Where are Lynndie England and Charles Graner now?

Lynndie England and Charles Graner inside Abu Ghraib - 2003

As photographs of Abu Ghraib and the abuse that went on there shocked the world in 2004, one of the main faces of the scandal was Lynndie England. Throughout several of the photos England, only 21 years old at the time, was almost always seen smiling, even posed next to a dead body and when pointing at the detainees' genitals.

Charles Graner, accused in some circles as the "ringleader," was also another well known smiling face of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Both him and England were convicted of their roles in the scandal and sentenced to prison time. Graner sentenced to 10 years, of which he served six and a half, and England sentenced to three years, of which she only served half.

After serving time, where are they now?

Lynndie  England returned home to Fort Ashby, West Virginia after being released from prison. There she lives in a trailer park with her parents and four year old son, fathered by Charles Graner. In the very small town she tries to move on with a "normal" life of looking for a job, staying out the way of the public and getting on with a life. During an interview with Emma Brockes, England was asked about the photos and her relationship with Graner. At one point when Brockes asks why she didn't walk away from the pictures, England remarks, "I didn't want them. But he was so persistent. Go on! Just for me! If you loved me, you'd do it. I'm like, gee, OK just take the damn picture." England goes on to talk about Graner and the things he did that influenced her into her actions. England's mother went on the record stating that she felt is was her daughters own fault but her father hasn't spoken about the scandal. While England was serving her time in prison her parents got a divorce after it was revealed her father was having an affair. England blames herself and states, "Yeah. I pretty much broke up a 30-year marriage." England is now on antidepressants and experiences nightmares but is worried she will not be able to afford the medication once she is officially discharged from the military.

Emma Brockes "Interview: She's Home from Jail, But Lynndie England Can't Escape Abu Ghraib," The Guardian, 2 January 2009.

Charles Graner was "convicted of offenses that included stacking the prisoners into a pyramid, knocking one of them out with a head punch and ordering prisoners to masturbate while soldiers took pictures." While Graner stuck to his story that these sort of actions were the plans of military intelligence officers to "soften up prisoners for interrogation" he received the longest sentence of those convicted and served six and one half years on a ten year sentence before released from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Graner married his fellow Abu Ghraib defendant Megan Ambul after his conviction but since being released from prison neither of their whereabouts have been released. Graner maintains his innocents in the reasons he carried out the actions He continue to fight and appeal his conviction with an attorney who states, Graner was a "political prisoner of the failed United States Iraq policy and uncessary war."

 

David Dishneau, "Charles Graner Released. Abu Ghraib Abuse Ringleader Set Free From Kansas Prison," The Huffington Post, August 6, 2011.

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee released a report about the abuse committed by American troops and included Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay along with other military centers. In the report blame was placed heavily on Donald Rumsfeld for the abuse. In "Report Blames Rumsfeld for Detainee Abuse" Senator Carl Levin and Senator John McCain "explicitly rejects the Bush administration's contention the tough interrogation methods have helped keep the country and its troops safe." Donald Rumsfeld was accused of knowing what was going on and reiterates, as other reports do, that there was no way the soldiers at Abu Ghraib were acting alone. The report goes on to state how the MPs were following top officials' messages of the pressures and techniques they were using were appropriate. One of the main opponents of the harsh interrogation was Senator John McCain, who himself was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

What is SERE? - Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape
SERE was designed as a program and training techniques for soldiers to "resist interrogation by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions and international law."- Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treatment of Detainees.  During these trainings the U.S. troops would be in controlled environments but exposed to things such as: stress positions, forced nudity, use of fear, sleep deprivation, etc... These would later be the same techniques used at Abu Ghraib. The SERE techniques were put into place but never meant to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.  The report also point out that the abuse that went on in these facilitates could not have "chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples. Attempts by senior officials to pass the buck to low ranking soldiers while avoiding any responsibility for abuses are unconscionable.

Antonio Taguba and His Report, May 2004

Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba met with Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, one week after the photographs were released on the Abu Ghraib torture. General Taguba's stance was that what happened at Abu Ghraib was torture! In Seymour H. Hersh, The General's Report: How Antonio Taguba, Who Investigated the Abu Ghraib Scandal, Became One of Its Casualties, reports, "Nevertheless, Rumsfeld, in his appearance before the Senate and the House of Armed Services Committees on May 7th, claimed to have no idea of the extensive abuse." Rumsfeld takes the stance that he wishes someone would have stopped the abuse and reported sooner so they could have taken care of it. General Taguba knew this was absolutely not true.

General Taguba was tasked with the intensive investigation into the Abu Ghraib scandal. He repeatedly asked the officers, why was nothing done if they knew what they were doing was wrong? Upon investigation into the role of Lieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan, Taguba recalls "I suspected that somebody was giving them guidance, but I could not print that." General Taguba also reports he believed Lieutenant General Sanchez, the Army Commander in Iraq, had knowledge of what was going on. He argues that General Sanchez had visited the prison on several occasions and could not have been blind to what was going on. Again.... insinuating that these MPs were getting their orders from higher up and what was going on was absolutely tolerated by everyone on the site and around. It has even been mentioned that their would have been no recourse or action taken if their had been no photos.  

