men were delivered to a group of military police and military intelligence soldiers, including four military police soldiers — Graner, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II, Harman and Sgt. Javal S. Davis — and two military intelligence soldiers, Cruz and Krol.
The soldiers stripped the accused rapists and positioned them in the hallway in a variety of sexual positions, according to the Fay report. “The detainees were naked, being yelled at by an MP through a megaphone. The detainees were forced to crawl on their stomachs and were handcuffed together,” the report said. Fay also noted that one soldier poured water on the detainees from a cup, while another threw a foam football at them.
The detainee named H—–, who may have been shown in an earlier photo with underwear on his head, later told Army investigators that he had witnessed this event. “I saw Grainer [sic] punching one of the prisoners right in his face very hard when he refused to take off his underwear,” the detainee claimed on Jan. 18, 2004. “I heard them begging for help.”
Nakhla, a civilian translator employed by the Titan Corp., told CID investigators on Jan. 18, 2004, that he helped translate the verbal abuse of the other soldiers. “Don’t try to run away. Stop right there. Are you gay? Do you like what is happening to you? Are you all gays? You must like that position. These were some of the questions or things that I told them,” Nakhla said.
England claimed in her January statement that military intelligence had instructed the military police to “rough them [the rape suspects] up.” An appendix to the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba also pointed to involvement by military intelligence, apparently based on England’s statement. The Fay report, too, concluded that there was direct military intelligence involvement in the abuse by the soldiers present. However, Fay said the abuse of the three men, which continued over several days, did not appear “to be based on MI orders.” Fay found that the three accused rapists “were incarcerated for criminal acts and were not of intelligence interest.”
“Sexual exploitation”
Chapter 3: Oct. 28-29, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using the camera owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. They consist of a series of posed pictures of female detainees, including two detainees who were reportedly arrested on charges of prostitution, and one picture of a male detainee with his hands cuffed behind his back. One photo shows a female detainee exposing her breasts. In the first few photos, Spc. Sabrina Harman is shown posing with the female detainees.
Graner told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) in April 2005 that the guards at Abu Ghraib would sometimes allow female detainees to roam around in a common area at night. On the night of Oct. 28, 2003, Graner said he remembered taking multiple pictures of two young women, who were later identified by investigators as criminal detainees who had been arrested on suspicion of prostitution.
According to Graner’s statement, two other soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and a soldier Graner identified as military intelligence, were flirting with the girls. He said one of the women wanted to pose for several pictures. “I took the one, and then she called me back for another one,” Graner said. “She pulled her top off.” Graner said he gave a disk with the photographs to the person he said was from military intelligence.
A report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay found “no evidence to confirm if these acts were consensual or coerced; however in either case sexual exploitation of a person in US custody constitutes abuse.” Although Graner stated he gave a disk with the photos to someone from military intelligence, Fay concluded that there did not appear to be any direct military intelligence involvement.
Military investigations of Abu Ghraib turned up other incidents of abusive treatment of female detainees that were not shown in photographs. According to the Fay report, one of the most horrific incidents occurred on Oct. 7, when three military intelligence soldiers allegedly assaulted a female detainee. The unnamed detainee told investigators that she was taken to an empty cell, where a soldier held her hands behind her back while another soldier forcibly kissed her. She was then taken to another cell, where she was shown a naked male detainee and told that she would be stripped if she did not cooperate. Finally, she was returned to her cell, and forced to kneel and raise her arms while one of the soldiers removed her shirt. She said she began to cry, and her shirt was returned to her, with a warning that the soldiers would return each night if she did not cooperate. The Fay report found that there was no record of an authorized interrogation of this detainee on that night.
When CID investigators questioned the three military intelligence soldiers, they refused to provide statements. According to the Fay report, the three soldiers, who have never been named publicly, received nonjudicial punishment for failing to get authorization to interrogate the female detainee. They were also removed from future interrogation duty.
“Electrical wires”
Chapter 4: Nov. 1-4, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict soldiers removing stitches from a detainee with a cut on his ear, a number of posed shots of the prison guards, including one in which Frederick urinates in a prison cell and two in which Harman wears women’s underwear over her uniform, and the abuse of a detainee referred to by U.S. personnel as “Gilligan.” In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Harman, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Spc. Goodman and two soldiers the CID identifies as unknown.
