http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/international/middleeast/08NAKE.html

SEXUAL HUMILIATION
Forced Nudity of Iraqi Prisoners Is Seen as a Pervasive Pattern, Not
Isolated Incidents

By KATE ZERNIKE and DAVID ROHDE

Published: June 8, 2004

In the weeks since photographs of naked detainees set off the abuse scandal
at Abu Ghraib, military officials have portrayed the sexual humiliation
captured in the images as the isolated acts of a rogue night shift.

But forced nudity of prisoners was pervasive in the military intelligence
unit of Abu Ghraib, so much so that soldiers later said they had not seen
"the whole nudity thing," as one captain called it, as abusive or out of
the ordinary.

While there have been reports of forced nakedness at detention facilities
in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the practice was apparently far
more aggressive at Abu Ghraib, according to interviews, reports from human
rights groups and sworn statements from detainees and soldiers. The
detainees said leaving prisoners naked started as far back as last July,
three months before the seven soldiers now charged and their military
police company arrived at the prison. It bred a culture, some soldiers say,
where the abuse captured on film could happen.

Detainees were paraded naked past other prisoners and guards; some were
ordered to do jumping jacks and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the
nude, according to a several witnesses. Also, a father and his grown son
were stripped, then forced to stand and stare at each other. The
International Committee of the Red Cross, visiting in October, found
prisoners left naked in their cells for days, modestly trying to shield
themselves behind cardboard from meals-ready-to-eat boxes.

It is not clear how the practice emerged and, if it was official policy,
exactly who authorized it. Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the military intelligence
officer in charge of interrogations at the prison, told Army investigators
that detainees might be stripped and shackled for questioning, but not
without "good reason." When Red Cross monitors expressed alarm about
prisoners being left in their cells or forced to move about naked, they
said military intelligence officials "confirmed that it was part of the
military intelligence process."

"It was not uncommon to see people without clothing," Capt. Donald J.
Reese, the warden of the tier where the worst abuses occurred, told
investigators in a sworn statement in January. "I only saw males. I was
told the `whole nudity thing' was an interrogation procedure used by
military intelligence, and never thought much of it."

An analyst from the 205th Military Intelligence Battalion, who asked not to
be identified for fear of being punished for speaking out, said: "If you
walked down through the wing of the prison where they were being held, they
would have them strip down naked. Sometimes they would stand on boxes and
would hold their arms out. That happened almost every night — having them
naked. I wouldn't say it's abuse. It's definitely degrading to them."

Soldiers said at least one civilian interrogator, Steven Stefanowicz, had
been so alarmed by the use of nudity that he reported a military
intelligence interrogator after she made a detainee walk naked down a
cellblock to humiliate him. His lawyer said Mr. Stefanowicz, who an Army
report said might have been "directly or indirectly" responsible for
abuses, had not thought stripping detainees was an appropriate
interrogation technique, and had worried that doing so would incite more
unrest at a time when guards were fending off rioters with live bullets.

Nudity is considered particularly shameful in Muslim culture, a violation
of religious principles. While nudity as a disciplinary or coercive tool
may be especially objectionable to Muslims, they are hardly the only
victims of the practice. Soldiers in Nazi Germany paraded naked prisoners
in daylight, and human rights groups have documented the use of nudity
during conflicts in Egypt, Chile and Turkey, and in Afghanistan during the
Soviet occupation. Central Intelligence Agency training manuals from the
1960's and 1980's taught the stripping of prisoners as an interrogation
tool. Nudity and sexual humiliation have also been reported in American
prisons where a number of guards at Abu Ghraib worked in their civilian
lives.