As a Combat Support Unit, the 372nd MP Company was sent to Abu Ghraib to perform the mission of
an EPW unit, many of which were doing Combat Support missions in Kuwait during the same time
frame. We received none of the training that the DoD Directive 2310.1 says that the Secretary of the
Army shall ensure that we receive before we were sent to a war-time situation.
We were not given any training except that we were told many times that Military Intelligence (MI) was
in charge of Tier 1, and that MI would say how things would be run. From the very first day they
were there, and the previous Military Police (MP) unit was still running the Tier, some detainees were in
their cells naked and some were wearing female underwear. Again, we were told that this was an MI
tactic for breaking detainees.
As far as following lower ranking MI soldiers, the MI soldier did not wear their tops and so we did not
know what rank they were. Even when they did where their tops, they did not wear their rank. There
are lots of young looking Captains, Majors, Staff Sergeants, Sergeants First Class, so it would be
impossible to tell just by looking at someone what their rank was. The prosecution said we should have
automatically known by looking that not all of the interrogators were higher ranking, but it didn’t matter
anyway, They were in charge. Their detainees, Their rules, Their tactics, Their techniques, our
help.
SSG Frederick and CPL Graner sought confirmation about who was in charge from many sources
including CPT Brinson, the Officer in Charge of the Hard Site that housed Tier 1; CPT Reese, the MP
Company Commander; 1LT Raeder, the 3rd PLT MP Leader, COL Phillabaum, the MP Battalion
Commander; COL Pappas, the Abu Ghraib Forward Operating Base Commander and 205th MI Brigade
Commander; LT Col Jordan, the Joint Intelligence and Debriefing Center (JIDC) Commander; CPT
Wood, the 519th MI Commander and 2nd in Command of the JIDC, and various others. In the
investigation of the detainee abuse that lead to 2 detainee deaths, CID recommended that CPT Wood be
charged with Maltreatment, False Statements, and Conspiracy, which has not happened in over 3 years
since the deaths. CPT Wood wrote the list of unauthorized interrogation techniques that were brought
and used at Abu Ghraib with the help of MP’s.
The responses were always the same, “Do what MI tells you to do,” and “MI is in charge”.
No Standard Operating Procedure
According to SSG Frederick in the fall of 2003, a prison in America would have a Standard Operating
Procedure at least as tall as himself, approximately 6’2”, governing every possible procedure for an
American prison. His frequent requests for a Standard Operating Procedure of a prison for detainees in
war time conditions went unanswered.
Both SSG Frederick and CPL Graner told me at different times during the deployment that in no way
was Abu Ghraib anything like an American prison, but the closest thing to Tier 1 that an American
prison would have would be a restricted housing unit. However, both also stated that in comparison,
there would be many more CO's working there and all would be trained to a certain standard before
working there. There would also be supplies and backup personnel to deal with the different types of
inmates.
At any given time, Tier 1 housed up to 100 of the most dangerous inmates. These detainees were
terrorists from Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, an Al- Qaeda detainee, OGA unregistered
detainees; former Iraqi Generals; and former body guards of Saddam Hussein.
There were violent and aggressive detainees who physically assaulted and threatened guards, trouble
makers who were disruptive, mentally ill detainees who were completely out of control, and detainees
who had to be watched because of suicidal tendencies. There were detainees who planned and rioted in
order to take hostage or kill MP's. We had detainees who had medical conditions such as TB and
those who had tried to smuggle multiple razor blades in their medical dressings in isolation on the tier.
The tier also housed female and juvenile military intelligence detainees, one of which provided detailed
information on the disguises and whereabouts of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Having females
and juveniles on the tier presented its own problems given the nature of the other detainees on the tier.
In the middle of all of this they were told by an MI COL to allow the women prisoners out to sit in
front of their cells to talk to each other. MI also told us that all of the detainees who had any
intelligence value had to be silent and not talk to anyone. This meant that all of the detainees had to be
quiet so that we could hear who was talking and who was not. Detainees were to be handcuffed to cell
doors for talking and it was to be reported if any MI detainees were caught talking to another detainee.
Even after the investigation started, and the seven MP’s were no longer working the prison, the SGT
running the Tier wrote a March 2004 memo asking for Geneva Conventions categories for all the
different types of detainees, including unlawful combatants.
The only rules and regulations that the MP’s were ever given was 1 sheet called Rules of Engagement
(ROE). The ROE defined hostile actors as anyone who commits hostile acts or shows hostile intent.
Hostile intent is defined as the threat against U.S. soldiers and/or impeding the mission/duties of U.S.
forces.
The only means to deal with this threat, once identified is an Escalating Use of Force:
Shout: Verbal warning
Shove: physically restrain, block access, or restrain
Show: your weapon and demonstrate intent to use it
Shoot: to remove the threat of death/serious bodily injury or to
protect designated property
In bold and underlined, it says: Nothing in these rules of engagement inhibits your inherent
authority and obligation to take all necessary and appropriate action to defend yourself, your
unit, and other U.S. forces.
We were not given any supplies or training to deal with any of the above situations. We did not even
have enough handcuffs for the entire Tier. When an Iraqi Policeman smuggled a pistol and two knives
to a Syrian terrorist, it was also thought that there was a grenade on the block. We did not have
enough handcuffs to restrain all of the detainees on the block and there was the serious potential for
soldiers being killed due to the lack of proper equipment. The radios issued to the unit could not even
reach from Tier 1 to the office 100 meters away and the batteries were usually dead when necessary.
