http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1108972,00.html
Pattern of Abuse
A decorated Army officer reveals new allegations of detainee
mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanistan. Did the military ignore his
charges?
By ADAM ZAGORIN
Posted Friday, Sep. 23, 2005
The U.S. Army has launched a criminal investigation into new
allegations of serious prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan made by
a decorated former Captain in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, an
Army spokesman has confirmed to TIME. The claims of the Captain, who
has not been named, are in part corroborated by statements of two
sergeants who served with him in the 82nd Airborne; the allegations
form the basis of a report from Human Rights Watch obtained by TIME
and due to be released in the next few days (Since this story first
went online, the organization has decided to put out its report; it
can be found here). Senate sources tell TIME that the Captain has also
reported his charges to three senior Republican senators: Majority
Leader Bill Frist, Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner and
John McCain, a former torture victim in Vietnam. A Senate Republican
staffer familiar with both the Captain and his allegations told TIME
he appeared "extremely credible."
The new allegations center around systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees
by men of the 82nd Airborne at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base
located near Fallujah, the scene of a major uprising against the U.S.
occupation in April 2004, according to sources familiar with the
report and accounts given by the Captain, who is in his mid-20s, to
Senate staff. Much of the abuse allegedly occurred in 2003 and 2004,
before and during the period the Army was conducting an internal
investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, but prior to when
the abuses at Abu Ghraib became public. Other alleged abuses described
in the Human Rights report occurred at Camp Tiger, near Iraq's border
with Syria, and previously in Afghanistan. In addition, the report
details what the Captain says was his unsuccessful effort over 17
months to get the attention of military superiors. Ultimately he
approached the Republican senators.
The Human Rights Watch report as well as accounts given to Senate
staff describe officers as aware of the abuse but routinely ignoring
or covering it up, amid chronic confusion over U.S. military detention
policies and whether or not the Geneva Convention applied. The Captain
is quoted in the report describing how military intelligence personnel
at Camp Mercury directed enlisted men to conduct daily beatings of
prisoners prior to questioning; to subject detainees to strenuous
forced exercises to the point of unconsciousness; and to expose them
to extremes of heat and cold all methods designed to produce greater
cooperation with interrogators. Non-uniformed personnel apparently
working for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to the soldiers
also interrogated prisoners. The interrogators were out of view but
not out of earshot of the soldiers, who overheard what they came to
believe was abuse.
Specific instances of abuse described in the Human Rights Watch report
include severe beatings, including one incident when a soldier
allegedly broke a detainee's leg with a metal bat. Others include
prisoners being stacked in human pyramids (unlike the human pyramids
at Abu Ghraib, the prisoners at Camp Mercury were clothed); soldiers
administering blows to the face, chest and extremities of prisoners;
and detainees having their faces and eyes exposed to burning
chemicals, being forced into stress positions for long periods leading
to unconsciousness and having their water and food withheld.
Prisoners were designated as PUCs (pronounced "pucks") or "persons
under control." A regular pastime at Camp Mercury, the report says,
involved off-duty soldiers gathering at PUC tents, where prisoners
were held, and working off their frustrations in activities known as
"F____a PUC" (beating the prisoner) and "Smoke a PUC" (forced physical
exertion, sometimes to the point of collapse). Broken limbs and
similar painful injuries would be treated with analgesics, the
soldiers claim, as medical staff would fill out paperwork stating the
injuries occurred during capture. Support for some of the allegations
of abuse come from a sergeant of the 82nd Airborne who served in both
Iraq and Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch quotes him as saying that,
"To 'F____ a PUC' means to beat him up. We would give them blows to
the head, chest, legs, and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them.
This happened every day. To 'smoke' someone is to put them in stress
positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened
every day. Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone
sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. This was before
Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement.
"On their day off people would show up all the time," the sergeant
continues in the HRW report. "Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to
work out your frustration you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was
sport. The cooks were all U.S. soldiers. One day a sergeant shows up
and tells a PUC to grab a pole. He told him to bend over and broke the
guy's leg with a mini Louisville Slugger that was a metal bat. He was
the cook."