One of the most iconic images of abuse to emerge from Abu Ghraib showed a detainee perched on top of a cardboard box, with a hood on his head, a blanket around his shoulders and electrical wires extending from his hands. To the soldiers at Abu Ghraib, this detainee was known as “Gilligan.” In early November 2003 an agent from the Army’s CID — the same agency that would later investigate abuse at Abu Ghraib and assemble the evidence and timeline reproduced in this photo archive — allegedly ordered military police to soften up the detainee by making his life “a living hell.”
According to CID documents obtained by Salon, the detainee in this iconic image was most likely a man named Saad, whose full name is being withheld by Salon to protect his identity. On March 11, the New York Times, possibly in error, reported that the detainee was an Iraqi man named Ali Shalal Qaissi. In addition to other evidence to the contrary detailed in a Salon report Tuesday, a CID spokesman confirmed to Salon that Qaissi “is not the detainee who was depicted in the photograph” that appeared in the Times.
CID documents do place a man with Qaissi’s description — including a deformed left hand — in the military intelligence wing at Abu Ghraib on the night that electrical wires were used. In an e-mailed statement following the Times report, Qaissi told Salon that he remembered another detainee, Saad, who was abused in a similar manner at the same time. “I have seen at least two dreadful pictures showing this horrible experience,” Qaissi wrote. “One is me. The other I believe could be Saad because he went before me to the area I had to go, where I was to be interrogated.” It is also possible the CID is wrong about the detainee in the photo published by the Times. Lingering questions about the detainee’s identity underscore the many details that remain unknown about what happened inside Abu Ghraib.
As part of its mission, the CID has the dual responsibility of investigating crimes committed against U.S. forces and crimes committed by U.S. forces. In November, a CID agent was interviewing Saad as a suspect in the kidnapping and murder of two U.S. soldiers, according to a CID spokesman. In a journal he kept at the time, Frederick alleged that the CID agent ordered the harsh treatment of the detainee. A report including details from Frederick’s journal by the Baltimore Sun in May 2004 led the CID to open a new investigation.
In October 2004, the Sun reported that the CID agent named in Frederick’s journal was Sgt. Ricardo Romero. In April 2005, Graner repeated that claim, telling investigators that Romero had specifically given orders to mistreat the detainee. “You know his [Romero's] words were, ‘Make his life a living hell for the next three days,’” said Graner. “He was to be kept awake for three days and pretty much harassed.”
The CID acknowledged that an agent was found derelict for behavior at Abu Ghraib, but would not confirm that the agent was Romero. “One Special Agent who was reportedly identified in Sgt. Frederick’s journal as being involved in potential abuse visited the detainee facility to interview an Iraqi suspect as part of an investigation into the kidnapping and murder of two U.S. soldiers,” CID spokesman Chris Grey wrote in an e-mail to Salon. “A thorough and impartial investigation found reason to believe that the agent in question was derelict in his duties by making unprofessional and inappropriate comments during his visit to the Abu Ghraib facility.” Grey also told Salon that the CID agent investigated for abusing Saad did not participate in the CID’s later investigation into abuse at Abu Ghraib.
Some of the techniques military police used on Saad can be traced to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s Dec. 2, 2002, memo, including yelling, hooding, forced stress positions and sleep deprivation. “It was him [Sgt. Javal S. Davis] and I, and basically, just yelling at him the whole night, you know, more or less repeating the first half of — was it ‘Full Metal Jacket?’ — loud as you could to him, and then asking him what his name was,” Graner told Army investigators. Harman gave a statement to the CID on Jan. 15, 2004, claiming to have put the wires on the detainee’s hands. “I was joking with him, and told him if he fell off, he would get electrocuted,” Harman said. One year later, Graner spoke to investigators about forcing detainees to stand on boxes, a tactic he claims to have employed with the approval of military intelligence. “You fell asleep, you fell down. Wow, you just woke yourself up,” Graner explained.
