3 articles on the torture

UK forces taught torture methods David Leigh Saturday May 08 2004 The Guardian The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources. The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad. One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: "It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing." He said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands. "There is a reservoir of knowledge about these interrogation techniques which is retained by former special forces soldiers who are being rehired as private contractors in Iraq. Contractors are bringing in their old friends". Using sexual jibes and degradation, along with stripping naked, is one of the methods taught on both sides of the Atlantic under the slogan "prolong the shock of capture", he said. Female guards were used to taunt male prisoners sexually and at British training sessions when female candidates were undergoing resistance training they would be subject to lesbian jibes. "Most people just laugh that off during mock training exercises, but the whole experience is horrible. Two of my colleagues couldn't cope with the training at the time. One walked out saying 'I've had enough', and the other had a breakdown. It's exceedingly disturbing," said the former Special Boat Squadron officer, who asked that his identity be withheld for security reasons. Many British and US special forces soldiers learn about the degradation techniques because they are subjected to them to help them resist if captured. They include soldiers from the SAS, SBS, most air pilots, paratroopers and members of pathfinder platoons. A number of commercial firms which have been supplying interrogators to the US army in Iraq boast of hiring former US special forces soldiers, such as Navy Seals. "The crucial difference from Iraq is that frontline soldiers who are made to experience R2I techniques themselves develop empathy. They realise the suffering they are causing. But people who haven't undergone this don't realise what they are doing to people. It's a shambles in Iraq". The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops. "The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11". When the interrogation techniques are used on British soldiers for training purposes, they are subject to a strict 48-hour time limit, and a supervisor and a psychologist are always present. It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis. The spectrum of R2I techniques also includes keeping prisoners naked most of the time. This is what the Abu Ghraib photographs show, along with inmates being forced to crawl on a leash; forced to masturbate in front of a female soldier; mimic oral sex with other male prisoners; and form piles of naked, hooded men. The full battery of methods includes hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation and depriving prisoners not only of dignity, but of fundamental human needs, such as warmth, water and food. The US commander in charge of military jails in Iraq, Major General Geoffrey Miller, has confirmed that a battery of 50-odd special "coercive techniques" can be used against enemy detainees. The general, who previously ran the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, said his main role was to extract as much intelligence as possible. Interrogation experts at Abu Ghraib prison were there to help make the prison staff "more able to garner intelligence as rapidly as possible". Sleep deprivation and stripping naked were techniques that could now only be authorised at general officer level, he said. Copyright Guardian Newspapers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk From heroine to humiliator Family says woman who has become face of prison abuse has been made a scapegoat Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Saturday May 08 2004 The Guardian As a girl, Private Lynndie England had ambitions of becoming the kind of meteorologist who inserts herself in the eye of a tempest, or a tornado: a storm chaser. She found herself there this week, captured on camera tugging at the leash of one naked Iraqi prisoner and pointing a trigger finger at the genitals of another, the grin on her triumphant face making Ms England the symbol of the sadistic practices at Abu Ghraib prison. US press reports have not gone so far as to label Ms England a "witch", as the Sun did yesterday. But, thanks to her willingness to pose for the camera with cowering and humiliated Iraqi men, the 21-year-old with the pixie haircut has become the most notorious of the six US army reservists expected to face courts martial for the abuse and humiliation of prisoners. Ms England's evident taste for cruelty has been met by bafflement in her hometown in Fort Ashby, West Virginia, a hamlet in the hardscrabble Appalachians, and disbelief from her friends and family. "Scapegoats - that's what they are being used for," Destiny Goin, her best friend, told reporters. The pictures brought shame to Fort Ashby. Many members of Ms England's reserve unit, the 372nd Military Police, live in the area. Until the scandal erupted, Ms England had been a hometown heroine, with her photograph on display with all the other US military personnel serving in Iraq at the courthouse, and the local Wal-Mart store. By Thursday, her family had fled their mobile home, seeking respite from a media barrage. Before they left, they told reporters their daughter had been demonised. Ms England's mother, Terrie, said she had spoken to her daughter while watching the images on television. "You're on every channel," she was quoted as telling her. "There you are, and there's a naked Iraqi, and there's you with your