It was not until a friend of the First Sergeant sent critical Motorola hand held radios to the unit
as a Christmas present, that we had reliable communications on the Tier.
The hard site held over a thousand prisoners and all of these prisoners had to be managed by just 7
American soldiers. The Iraqi Policeman hired to help were arrested for smuggling a weapon to a Syrian
terrorist and for being Fedayeen loyalists who extorted money from the prisoners and who were just as
dangerous as the prisoners they were guarding.
Use of Force
When 7 rioters came onto the block immediately after being pulled for instigating a riot, they were still
communicating with one another, flailing around as hostile actors showing hostile intent. Because of
the direction of the Non Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) of the night shift, SSG Frederick,
all of the detainees were processed at one time, contrary to what would have been the most logical
procedure. The flexi-cuffs that were put on the detainees at the time of the riot were cut off because
they were causing the detainees hands to turn blue. They were also strip-searched at this point for
weapons.
Some reports have tried to condemn us just for strip searching detainees. However, it was necessary in
order to protect both the guards and the detainees. Too bad the Iraqi corrections officers were
sometimes perfectly willing to smuggle back the weapons we tried so hard to keep from the detainees.
Keeping detainees naked was a control and softening technique taught to us by military intelligence.
At various times, detainees had been found with cash, razor blades, needles, unauthorized medicine,
shanks and maps of the prison on their bodies. Cash was used to bribe the guards to smuggle letters
in and out of the prison, among other illegal contraband. Females tried to hide money inside of their
used sanitary napkins. Maps were made and passed outside of the prison to be used in attacks against
the prison. Metal bunks that the prisoners slept on were pulled apart and used as battering rams in riots
or made into shanks. Medicine was used as barter between the prisoners, and anything that could have
been fashioned into a weapon was, including a bone from a t-bone steak that Iraqi corrections officers
allowed inmate block workers to take from the trash. In the log book pages, there are highlighted
entries documenting some of these very weapons and contraband found.
CPL Graner used his knowledge of use of force techniques(with notes) on November 7 to gain
compliance from detainees who were not complying with verbal directions. Detainees most often
pretended that they did not understand the MP commands, when given the first few times. The
seriousness of the situation and this lack of communication escalated the situation to the next level of
force. None of the other soldiers was versed in use of force techniques and thus could not perceive the
techniques to be the Use of Force techniques that they were. The only other soldier with experience of
that nature took a deal to testify for the prosecution.
While the pyramid and stacking of the detainees were control methods that were not strictly taught, it
kept the situation from getting any worse, without hurting any of the soldiers or detainees. An expert
witness was denied the chance to testify about many Use of Force techniques used that night that
would have been very useful in the defense. His testimony was not allowed and it was considered
irrelevant.
Defense attorneys for soldiers who threw Iraqis in to the Tigris River were allowed to say that soldiers
were trying to find non-lethal ways to deter crime and establish respect in the hostile area, something
that was definitely not taught in any training courses.
In April 2003, soldiers from the 10th Engineering Corps stripped suspected Iraqi looters of their
clothes, wrote thief in Arabic on their chests and forced them to walk naked through a park in the
middle of the day, with pictures being taken. First Lieutenant Eric Canaday, who ordered this said, “I
don't think this kind of action is excessive. "We've done it once before to another man we found
looting and it worked perfectly." It is unknown whether any soldier ever faced punishment for these
actions.
Sabrina Harman was found guilty of maltreatment for writing "rapiest" on the leg of one detainee on the
same night. She was trying to keep others alerted to the dangerous nature of this detainee. Detainees
were written on all the time at Abu Ghraib, what weapons they had used in a riot, "MI", numbers, etc.
With no standard operating procedures, as a brand new soldier, somehow newly promoted SPC
Harman was supposed to determine between what was authorized writing and what was not.
The situation on Tier 1 got out of hand with the masturbation at the direction of SSG Frederick, who
took responsibility for this at trial, but blamed a simulated fellatio scene on CPL Graner. Other soldiers
who testified only saw SSG Frederick at this scene, except for one other soldier who took a deal for a
lesser sentence and was confused as to what exactly he saw that night. The detainee, himself, claimed
to have seen CPL Graner, but in earlier testimony, he claimed to have a sandbag on his head the whole
time and testified to other inconsistencies about the night.
SSG Frederick told another soldier that that is what MI told him to do. In fact, a previous group of
rioters were isolated in order to be interrogated. MP’s would have every reason to believe that the same
thing would happen to this group. So with no guidance and lots of encouragement, they softened these
detainees just like they did all other military intelligence holds for eventual interrogation. Once the
detainees had ceased their hostile intent, CPL Graner went to Tier 1B to clean out cells for the
detainees. When he came up the detainees masturbating, CPL Graner stopped the action by securing
them in their cells as quickly as possible.
Before the night was over, he was informed that the NCOIC of the prison was aware of what had gone
on. CPL Graner also reported this to his MI chain of command the next evening. As a result of
reporting what happened, he received a wooden wall to obstruct the view into the common area of Tier
1A. Within a day of speaking with MI, CPL Graner showed still photographs of what happened to his
MP platoon Chain of Command and requested to be removed from the prison. He was told to keep
following military intelligence instructions by his Platoon Leader.