How did the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal become known and what was the immediate result?

PICTURES........ PICTURES........ PICTURES........

Interested in capturing the things he had experienced, First Specialist Joseph Darby asked Sergeant Graner for pictures. Harmless right??? While scanning the CDs he was given (total of 2) Darby realized the disc held pictures of the abuse at Abu Ghraib. He turned the CDs over to CID thinking he would remain anonymous. This was not the case!!!After discovering Darby was still in the location where the MPs were brought for questioning Darby was wrapped in blankets to leave in an attempt to keep his identity secret. - How professional?

 

The internal investigation BEGINS....

    Everyone that had anything to do with Abu Ghraib was ordered to turn it over. This is when many things started to be destroyed. "In spring 2004, The New Yorker and 60 Minutes II broke the story and released the photos." This made worldwide news and the MPs were seeing themselves on the news. On national TV the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, thanks Specialist Darby for releasing the pictures when Darby was still supposed to be anonymous.

 

Upon the investigation, the finger was continuously pointed at "a few bad soldiers" and the government denied the authorization of any such acts. They said the few responsible had "let us down" and the defense department released documents stating they were not aware of what was going on and it was the activities of "the people on the night shift."

James Schlesinger - Former Secretary of Defense: 

"Sadism that was certainly not authorized." "Animal House on the night shift."

There were several problems and holes in the story of "animal house on the night shift." One of the reporters describes the pictures and how they depict practices well known to the interrogators. How do you deny that??? How are the untrained prison guards who were just recently brought to Abu Ghraib to know how to use the specific techniques depicted in pictures?

What happened at Abu Ghraib?

Interrogators called the shots at Abu Ghraib. The power went to the heads of the people overseeing the detainees. The torture became "part of the job" and "normal" for them. A riot broke out at Abu Ghraib in 2003 and this enraged the MPs who were now responsible for the detainees and a part of the interrogation staff. In the fall of 2003 the abuse was caught on camera by the MPs themselves.

 

After the prison riot broke out one of he MPs said, "it set everybody off." This enhanced the aggression and abuse in the facility while justifying it in their minds and they just kept reminding themselves of what the detainees had done.  

 

During the interrogations the abuse was eminent as well. The detainees were yelled at, abused, made to crawl and "scrape their genitals on the floor." The interrogations were conducted with the same abuse. 

*The reading: Seymour M. Hersch, "Torture at Abu Graib" notes:

"The military-intelligence officers have "encouraged and told us, 'Great job,' they were now getting positive resulted and information, " Frederick wrote. "CID has been present when the military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI's request." At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners. "His reply was "Don't worry about it."



Military Police Moved from Incarceration Staff and Placed Under Military Intelligence (MI)

As discussed earlier in the blog, the Military Police (MPs) drove up to Abu Ghraib with NO TRAINING and were instructed to put their weapons away because they would no longer need them. These men and women had then spent months as "incarceration staff" for the detainees rounded up in Iraq and now had to face another BIG change........

 

The MPs now had the job of "softening up, creating the conditions for affective interrogation by the Military Interrogators." They were essentially responsible for making sure the detainees experienced the events before being interrogated the next day. In the video the MPs recall having to do things such as, showering the detainee several times while pointing and laughing, waking them up every few hours, utilizing loud noises to keep them up, throwing water on them, etc.... Whatever it took to keep them up and ready for the interrogators. 

Major General Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfield, Ricardo Sanchez and Interrogation Techniques

Who was sent to Iraq to get answers????

       The man Donald Rumsfield chose to go to Iraq to get answers was Major General Geoffrey Miller, valued for his part in running the prison operations at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. After becoming very frustrated with the lack of intel the Americans were receiving in Iraq Donald Rumsfield sent General Geoffrey Miller based on what he knew of the things General Miller had implemented at Guantanamo Bay. General Miller was known for "getting results." He had implemented using harsher interrogation techniques in order to get information from the detainees at Guantanamo. FBI later released what they found when visiting Guantanamo prison. The practices of chaining detainees, leaving them in their own urine and feces without food or water were released. In response Donald Rumsfield was pressured to respond. He issued a memo approving several "enhancing interrogation techniques." Things that were approved in the memo included some of the following:

• solitary confinement
• noise
• light/dark (enhanced or extreme sensory disorientation)
• stress positions
• phobias
• removal of clothing - this included sexual orientation techniques

**** In August of 2003 General Miller was sent to Iraq.

 

 

Upon General Miller's arrival in Iraq he voiced his opinion that the "prisoners were being treated to well, and they don't know who is in charge." After the visit of General Miller, General Ricardo Sanchez released a memo about extreme techniques. Only a month later he rescinded some of the approved techniques he had issued before. The situation this leaves in the Abu Ghraib prison facility is confusion and misunderstanding. The MPs reported that things were very unclear and "nobody could answer questions for us." They were removed from their original order and placed under the control of military intelligence. They were no longer considered the guards when this shift of control happened. They were then part of the interrogation staff.