After the photos were given to CID investigators, the agency interviewed Saad about the abuse. During this interview, on Jan. 16, 2004, the CID did not treat Saad as a hostile detainee but as a cooperating witness. “A tall black soldier came and put electrical wires on my fingers and toes and on my penis, and I had a bag over my head,” Saad said in his statement. “Then he was saying ‘which switch is for electricity.’ And he came with a loudspeaker and he was shouting near my ear. And then he brought the camera and he took some pictures of me, which I knew because of the flash of the camera.”
When one night of abuse ended, Saad said he was taken back to his cell. He said he was able to sleep for about an hour before guards came through to conduct the morning head count. “I couldn’t go to sleep after that because I was very scared,” Saad said.
This set of photographs also includes two images of a bearded detainee with stitches in his ear. According to Graner, this was W—–, the detainee known as “Taxi Driver.” The criminal investigation confirmed the possibility that the photos were of W—–.
In a statement, W—– said, “The police started beating me on my kidneys and then they hit me on my right ear and it started bleeding and I lost consciousness.” The report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay said that this detainee blamed the blow to his ear on an unnamed civilian interpreter from the Titan Corp. The military police had a different story. An entry in the military police logbook indicates that W—– “fell and hit bunk due to wet floor in cell” after “PT” (common military shorthand for “physical training”). “[I]nmate received one (1) stitch on Right Ear,” the logbook reads.
The Fay report could not confirm if the photos of a detainee with a wounded ear showed W—–.
“Other government agencies”
Chapter 5: Nov. 4-5, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict a dead Iraqi detainee, Manadel al-Jamadi, whose body had been stored by CIA personnel overnight in a shower room at Abu Ghraib. Two of the photos show Graner and Harman posing with al-Jamadi’s corpse.
On the night of Nov. 4, 2003, someone in the military intelligence wing at Abu Ghraib wrote an entry in the military police logbook: “Shift change normal relief 1 OGA in 1B shower not to be used until OGA is moved out.”
In military lingo, OGA stands for “other government agency” and denotes clandestine operations conducted independent of the military chain of command. At Abu Ghraib, OGA referred “almost exclusively” to the Central Intelligence Agency, according to the investigation by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. According to logbook entries, OGA detainees sometimes accounted for roughly one-fifth of the 30 to 50 inmates included in the daily head count in the military intelligence wing.
Military police told investigators that they believed CIA personnel followed their own rule book. “You know these guys can kill people,” Graner said in an April 2005 statement to the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID). “The OGA guys do whatever they want. They don’t exist.”
Several Army and Department of Defense investigations found that the CIA presence may have contributed to the abuse committed by military police. “There was at least the perception, and perhaps the reality, that non-DOD agencies had different rules regarding interrogation and detention operations,” an investigation report by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones concluded. “Such a perception encouraged soldiers to deviate from prescribed techniques.”
A subsequent CID investigation showed that the OGA detainee entered into the logbook was Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi man who had been detained by the CIA. According to the investigation, al-Jamadi had been captured by a Navy SEAL team, which suspected him of involvement in an attack against the Red Cross. “He was reportedly resisting arrest, and a SEAL Team member butt-stroked him on the side of the head to suppress the threat he posed,” the Fay report found. Two CIA operatives brought al-Jamadi to Abu Ghraib shortly after 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 4.
On April 7, 2004, Sgt. Walter A. Diaz, a military police soldier on shift at the time al-Jamadi arrived, gave a statement to the CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG), which was later obtained by Salon. He described al-Jamadi walking into the prison under his own power. Diaz said that al-Jamadi was wearing a shirt, but no pants, and appeared to be shivering from the cold. Diaz said he had helped to shackle al-Jamadi, at the direction of the OGA, to a window in the shower room in preparation for interrogation.
“They used two pairs of handcuffs and secured Al-Jamaidi [sic] in a standing position with his arms over and behind his head,” the CIA OIG reported. Some time later, Diaz said the OGA agents asked him to return to the shower room to reposition al-Jamadi higher on the window. Diaz said he remembers the OGA interrogator telling him, “This guy doesn’t want to cooperate.” Diaz reported that at this point, the detainee’s face was swollen and deformed, and he was bleeding from the mouth. Diaz said he also realized that al-Jamadi no longer had a pulse.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology later ruled al-Jamadi’s death a homicide, caused by “blunt force injuries to the torso complicated by compromised respiration.” According to the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, al-Jamadi’s death occurred less than an hour after his arrival at the prison.