thumb up." Ms England replied: 'I just can't believe this ... mom, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time'." Her parents are insistent that is all there is to tell. But it is unclear they know the whole story. According to the Pentagon, Ms England was romantically involved with one of the men at the heart of the scandal, Specialist Charles Graner, 35. The Pentagon also says Ms England is pregnant, although she has yet to tell her family. The soldier was brought back to Fort Bragg in North Carolina because of the pregnancy, where she is performing desk duties. Mr Graner remains in Iraq. He appears in several of the photographs, most memorably standing with tattooed arms folded, lording it over a heap of naked Iraqi men. A reservist following a stint in the Marine corps, in civilian life Mr Graner worked as a guard at a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania. In 1998, two years after he went to work there, more than 20 guards were demoted or reprimanded for abuse that included beatings, or forcing inmates to play a form of Simon Says, with punishment for those who failed to follow instructions. Prison officials did not tell reporters whether Mr Graner was involved in the scandal. At about the same time, Mr Graner's wife, Staci, accused him of breaking into their home, dragging her out of bed by the hair, and stalking her with hidden video cameras after the breakdown of their marriage. The New York Times cited court records showing at least three restraining orders against him since 1997. Ms England's life before she put on the uniform showed no predilection for violence, her friends and family say. She grew up in a close-knit outdoorsy family that liked sport and hunting. Ms England joined the army reserves as a teenager in high school - against her parents' wishes. She told them she wanted to pay her own way through studies as a meteorologist, though her parents had been prepared to pay. That impetuous streak came out once more at the age of 19 when she married a co-worker at the chicken processing plant where she worked the nightshift. The marriage lasted about a year. But within the military she was known as an obedient soldier. In Baghdad, she told her family she was assigned to register prisoners at Abu Ghraib - essentially a clerk. "She shouldn't have been processing prisoners in the first place," her father, Kenneth, told the Baltimore Sun. "She was trained as an administrator, a paper-pusher." He admitted that at night she would regularly walk across the prison yard to see Mr Graner and other friends, who were involved in interrogations. But the family had no inkling of what went on during those night visits until January when Ms England telephoned from Baghdad and told them to expect trouble. And they still refuse to believe the images of their daughter that have travelled around the world. "She has more values than that," Terrie England told CBS News. "She's a good girl." Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk 'Cooks and drivers were working as interrogators' Witness: private contractor lifts the lid on systematic failures at Abu Ghraib jail Julian Borger in Washington Friday May 07 2004 The Guardian Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis picked up at random by US troops, and incarcerated by under-qualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the notorious jail told the Guardian. Torin Nelson, who served as a military intelligence officer at Guantánamo Bay before moving to Abu Ghraib as a private contractor last year, blamed the abuses on a failure of command in US military intelligence and an over-reliance on private firms. He alleged that those companies were so anxious to meet the demand for their services that they sent "cooks and truck drivers" to work as interrogators. "Military intelligence operations need to drastically change in order for something like this not to happen again," Mr Nelson said. He spoke to the Guardian in a series of interviews by phone and email. He claimed that "many of the detainees at the prison are actually innocent of any acts against the coalition and are being held until the bureaucracy there can go through their cases and verify their need to be released." "One case in point is a detainee whom I recommended for release and months later was still sitting in the same tent with no change in his status." Mr Nelson said that the same systemic problems were also responsible for large numbers of Afghans being mistakenly swept into Guantánamo Bay. He estimated that "30-40%" of the inmates at the controversial prison camp had no connection to terrorism. "There are people who should never have been sent over there. I was involved in the process of reviewing people for possible release and I can say definitely that they should have been released and released a lot sooner," he said. The former commander of the Guantánamo Bay Camp, Major General Geoffrey Miller, was transferred to Iraq a month ago to overhaul the prison system there, although he has been criticised for his recommendations last year that US prison guards in Iraq help "set the conditions" for interrogations by softening up detainees. Such allegations have been made before by victims' families and human rights groups but Mr Nelson's story represents the first insider's account by an American interrogator. It amounts to an indictment of a system gone awry, and contradicts claims by the White House and the Pentagon that Abu Ghraib does not represent a systemic problem. Mr Nelson denies any involvement in the physical and sexual abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, and is listed in the official military report into the