The sergeant says that military intelligence officers would tell
soldiers that the detainees "were bad" and had been involved in
killing or trying to kill Americans, implying that they deserved
whatever punishment they got. "I would be told, 'These guys were IED
[improvised explosive device] trigger men last week.' So we would f___
them up. F___ them up bad ... At the same time we should be held to a
higher standard. I know that now. It was wrong. There are a set of
standards. But you gotta understand, this was the norm. Everyone would
just sweep it under the rug ... We should never have been allowed to
watch guys we had fought."
The Captain making the allegations, say those who have been in contact
with him, gave lengthy statements to Human Rights Watch only after his
attempts to report what he had seen and heard to his own chain of
command, were met, he claims, with repeated brush-offs. He is
currently in special forces training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
The two non-commissioned officers served in both Iraq and Afghanistan,
and likewise approached the watchdog group, but have not conferred
with Senate staff. "The captain is a very sincere officer, and
troubled by what he says he has seen," says another senior aide to a
Republican senator. "Only an investigation can determine how accurate
his account will prove to be."
The Human Rights Watch report describes the Captain, in particular, as
deeply frustrated by his attempts to report the abuse to his own
superiors, who repeatedly instructed him to keep quiet, to ignore what
he'd seen and to consider the implications for his career. The Captain
told Human Rights Watch and Senate staff that he had contacted
legislators reluctantly, believing it was the only way he could get
the army to take him seriously. He also said that "I knew something
was wrong" as he watched Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on
television in 2004 testifying before a Congressional committee that
the U.S. was following the Geneva Convention to the letter in Iraq.
The Monday morning after Rumsfeld's testimony, he told Human Rights
Watch, "I approached my chain of command." Eventually, the captain
says, he approached his company commander, battalion commander and
representatives of the Judge Advocate Corps (the military justice
system), trying in vain to get clarification of rules on prisoner
treatment and the application of the Geneva Convention. At one point,
the Captain asserts, his Company commander told him, in effect,
"Remember the honor of the unit is at stake," and, "Don't expect me to
go to bat for you on this issue ..."
The Captain also says he was told there were pictures of abuse that
occurred at Camp Mercury similar to photos taken by Military Police at
Abu Ghraib prison. It is not clear whether the Captain saw the
pictures, but he has said, sources tell TIME, that the photos were so
similar to what was depicted at Abu Ghraib that, when the scandal
erupted, soldiers burned them out of fear that they too could be
punished. The Captain has also told Senate staff that many of the
actions he witnessed did not, at the time, violate his personal code
of conduct. He was also under the impression that the conduct was in
line with military policy. It was only later, Congressional sources
tell TIME, that he became aware of what he regarded as a blatant
contradiction in official U.S. policy. As the captain puts it,
according to the report: "I witnessed violations of the Geneva
Conventions that I knew were violations of the Geneva Conventions when
they happened but I was under the impression that that was U.S. policy
at the time. And as soon as Abu Ghraib broke and they had hearings in
front of Congress, the Secretary of Defense testified that we followed
the spirit of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan, and the letter of
the Geneva Conventions in Iraq, and as soon as he said that I knew
something was wrong. So I called some of my classmates [from West
Point], confirmed what I was concerned about and then on that Monday
morning I approached my chain of command ..."
An Army spokesman confirmed to TIME that a criminal investigation has
begun into the allegations, and that the Captain has been given
permission to speak to members of Congress about his concerns. Since
the Abu Ghraib scandal became public, hundreds of cases of alleged
abuse have emerged based on reports from the International Committee
of the Red Cross, U.S. government documents, prisoner legal filings
and other sources. The Army alone says it has conducted investigations
into more than 400 allegations of detainee mistreatment. To date, more
than 230 Army personnel have been dealt with in courts martial, non-
judicial punishments and other administrative actions.
--
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