Military police Capt. Christopher R. Brinson also gave a statement, on April 5, 2004, to the CIA OIG, which was obtained by Salon. He said he reported to the shower area on the morning of Nov. 4, 2003, where a CIA interrogator and a translator were waiting next to al-Jamadi’s body. According to the interview with the CIA inspector general, Brinson told investigators that “the interrogator seemed shaken up and had said something like, ‘The guy just died on us.’” At that point, according to Brinson, al-Jamadi was lying on the ground face up. One of his eyes was bloody, and there was a smudge of blood on the floor about the size of a man’s palm. Brinson said there were ligature marks on al-Jamadi’s wrists consistent with the handcuffs used during interrogation.
At the direction of an OGA official, Brinson said, he ordered the military police to put al-Jamadi’s body in a bag and pack it with ice. The body was left in the shower room overnight, and a notation was made in the military logbook.
According to Graner’s April 2005 testimony to CID investigators, shortly after he and Harman came on the night shift, he remembered noticing that an odd fluid was leaking out of the 1B shower into his office. He said he pulled a spare key he had to the shower room and opened the door. Graner said that there, on the far side of the room, he and Harman saw a sealed body bag leaking fluid across the floor. “We opened it up and looked at it,” Graner said. “No one told us not to go into the shower.”
Graner and Harman decided to pose for pictures with the body. At one point, Harman gave a thumbs-up sign above the Iraqi’s mutilated face. A close-up shot was taken with Harman’s camera of the dead man’s thumb, which had bruising that Graner said he found “out of the ordinary.” Graner said he cleaned up the leaking fluid with cleaning crystals and chlorine.
The next morning the CIA directed the removal of al-Jamadi from the prison by placing him on a stretcher and placing an I.V. in his arm, according to Brinson’s statement. The goal, according to the Fay report, was to make it appear as if al-Jamadi “was only ill, thereby not drawing the attention of Iraqi guards and detainees.”
Both Fay and Jones concluded that this working relationship between OGA and military personnel, without any formal written arrangement, directly put Army soldiers at risk of breaking the law. “It is clear that the interrogation practices of other government agencies led to a loss of accountability at Abu Ghraib,” concluded Fay and Jones in a joint introduction to their reports. “Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines should never be put in a position that potentially puts them at risk for non-compliance with the Geneva Convention or Laws of Land Warfare.”
The Department of Defense review of detainee operations led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger noted that the CIA conducted interrogations at a number of Department of Defense facilities. “In some facilities these interrogations were conducted in conjunction with military personnel, but at Abu Ghraib the CIA was allowed to conduct interrogations separately,” the report found. The Fay report blamed part of this variation on Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the director of the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib.
“LTC Jordan became fascinated with the ‘Other Government Agencies,’” the Fay report said. “LTC Jordan allowed OGA to do interrogations without the presence of Army personnel.” As a result, Fay concluded, Jordan “did not help the situation,” contributing to a sense among soldiers and civilians that they did not need to follow Army rules.
On Feb. 24, 2004, Jordan gave a statement to Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba about the al-Jamadi death. Jordan said he had been instructed to work with OGA by Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, because of Jordan’s “clearance level back at Langley” — a reference to CIA headquarters in Virginia. Jordan’s military records show he is a specialist in tactical and strategic intelligence.
After al-Jamadi’s death, Jordan told Taguba that he remembered Pappas saying, “Well if I go down, I’m not going down alone. The guys from Langley are going with me.” To date, no criminal charges have been filed against any CIA personnel for the death of al-Jamadi.
“Dog pile”
Chapter 6: Nov. 7-9, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict a long night of physical and sexual abuse of seven detainees accused of inciting a riot inside the prison. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Harman, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, Pfc. Lynndie England and a soldier CID identifies as unknown.