scandal as a witness rather than a suspect. He says he resigned from his job in February in fear for his life, because Abu Ghraib was coming under increasing attack by Iraqi insurgents, and because of his disillusion in the military leadership there. He is now working for a private contractor - but not as an interrogator - in another country that is part of the US "global war on terrorism". He did not want his whereabouts published. Mr Nelson said he had come forward to speak now because he believed that military intelligence was seeking to blame the Abu Ghraib scandal on a handful of soldiers to divert attention away from ingrained problems in the military detention and interrogation system. As a witness in an ongoing investigation, Mr Nelson said he could not talk about the abuses of specific prisoners at Abu Ghraib, but he said the nature of the detention system makes the imprisonment and abuse of innocent people all but inevitable. "A unit goes out on a raid and they have a target and the target is not available; they just grab anybody because that was their job," Mr Nelson said, referring to counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. "The troops are under a lot of stress and they don't know one guy from the next. They're not cultural experts. All they want is to count down the days and hopefully go home. They take it out on the nearest person they can't understand." "I've read reports from capturing units where the capturing unit wrote, "the target was not at home. The neighbour came out to see what was going on and we grabbed him," he said. According to Mr Nelson's account, the victims' very innocence made them more likely to be abused, because interrogators refused to believe they could have been picked up on such arbitrary grounds. "Now, whether the detainees are put into the general intelligence holding area, where they rot for a few months until final release, or if they are placed in solitary confinement because their story seems unbelievable is completely in the hands of the interrogator's opinion," he said. "It is in solitary that the abuses can be committed. So, in theory it is in fact very possible that purely innocent Iraqis could be placed in an environment where they could be brutalised, abused, "softened up" or even killed." "At Abu Ghraib there were plenty of detainees talking or wanting to talk, but the leadership was focused on the "hard" targets of high-value," Mr Nelson said. "This was mainly because the leadership was almost completely focused on getting the highest ranking Ba'ath party members still in hiding. And many of the interrogators were anxious to "go after" the difficult eggs. They wanted to be the one interrogator who broke the linking detainee and found such and such high value target. They weren't interested in going through the less glamorous work of sifting through the chaff to get to the kernels of truth from the willing detainees, they were interested in "breaking" the tough targets." Much of the problem lay in the quality of US interrogators, Mr Nelson said, explaining that only the youngest and least experienced intelligence officers actually question detainees. "Once you get up to a level of NCO [non commissioned officer] or warrant officer you generally get moved into administration. You are taken out of working as an interrogator," he said. As the number of suspects sucked into the system exploded, the Pentagon came to rely increasingly on interrogators from private contractors to question them. Mr Nelson was one of a team of roughly 30 in Abu Ghraib employed by a Virginia-based firm, CACI International. He believes his decade of experience in military intelligence made him well-qualified to do the job, but he had growing doubts about his colleagues. "I'd say about of the contractors that it's kind of a hit or miss. They're under so much pressure to fill slots quickly... They penalise contracting companies if they can't fill slots on time and it looks bad on companies' records," Mr Nelson said. "If you're in such a hurry to get bodies, you end up with cooks and truck drivers doing intelligence work." "There was someone was hired as an interrogator or screener whose previous job was a truck driver. That was pretty close to when I was leaving," Mr Nelson recalled. "My eyes went really wide at that point - really scraping the bottom of the barrel." CACI International did not respond to a request for comment on Mr Nelson's account. The firm has told other reporters that it has not been contacted by military investigators about the work of its employees at Abu Ghraib. Its recruitment notices seeking interrogators state that the job "requires a top secret clearance" and note that the successful applicant would operate "under minimal supervision." Mr Nelson worked at Guantánamo Bay as a senior interrogator attached to the Utah National Guard. He said that most of the interrogators there were military professionals, but that by the time he left in early 2003, private contractors had begun to arrive. There is no evidence of abuses on the scale of Abu Ghraib being committed at Guantánamo Bay, but Mr Nelson said that like the Iraqi jail, it was packed with innocent people, who are only now being released. "Mistakes were made and people who should never have been sent there ended up there, and it's taken this amount of time to get people to take the decision to get these people out of there," Mr Nelson said. "All it takes is the signature of a low ranking NCO to send someone right around the world and have them locked up indefinitely but it takes the signature of the secretary of defence to let them go." Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited