This is truly sickening. Sickening for Americans, because it was
covered up, and condoned.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1st GI to be tried in prison abuse tells of brutality
He says another guard was ringleader and told him not to say anything
to higher-ups

Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times
Friday, May 14, 2004



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Washington -- The first soldier scheduled to be court-martialed in the
Abu Ghraib prison scandal has told military authorities a harrowing
tale of abuse, including an episode in which a guard used a nightstick
to beat an Iraqi detainee who had been shot in the legs and handcuffed
to a bed.

As the prisoner screamed "Mister, mister, please stop," Military
Police Cpl. Charles A. Graner struck him twice with the police baton,
fellow guard Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits told military investigators.

Sivits, whose statements are contained in investigative records
obtained by the Los Angeles Times, provided the most detailed account
to become public by one of the defendants in the abuse scandal. He
described an atmosphere in which a group of military police repeatedly
laughed, joked and mocked Iraqi detainees as they stripped them naked,
struck and kicked them and, in the crudest of humiliations, even
forced them to hit each other.

Seven military police troops have been accused in the scandal that has
shaken the Bush administration's efforts in Iraq, and investigations
are continuing. Sivits, who faces lesser charges than his colleagues
because of his cooperation with prosecutors, is expected to plead
guilty at a special court-martial next week in Baghdad.

Sivits portrayed Graner, a former Pennsylvania prison guard who was
accused of misconduct there, as a ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuses.
He said Graner was always "joking, laughing, ****ed off a little,
acting like he was enjoying it."

Once, Sivits added, "Graner said in a baby-type voice" to an injured
detainee, " 'Ah, does that hurt?' "

Sivits also gave fresh details about the other suspects in the beating
of Iraqi prisoners, for the first time describing their moods as
prisoners were stripped and abused.

And he said all of this was done without the knowledge of their
superiors in the Army chain of command. "Our command would have
slammed us," he said. "They believe in doing the right thing. If they
saw what was going on, there would be hell to pay."

Some of the guards have said they acted on orders from above or from
military intelligence to soften up inmates for questioning.

Sivits said Graner told him not to say anything.

Sivits said he first became aware of the abuse, and began
photographing much of it, on Oct. 3, 2003, nearly a month earlier than
Nov. 7, the date previously thought to have marked the beginning of
harsh treatment in the overcrowded and often-chaotic prison.

Another guard tipped off criminal investigators on Jan. 13, and Sivits
was interviewed before noon the next day by military detectives at Abu
Ghraib.

His interview with Army investigators, which is likely to be a key
element in prosecution of the other six guards, noted the coldness of
guards and the anguished cries of detainees. It also makes clear that
investigators focused from the start on Graner and Staff Sgt. Ivan L.
"Chip" Frederick II as the ringleaders.

The six other defendants have declared their innocence and were not
available for comment.

Sivits described Pfc. Lynndie England, the small woman often seen
smoking and smiling in the photos, as "laughing at the different stuff
that they were having the detainees do."

England, by contrast, has maintained that she was ordered to pose in
front of the abused inmates.

Sivits said Spc. Sabrina Harman, seen next to a pile of naked male
prisoners, was sometimes smiling but "there was a few times she had a
look of disgust on her face."

"She did write the word rapist on the side of the leg of one of the
inmates. She did this after she had found out from the processing
sheets that he had raped someone. She wrote it with a dry erase black
marker," he added.

Sivits stressed that it was Graner and Frederick who led the guards in
nightly revelries.

He described Graner striking inmates, and Sgt. Javal Davis, another of
the suspects, running across the floor and jumping on them when they
were handcuffed and piled on the floor.

"After Davis had done this, Davis then stomped on either the fingers
or toes of the detainees. When he stomped the detainees, they were in
pain, because the detainees would scream loudly."

Sivits said Graner once punched a prisoner in the head so hard the man
fell unconscious. "His eyes were closed and he was not moving," Sivits
said.

The guards later had to check to see if the prisoner was still
breathing.

Later still, Graner was shaking his fist, saying, "Damn that hurt."

Sivits said Frederick forced naked detainees to masturbate, showing
them how to move their hands back and forth until "one of them did it
right." Then, Sivits said, "Harman and England would put their thumbs
up and have the picture taken."

He said another inmate was bitten by a police dog after Graner
"provoked" the detainee to "go after him."

Another inmate was handcuffed to a bed, with wounds on his legs from
where "he had been shot with buckshot." He said Graner did not care,
and instead would wield a police baton and "strike the detainee with a
half baseball swing."

Said Sivits, "The detainee would beg Graner to stop by saying,
'Mister, Mister, please stop.' "

Sivits was asked why he did not report the abuse when it was happening
in the fall.

"I was asked not to," he said. "And I try to be friends with everyone.
I see now where trying to be friends with everyone can cost ya."