From: Jei (jei@cc.hut.fi)
Date: Thu May 06 2004 - 12:34:26 MDT
Nice new pictures, check them out!!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6153.htm
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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