Iraqi Teens Abused at Abu Ghraib, Report Finds
Officials Say Inquiry Also Confirms Prisoners Were
Hidden From Aid Groups

By Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27048-2004Aug23.html

An Army investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal has found that military police dogs were used
to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as part of a
sadistic game, one of many details in the forthcoming
report that were provoking expressions of concern and
disgust among Army officers briefed on the findings.

Earlier reports and photographs from the prison have
indicated that unmuzzled military police dogs were
used to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib, something
the dog handlers have told investigators was
sanctioned by top military intelligence officers
there. But the new report, according to Pentagon
sources, will show that MPs were using their animals
to make juveniles -- as young as 15 years old --
urinate on themselves as part of a competition.

"There were two MP dog handlers who did use dogs to
threaten kids detained at Abu Ghraib," said an Army
officer familiar with the report, one of two
investigations on detainee abuse scheduled for release
this week. "It has nothing to do with interrogation.
It was just them on their own being weird."

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the
report has not been released, other officials at the
Pentagon said the investigation also acknowledges that
military intelligence soldiers kept multiple detainees
off the record books and hid them from international
humanitarian organizations. The report also mentions
substantiated claims that at least one male detainee
was sodomized by one of his captors at Abu Ghraib,
sources said.

"The report will show that these actions were bad,
illegal, unauthorized, and some of it was sadistic,"
said one Defense Department official. "But it will
show that they were the actions of a few, actions that
went unnoticed because of leadership failures."

The investigative report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay
focuses on the role of military intelligence soldiers
in the prison abuse. It will expand the circle of
soldiers considered responsible for abuse beyond the
seven military police soldiers already facing charges,
officials said, to include more than a dozen others --
low-ranking soldiers, civilian contractors and medics.
Sources have said that the report also criticizes
military leadership, from the prison and up through
the highest levels of the U.S. chain of command in
Iraq at the time.

One Pentagon official said yesterday that Lt. Gen.
Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in
Iraq, is named in the report for leadership
deficiencies and failing to deal with rising problems
at the prison as he tried to manage 150,000 troops
countering an unexpected insurgency. Sanchez, however,
will not be recommended for any punitive action or
even a letter of reprimand, the source said. About 300
pages of the 9,000-page report will be released
publicly, according to Army officials.

Another report regarding the prison abuse,
commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,
is expected to be released this afternoon. That
independent commission, chaired by James R.
Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, will be
critical of the guidance and policies set by top
Pentagon and military officials as they worked to get
more useful intelligence from detainees in Iraq, said
a source familiar with the commission's work.

The Schlesinger report is not expected to implicate
high-level officials by name, but it would be the
first report to link the abuse at Abu Ghraib to
policies set by top officials in Washington. The Fay
report, by contrast, does not point a finger at the
Pentagon and instead assigns most of the blame to
military intelligence and military police who worked
on the chaotic grounds of the overcrowded and austere
Abu Ghraib.

Rumsfeld had not been briefed on the commission's
findings as of yesterday, a Defense Department source
said, and the commission likewise has not briefed
members of Congress, who have been anticipating the
reports for months. Initially, the Schlesinger
commission was slated to take 45 days, and Rumsfeld
suggested that it consider limiting itself to
reviewing the work of other investigations. But the
commission hired a staff of more than 20 people and
conducted dozens of interviews, taking more than two
months to complete its work.

The reports are part of several investigations into
U.S. detainee operations around the world, and so far
they have expanded the scope of culpability beyond the
seven MPs charged in connection with the most
notorious incidents of abuse, such as stacking naked
detainees in a pyramid, posing them in mock sexual
positions and beating them. Pentagon officials said
yesterday that the abuse came not as the result of
direct orders but rather as "off-the-clock mischief"
that arose from vague instructions and a general lack
of oversight.

The core conclusion of the Fay report, said one
general who is familiar with it, is that there was a
leadership failure in the Army in Iraq that extended
well beyond a handful of MPs. "There's a vacuum
there," he said. "Either people knew it and turned a
blind eye, or they weren't paying attention."

In particular, top leaders failed to give proper
attention to reports from the International Committee
of the Red Cross that decried conditions at Abu
Ghraib, reported allegations of abuse and raised
warning flags about detainees being hidden from them.
Top Pentagon officials have denied keeping detainees
from the ICRC, but the Fay report will concur with an
earlier Army investigation that cited the prison for
keeping "ghost detainees."

"This report will address the ghost-detainee problem,
and it was an outright policy violation," said one
Pentagon official familiar with the report. "It did
happen, and accordingly it is still being
investigated."

Another officer at the Pentagon said he felt that the
latest revelations, including the use of dogs to
frighten juveniles, were some of the most worrisome of
the scandal. He said one particular worry at the
Pentagon is how the use of dogs against Arab juveniles
will be viewed in the Middle East.

"People know that in war, you know, you have to break
eggs," he said. "But this crosses the line."

Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this
report.
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More about Iraq Abuse at:
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Park/6443/Iraq/






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