At approximately 7 p.m. on the night of Nov. 7, military police at Abu Ghraib noted in their logbook that a riot had broken out at Camp Ganci, a detainee facility that was part of the Abu Ghraib complex. In response, the military intelligence wing was put in a state of lockdown. Word filtered through that a detainee had managed to escape, according to the log. At 10:15 p.m., it was noted in the log that the military police had received “seven inmates from the Ganci Riot.”
For at least two hours, these seven suspected rioters were subjected to some of the worst documented abuse at Abu Ghraib. They were verbally abused, stripped, slapped, punched, jumped on, forced into a human pyramid, forced to simulate masturbation, and forced to simulate oral sex, several Army reports concluded. The Army’s investigation identified Frederick, Graner, Harman, Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Sivits and England as involved in the abuse. “CPL Graner knocked at least one detainee unconscious and SSG Frederick punched one so hard in the chest that he couldn’t breath and a medic was summoned,” a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay found.
England told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) on Jan. 14, 2003, that she had visited the military intelligence wing in the early morning hours of Nov. 8, because it was her birthday and she wanted to see her friends. She said Graner and Frederick told her they were bringing in seven prisoners from a riot at Ganci. “The prisoners were brought in in handcuffs and bags on the heads and wearing civilian clothes,” England said. She said she initially watched the ordeal from a higher tier. “Everyone else was downstairs pushing the prisoners into each other and the wall. Until they all ended up in a dog pile.” Later, England was photographed smiling and pointing at naked detainees.
Sivits told CID investigators on Jan. 14, 2004, that he believed he saw Davis run across the room twice and jump on the pile of detainees. “A couple of the detainees kind of made an AH sound as if this hurt them or caused them some type of pain,” Sivits said in his statement. The Fay report concluded that Davis, Frederick and Graner all jumped on the detainees. On Jan. 15, 2004, Davis admitted to investigators, “I did fall on the inmates on purpose and not on purpose. I was very upset at the inmates for wanting to kill some of my fellow soldiers.” At one point, Sivits said he remembered Graner saying, “Damn that hurt,” after punching a detainee.
Once they were stacked, Harman and Graner posed for photographs behind the pile. At some point, Frederick told the detainees to simulate masturbation, the Fay report found. England told investigators that she saw Frederick move a detainee’s arm in a masturbating motion. “He let go of the prisoner’s arm and the prisoner continued to masturbate,” England said.
Two detainees later gave statements to the Army’s criminal investigators, describing their experience that night. One detainee told investigators on Jan. 20, 2004, that the guards were laughing during the abuse. “They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees,” he said. “And we had to bark like a dog and if we didn’t do that, they start hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy.”
Another detainee also described the forced masturbation in a Jan. 18, 2004, interview with Army investigators. According to the criminal file, this detainee’s ripped pant leg can be seen on the far left of a photo in which Graner sits atop a pile of detainees, his arm cocked in preparation for a punch. “How did you feel when the guards were treating you this way?” an investigator asked the detainee.
The detainee replied: “I was trying to kill myself but I didn’t have any way of doing it.”
“Lacerations”
Chapter 7: Nov. 17-Dec. 9, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II. They depict two instances of soldiers providing medical attention to detainees with cuts on their faces, and several detainees who are naked or hooded. One naked and hooded detainee is shown with a number written on his chest and smiley faces drawn on his nipples. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Sgt. Wallin, a soldier the CID identifies as Spc. Christopherson, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Pfc. Lynndie England, civilian contractor Adel Nakhla, a soldier the CID identifies as Sgt. Evans and several soldiers the CID identifies as unknown.
In addition to humiliation and abuse, the military police at Abu Ghraib photographed and documented detainee injuries. These photographs, which were taken partly as a boast and partly for official records, according to military police testimony, show two detainees with significant cuts on their faces.
The first of this series of photographs was taken on Nov. 14, after six detainees, including at least four who claimed to be Iraqi generals, were brought into the military intelligence wing, all of them charged with attempting to incite a riot at Camp Vigilant, a nearby detainee facility.