The "Hard Site" and the Failure of "Intelligence" at Abu Ghraib

The "hard sites" were places that they were holding the prisoners with intel. In a sense, the high profile prisoners as opposed to the general population. Housed there were also the insane and criminal. "Tier 1A where high security prisoners were kept. Tier 1B housed women and children." There were about 6 or 7 guards guarding about a thousand prisoners in these "hard sites." The MPs in the "hard sites" were being told that the people they were guarding were the worst of the worst and how the information they were going to get would save lives. In several ways these MPs were being manipulated into their positions and given false information. The guards were finding out that most of the detainees "about 80%" did not have any information at all, "they were just guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time." Intelligence officers were not collecting data at Abu Ghraib. Again, the situation results back to the Americans fighting against those they can not put their finger on. The insurgency was growing but the lack of intelligence about their enemy remained a very frustrating part of the issue.

Abu Ghraib - The Location, Atmosphere, and Situation at Abu Ghraib by September 2003

• Before the 372nd Military Police were brought in to Abu Ghraib, resources and supplies had been requested on several occasions for not just Abu Ghraib, but for the other prisons as well.
• The idea that the prison systems could be restored and the Iraqi guards could be retrained to take over was absolutely absurd. Especially because they wanted it done within 90 day!!!! 

"The 372nd Military Police (MP) Company was trained to support combat  operations." They had receive NO training for what they were about to do.

When the MP drove up on Abu Ghraib one of the first things they were told was to put down their weapons because they wouldn't need them anymore - They were to now be prison guards. The prison was hit on a regular basis and it was said that the road outside the prison was the deadliest road in the world.

*** In July and August the prison population was around one thousand but by September it was over six thousand, and "just short of 300 Military Police."

 

American Techniques of War and Iraqi Civilians

There really were no "techniques of war" during the summer of 2003. One of the Sargent's in the video recalls his first time as a gunner asking about the Rules of Engagement. He reports the response he received was, "If it looks like the enemy... shoot it." Their techniques were not techniques but to go on "any hunch." The Americans at war arrested anyone and rounded up those they thought could be enemies. Iraqi civilians were not separated from the enemy. One account an Iraqi man gives was when his house was stormed by the Americans and he, along with his father, uncle, and cousin were forced out into the streets. The women and children were not spared either.

• During these raids the Americans reportedly took money, gold, etc... from the Iraqi families.

The Justice Department and the UN Convention Against Torture

John Yoo and the Department of Justice took the position that the definition the UN Convention provided against torture was extremely "vague" and interpreted that there were no real clear definitions of any of it. They said it failed to define "severe" and also claimed there was no definition of physical pain or suffering. "The words were ambiguous." The department issued a memo to the White House with more definitive words to use. "Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." This definition left things WIDE OPEN for torture. Critics even stated that along these lines, it could be considered and argued that what Sudaam Hussein had done would not be torture either. This brought about the view that torture is prohibited, but defined so limited that anything could be justified.

The Geneva Conventions and the War on Terror

The Geneva Conventions were signed in the U.S. in 1949. "These international laws prohibit torture, outrages upon personal dignity, and humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions

They represent the "standards" and are important because of the protection these conventions give the United States upon being captured. When discussing the Geneva Conventions and how they applied to the war against al-Qaeda, John Yoo, reports that he and the Justice Department felt as though they did not apply to this war on terror because they did not sign the Geneva Conventions. He also discusses how the terrorist did not, nor had they ever, ever followed any of the rules of war. President George Bush listened to the Justice Department and the decision "triumphed" in which he made the decision in early 2002 that "Geneva Conventions would not hold."

The Context of the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal

In regards to the situation in Iraq in the summer and fall of 2003 the statement was profoundly made that "The only was you are going to get yourself inside their decision cycle and their operating system is by getting individuals to talk." I believe this is a powerful statement that opens the door for the harsh interrogation techniques that would soon be adopted and followed. Before this, public reports were being made that things in Iraq were getting better, but this was far from the truth. The military was seeing more of the road side bombs and the destruction was at an all time high in 2003. "IEDs are my number one threat,' Gen. Abizad stated in a memorandum sent in June of that year to the Joint Chiefs of Staff." A car bomb that killed Ayatollah Mohammad Bakir Hakim, who was the leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was a strong message that the "United States, for all its firepower, couldn't protect its Iraqi allies." Upon investigation and realization of all that was going on the Americans realized their extreme lack of understanding of what was going on around them. Who were they fighting? Who were the enemies? Could they just lock up everyone they saw non American who looked like they were responsible? A new "Intelligence Fusion Center" was created. As the video depicts the decision to "round them up" and put them in the Abu Ghraib prison was portrayed to the public as a major success. However, at times there were 380 guards to thousands of prisoners. The abuse and scandal had only just begun.