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The Scapegoats of Torture in Iraq and California

by Corey Weinstein, MD (prisonfocus [at] energy-net.org)
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld set up the torture of prisoners in Iraq. Bush knew in January '03. Like with the torture and murder of prisoners in California, it is unlikely that the abuse planners will ever be held accountable for their crimes.
The Scapegoats of Torture in Iraq and California

Sometimes its helpful to leave the United States in order to get information about what we are doing. While on a recent business trip to England I heard and read a lot on what is going on in Iraq. When the stories of torture of detainees in Abu Ghraib broke I found the European news more clear and more detailed than most in the US. Particularly interesting was a front page story on Saturday 5/22/2004 in The Independent (UK) that headlined: “Abuse and torture in Iraq: Where does the buck stop?”

The Independent places responsibility for the Abu Ghraib torture on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “The key to the torture scandal lies in … Rumsfeld’s decision to expand a highly secret operation aimed at breaking Al Qaiida suspects to the interrogation of Iraqis.” Methods used in the prison in Guantanamo were to be used in Iraq. To accomplish that Rumsfeld ordered the Commander of Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller to go to Baghdad in August of 2003 and institute interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo such as sleep deprivation, hooding and exposure to extremes of heat and cold. Rumsfeld’s intelligence advisor Dr. Stephen Cambone “set up an ultra-secret operation of several hundred operatives in the Pentagon.” This “unit encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence.” The Independent goes on to say that…”President Bush knew of the secret programme, although in the time honoured tradition of secret US operations there was no paper trial and no budgets or Congressional oversight. When a military policeman first reported the abuses and handed over a cd full of images and videos, on 13 January last, it was reported to President Bush within days. Rumsfeld reportedly tried to reassure the President that the scandal would die down.”

The account in The Independent is supported by statements made on 6/16/04 on the Canadian Broadcast Company’s news program As It Happens. General Janice Karpinsky was in charge of all detention facilities in Iraq. She confirmed that Paul Bremer, the head of the Provisional Authority ordered that units 1A and 1B at Abu Ghraib be removed from her command in early September 2003 and placed under the authority of military intelligence. Karpinsky reported that General Miller said that he was going to “gitmoize” Abu Ghraib, meaning turn the prison into an interrogation facility like Guantanamo. Karpinsky believes she is being set up as the fall guy for this scandal, when in fact she had no authority over the units where the abuses occurred. She stated that she is a convenient target being the overall commander of detention and the first woman to command soldiers in an active theater of war.

From these reports it appears that Secretary Rumsfeld was directly responsible for ordering the changes in command and procedures at Abu Ghraib. His advisor Dr. Cambone set up the torture techniques, and he ordered General Miller to “gitmoize” the prison. President Bush knew by mid-January about the cruelty and torture.

General Karpinsky stated further that all of her Military Police Officers were well trained in the Geneva Convention rules on treatment of prisoners of war. She believes the MPs were ordered by military intelligence to commit the atrocities.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Saturday June 12, 2004 that “5 GIs had protested abuses at Abu Ghraib.” Some of the complaints came as early as 11/8/03 when the prisoners “were forced to masturbate and were stacked, naked, into a human pyramid.” There were probably many more complaints during the Fall of 2003.

I am reminded of the torture that was ongoing at California State Prison at Corcoran between 1988 and 1995. During that time 5 gang labeled prisoners housed in the supermaximum lockdown Security Housing Unit were shot dead by guard gunfire. The prisoners were set up to fight each other by staff during outdoor exercise on small group concrete enclosed exercise yards called “shooting galleries” by the prisoners. After engaging in weaponless stand up fist fights for less than 30 seconds guards would fire lethal 9mm assault rifles at the prisoners. Over the seven years five prisoners were killed and scores seriously injured. So frequent were the shootings that one yard was called little Vietnam. This was all done under strict policies developed in the central office in Sacramento. Staff supervisors who refused to set up the fights were threatened with loss of their jobs. Reviews of the killings were sanitized by administrators and all called “good shoots.” No one in Sacramento has ever taken responsibility, or been officially asked to take responsibility for the lethal policies that were designed to suppress prison gang activity by pounding the prisoners into concrete with gunfire. Eight guards were indicted by the US Department of Justice for the shooting death of one prisoner. They were found not guilty by a hometown jury in Fresno. But they were, in fact, just following orders and participating in a carefully designed and orchestrated lethal assault on prisoners.

It should be noted that since the Corcoran gladiator fight days there has been more prison gang activity and more violence in California prisons than ever before.

The unintended consequence of abuse and torture is that it adds violence to any system in which it is employed, and creates deep hatred of the perpetrators that often demands retribution by the injured. So far the only people brought to task for Abu Ghraib have been low level MPs. We will see how far up the actual chain of command responsibility is assigned.
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