[News] New Prison Images Emerge

[News at freedomarchives.org]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5623-2004May5.html
New Prison Images Emerge
Graphic Photos May Be More Evidence of Abuse

By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 2004; Page A01

The collection of photographs begins like a travelogue from Iraq. Here are 
U.S. soldiers posing in front of a mosque. Here is a soldier riding a camel 
in the desert. And then: a soldier holding a leash tied around a man's neck 
in an Iraqi prison. He is naked, grimacing and lying on the floor.

Mixed in with more than 1,000 digital pictures obtained by The Washington 
Post are photographs of naked men, apparently prisoners, sprawled on top of 
one another while soldiers stand around them. There is another photograph 
of a naked man with a dark hood over his head, handcuffed to a cell door. 
And another of a naked man handcuffed to a bunk bed, his arms splayed so 
wide that his back is arched. A pair of women's underwear covers his head 
and face.

The graphic images, passed around among military police who served at the 
Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, are a new batch of photographs similar to 
those broadcast a week ago on CBS's "60 Minutes II" and published by the 
New Yorker magazine. They appear to provide further visual evidence of the 
chaos and unprofessionalism at the prison detailed in a report by Army Maj. 
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. His report, which relied in part on the 
photographs, found "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton 
criminal abuses" that were inflicted on detainees.

This group of photographs, taken from the summer of 2003 through the 
winter, ranges widely, from mundane images of everyday military life to 
pictures showing crude simulations of sex among soldiers. The new pictures 
appear to show American soldiers abusing prisoners, many of whom wear ID 
bands, but The Post could not eliminate the possibility that some of them 
were staged.

The photographs were taken by several digital cameras and loaded onto 
compact discs, which circulated among soldiers in the 372nd Military Police 
Company, an Army Reserve unit based in Cresaptown, Md. The pictures were 
among those seized by military investigators probing conditions at the 
prison, a source close to the unit said.

The investigation has led to charges being filed against six soldiers from 
the 372nd. "The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness 
statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence," 
Taguba's report states.

For many units serving in Iraq, digital cameras are pervasive and yet 
another example of how technology has transformed the way troops 
communicate with relatives back home. From Basra to Baghdad, they e-mail 
pictures home. Some soldiers, including those in the 372nd, even packed 
video cameras along with their rifles and Kevlar helmets.

Bill Lawson, whose nephew, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick, is one of 
the soldiers charged in the incident, said that Frederick sent home 
pictures from Iraq on a few occasions. They were "just ordinary photos, 
like a tourist would take" and nothing showing prisoner abuse, he said.

"I would say that's something that's very common that's going on in Iraq 
because it's so convenient and easy to do," Lawson said of troops sending 
pictures home. He added that his nephew also mailed videocassettes "of him 
talking into a camcorder to [his wife] when he was going on his rounds."

But in the case of prisoner abuse, the ubiquity of digital cameras has 
created a far more combustible international scandal that would have been 
sparked only by the release of Taguba's searing written report. Since the 
"60 Minutes II" broadcast, pictures of abuse have been posted on the 
Internet and shown on television stations worldwide.

The photographs have been condemned by U.S. military commanders, President 
Bush and leaders around the world. They have sparked particularly strong 
indignation in the Middle East, where many people see them as reinforcing 
the notion "that the situation in Iraq is one of occupation," said Shibley 
Telhami, who holds the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the 
University of Maryland.

The impact is heightened by religion and culture. Arabs "are even more 
offended when the issue has to do with nudity and sexuality," he said. "The 
bottom line here is these are pictures of utter humiliation."

It is unclear who took the photographs, or why.

Lawyers representing two of the accused soldiers, and some soldiers' 
relatives, have said the pictures were ordered up by military intelligence 
officials who were trying to humiliate the detainees and coerce other 
prisoners into cooperating.

"It is clear that the intelligence community dictated that these 
photographs be taken," said Guy L. Womack, a Houston lawyer representing 
Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, one of the soldiers charged.

The father of another soldier facing charges, Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits of 
Hyndman, Pa., also said his son was following orders. "He was asked to take 
pictures, and he did what he was told," Daniel Sivits said in a telephone 
interview last week.

Military spokesmen at the U.S. Central Command in Qatar and at the Combined 
Joint Task Force 7 headquarters in Baghdad referred requests for comment 
about those claims to Col. Jill Morgenthaler, a U.S. military spokeswoman. 
Morgenthaler could not be reached by telephone yesterday and did not return 
requests to comment by e-mail. Requests to speak with Col. Thomas M. Pappas 
-- who commands the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, based in Germany, 
and whose troops were stationed at Abu Ghraib -- were declined by a U.S. 
military spokesman for the Army's V Corps in Heidelberg, Germany.

Yesterday, in Fort Ashby, W.Va., two siblings and a friend identified Pfc. 
Lynndie England, 21, as the soldier appearing in a picture holding a leash 
tied to the neck of a man on the floor. England, a member of the 372nd, has 
also been identified in published reports as one of the soldiers in the 
earlier set of pictures that were made public, which her relatives also 
confirmed yesterday. England has been reassigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., her 
family said. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful. The military has not 
charged her in the case.

England's friends and relatives said the photographs must have been staged. 
"It just makes me laugh, because that's not Lynn," said Destiny Goin, 21, a 
friend. "She wouldn't pull a dog by its neck, let alone drag a human across 
a floor."

England worked as a clerk in the unit, processing prisoners before they 
were put in cells, taking their names, fingerprinting them and giving them 
identification numbers, her family said. Other soldiers would ask her to 
pose for photographs, said her father, Kenneth England. "That's how it 
happened," he said.

Soon after CBS aired its photographs, Terrie England said she received a 
call from her daughter.

" 'Mom,' she told me, 'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,' " 
Terrie England said.

The pictures obtained by The Post include shots of soldiers simulating 
sexually explicit acts with one another and shots of a cow being skinned 
and gutted and soldiers posing with its severed head. There are also dozens 
of pictures of a cat's severed head.

Other photographs show wounded men and corpses. In one, a dead man is lying 
in the back of a truck, his shirt, face and left arm covered in blood. His 
right arm is missing. Another photograph shows a body, gray and 
decomposing. A young soldier is leaning over the corpse, smiling broadly 
and giving the "thumbs-up" sign.

And in another picture a young woman lifts her shirt, exposing her breasts. 
She is wearing a white band with numbers on her wrist, but it is unclear 
whether she is a prisoner.

Staff writers Michael Amon, Scott Higham and Josh White contributed to this 
report.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company


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