One of those prisoners, identified as G—– by Army investigators, was photographed several times with Graner’s camera. According to an entry in the military police log, the detainee received treatment for a “1.5 inch laceration on the right side of his chin.” In his April 2005 statement to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, Graner said the injury was caused when he shoved the hooded detainee against a wall. “I had brought him over to the wall where we were processing people and he had been resisiting [sic] me the whole time,” Graner said. “When I put him up near the wall, he had come back on me. I pushed him forward against the wall, blood started coming from underneath his sandbag.”
A report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay repeats this account of events, adding that a medical corpsman was called to stitch up the detainee’s chin. Nonetheless, Graner can be seen working on the wound in one photo. A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba notes that a military police guard was improperly allowed “to stitch the wound of a detainee.” The Fay report did not reach a conclusion about whether G—–’s injury was caused by “reasonable force.” “When, where and by whom this detainee suffered his injuries could not be determined,” Fay concluded.
As part of the same incident, another detainee claimed to investigators that he was “slammed to the ground, punched, and forced to crawl naked to his cell with a sandbag over his head,” according to the Fay report, though the report gives no indication of who allegedly committed the abuse. These two detainees, as well as four others who arrived on Nov. 14, were considered “high value Iraqi General Officers or senior members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.”
About two hours later, Graner made another log entry saying he was told by military police Sgt. Hydrue S. Joyner — who was in turn told by Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, one of the commanders in charge of interrogation operations — to “strip out” and “PT” the six detainees. In his report, Fay said he was unable to conclude whether “PT,” which commonly means “physical training,” meant physical stress or abuse. Fay also did not determine whether “strip out” meant isolation or removal of clothing. Nonetheless, Fay found that the facts suggest that “MI [military intelligence] could have provided direction or MP [military police] could have been given the perception they should abuse or ‘soften up detainees.’” According to Graner’s log entry, Capt. Christopher R. Brinson overrode the orders to “strip out” the detainees. The detainees were, instead, placed in jumpsuits in their cells. “Having them stand in their cells would be their PT,” Graner wrote in the log.
On Dec. 1, Graner’s camera captured a similar set of photographs of a man Graner identified as an Iraqi corrections officer accused of smuggling weapons into the prison and giving them to a detainee. According to the CID investigation, on Nov. 24 a detainee had obtained weapons and fired several rounds at the military police guards. Soldiers fired shotgun rounds at the detainee’s legs, and the detainee was dragged from his cell and sent to the hospital. According to an appendix to the Taguba report, when this detainee returned to the prison, Graner “beat him severely, including direct blows to his leg wounds.”
Graner told CID investigators that a contract interrogator told him to rough up the Iraqi corrections officer. Graner said that he and Frederick tried to move the hooded corrections officer out of the cell to a shower, but the detainee tried to escape. “He ran right into the top bunk of a metal bunk bed,” Graner said.
The Fay report discusses at length other abuses that occurred in the course of finding the Iraqi policeman who had smuggled in the gun. “During the interrogations of the Iraqi Police, harsh and unauthorized techniques were employed to include use of dogs … and the removal of clothing,” Fay wrote. “It was the general understanding that evening that LTG [Ricardo] Sanchez and COL [Thomas M.] Pappas had authorized all measures to identify those involved, however, that should not have been construed to include abuse.” Fay determined Jordan was responsible for the harsh and humiliating treatment of the Iraqi police suspects.
A few days later, in the early morning hours of Dec. 6, several more naked detainees had their pictures taken. According to Graner, a number of these hooded detainees were OGA (other government agency) prisoners. At one point a person whom Graner identifies as a medic — CID documentation further identifies him as Sgt. Evans — can be seen filling out paperwork while one of these OGA detainees stands nearby. Nakhla, a Titan Corp. interrogator, can also be seen in this photo.
Another series of photos taken later that night shows two naked detainees shackled together. One of these men has what appear to be several cuts on his head.
