Abu Ghraib abuse: new revelations of top-level involvement

The two US soldiers, Sergeants Santos Cardona and Michael Smith, are accused of maltreatment of detainees. They allegedly used unmuzzled dogs to attack and terrify Iraqi prisoners. They also reportedly engaged in a contest to see who, through the use of the dogs, could get their prisoner to urinate or defecate on himself first. The preliminary hearing will determine whether or not they will face a military court martial.

The alleged incidents occurred in December 2003 and January 2004, around the same time as the abuse pictured in the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs.

In August 2003, General Geoffrey Miller, then the head of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Iraq by the Defense Department to help extract more information from Iraqi prisoners. At the time, the US military was looking for ways to counteract a growing insurgency that followed the American invasion in March of that year. One response was to “Gitmoize” Iraq, that is, to transfer the interrogation methods used in Guantánamo Bay to deal with the situation in Iraq.

Major David DiNenna, the former warden of Abu Ghraib, testified on July 27 that the use of dogs was a method specifically recommended by Miller. The defense is basing its case on the grounds that the soldiers were following established procedure for military interrogations. “We understood that [Miller] was sent over by the secretary of defense” Rumsfeld, DiNenna said, in order “to take their interrogation techniques they used at Guantánamo Bay and incorporate them into Iraq.”

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/guan-a01.shtml