“Working dogs”
Chapter 8: Dec. 12-30, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Sgt. Ivan Frederick II, as well as a third camera whose owner is not identified by the Criminal Investigation Command (CID). They depict two incidents of detainees being confronted with military dogs, a detainee who has been bitten by a military dog and a detainee receiving medical attention from soldiers for his wounds. The photos also show a detainee who has apparently been shot in the buttocks using nonlethal ammunition. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner; Frederick; Sgt. Michael Smith; Sgt. Santos Cardona; civilian contractor Adel Nakhla; Spc. Sabrina Harman; a soldier the CID identifies as Spc. Strothers; persons the CID identifies only as “Hofecker,” “Richards,” “S. Hubbard” and “Barhouti”; a soldier the CID identifies as Sgt. Cathcart; several soldiers the CID identifies as unknown; and at least one person the CID identifies as a member of the Iraqi police.
Dogs arrived at Abu Ghraib on Nov. 20, 2003, and were used to abuse detainees just a few days later, according to Army reports. The use of dogs had been recommended two months earlier by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the U.S. prison facility at Guantánamo Bay, as part of his plan to improve interrogation in Iraq, according to a Department of Defense investigation led by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. Miller brought with him Guantánamo Bay interrogation guidelines and 200 pages of operating procedures that he used in Cuba, according to a statement Miller made to defense attorneys on Aug. 21, 2004. Miller later told Army investigators that he never intended for the dogs to be used during interrogations. But soldiers and officers on the ground in Iraq say they received a different message.
Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who became commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib in November 2003, said Miller told him military working dogs were effective in “setting the atmosphere for interrogations,” according to a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. Then, in a Sept. 14 memo approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, interrogators were authorized to use dogs in interrogations under controlled circumstances. On Oct. 12, Sanchez issued another, more narrow set of guidelines allowing for the selective use of muzzled dogs during interrogations.
The idea of using dogs in interrogations was not an aberration. At least two other military memos referenced exploiting many Arabs’ known fear of dogs, including an Oct. 11, 2002, review of potential interrogation tactics for Guantánamo Bay, which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drew from for his Dec. 2, 2002, memo authorizing harsh tactics at that prison.
“The use of dogs in interrogations to ‘fear up’ detainees was generally unquestioned and stems in part from the interrogation techniques and counter-resistance policy,” the Fay report concluded.
The trainers from five dog teams that arrived at Abu Ghraib did not receive proper instruction on the intended use of the dogs, the Schlesinger report said. “Navy dog handlers indicated they had not previously worked in a prison environment,” the report said. One Navy handler explained to investigators that “he had not received an orientation on what was expected from his canine unit nor what was authorized or not authorized at the compound,” the Schlesinger report said. “He further stated he had never received instruction on the use of force in the compound.”
Most of the photographs in this set were taken on the night of Dec. 12, during a dog bite incident with a detainee. In his April 2005 statement to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, Graner said he had discovered that a sheet of plywood was missing from the window in the cell of the detainee named M—–, whom Graner called “the Iranian.” Graner said he decided that he needed to search the cell to make sure that no contraband or weapons had been smuggled to the detainee through the open window. He enlisted the help of Frederick and two dog handlers, Sgt. Michael Smith and Sgt. Santos Cardona. Other soldiers came down to watch. “You know, it’s a big deal having a canine there,” Graner said.
According to Graner’s account, he opened the cell and ordered M—– down on the ground. “He had been petrified,” Graner said of the detainee. “I went to go search his cell, and he bolted towards the door.” The detainee began punching and kicking him, Graner claims.
At least one of the dog handlers released his dog on the man, and the detainee was bitten several times in the legs. Graner said pictures were taken so that one of the dog handlers could use them in a report about the incident.
On Jan. 27, 2004, Smith gave a statement to the CID that also described the detainee attacking Graner. Smith said that Cardona released his dog twice on the detainee in defense of Graner. “Since the prisoner was attacking an MP [military police], he [Cardona] allowed his dog to go in and bite the detainee,” said Smith.
The Fay report concluded that this incident resulted from military police “harassment and amusement.” Both Smith and Cardona are scheduled to go on trial by summer 2006 on charges of misusing their dogs at Abu Ghraib.
A second set of images depicts a dog menacing a terrified Syrian detainee, named A—–, in an orange jumpsuit. The detainee cowers against a wall while a leashed dog barks at him from a few feet away. According to the Fay report, this detainee was considered a “high value” target by military intelligence. Fay said that the detainee had been transported to Abu Ghraib from a Navy ship, and was suspected of being involved with al-Qaida. The Fay report found that it was “highly plausible” that this abuse was directed by a contract interrogator from CACI International, who was later identified by the Associated Press as Steven Stefanowicz.
Though both the Fay and Taguba reports accused Stefanowicz of leading abuse at Abu Ghraib, the former interrogator has not been criminally charged.
“Mr. Stefanowicz’s conduct throughout was always done with respect to the policies and orders in effect,” his lawyer, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., told Salon.
“None of the individuals mentioned in any of the various reports and investigations are currently employed by CACI. Beyond that, CACI does not comment on personnel matters,” a CACI spokesperson told Salon in an e-mail. “CACI has cooperated fully with the U.S. Army and other organizations of the U.S. government in all its inquiries and investigations and will continue to do so.”
“Mentally deranged”
Chapter 9: Nov. 4-Dec. 2, 2003
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation.
These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict several incidents of unusual behavior by a single detainee, whom the soldiers described as mentally deranged. The detainee is shown harming himself, and being restrained and otherwise toyed with by guards. In addition to the detainee, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Sgt. Javal S. Davis and civilian contractor Adel Nakhla.
In addition to “high value” intelligence targets, accused rioters and rapists, the military police at Abu Ghraib had to manage some mentally disturbed inmates, who had no apparent ties to any national security concern. The most prominent of these was a detainee named M—–, who was referred to by U.S. prison personnel as “Shitboy.” Over the course of five weeks, he was photographed dozens of times in various humiliating and self-destructive situations. At several points, soldiers chose simply to take photographs and video of M—– harming himself, instead of stepping in to stop him. When the detainee was in restraints, Graner posed for photographs alongside him like a big-game hunter displaying a catch.
A July 2004 report by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) concluded that the horrors depicted in these photos did not involve criminal acts by guards. This includes incidents in which the detainee sodomized himself with a banana, covered himself with his own feces, and banged his head repeatedly against a steel door until his head was bloody. At several points, military police claimed they put this detainee in restraints allegedly to “prevent the detainee from sodomizing himself and assaulting himself and others with his bodily fluids,” found a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay.
Nonetheless, Army investigators say these photographs show clear evidence of abuse. “A detainee with a known mental condition should not have been provided the banana or photographed,” the Fay report concluded. Military investigators did not further address the legal or moral consequences of U.S. soldiers’ allowing a debilitated prisoner in their custody to cause himself serious physical harm.
In his April 2005 statement to the CID, Graner describes several efforts by military police to control this detainee. At one point, Graner said he even injected M—– and another mentally deranged detainee with Benadryl to calm them down: “All our nut cases, we were just feeding them Benadryl because we had the psychotropic medications, but nobody would issue [them], which would have made life a lot easier for us.”
Graner said he believed that military intelligence had a psychiatrist at Abu Ghraib. But, Graner added, “he couldn’t help us out.”
Video from Abu Ghraib
Chapter 10: 19 digital video clips depicting possible detainee abuse.
Warning: Videos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and sexual humiliation.
This chapter contains 19 digital video clips that the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) determined to depict possible detainee abuse. The clips range from eight seconds to one minute and 39 seconds in length. Camera information is not available for all 19 videos; however, CID materials indicate that at least 13 of the videos were taken using a camera owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., and at least two of the videos were taken using a camera owned by Spc. Sabrina Harman.
The first two videos in this series depict a group of naked, hooded detainees who have apparently been forced to masturbate for the camera. The third and fourth videos in the series show three soldiers surrounding a detainee, apparently striking him and otherwise attempting to subdue him, and the same three soldiers directing a group of naked detainees to crouch side by side on their hands and knees. These videos seem to correspond to events depicted by photos in Chapter 6. Videos five through eight depict soldiers providing medical attention to a wounded detainee, an incident that is also documented by photos in Chapter 7. Videos nine through 19 in the series depict a detainee hitting his head against what appears to be a cell door, an incident that is also depicted by the last four photos in Chapter 9.
