Beyond Miller, Karpinski implicated “Gen. Fast, Gen. Sanchez, [and Stephen A.] Cambone, [under secretary of defense for intelligence]. I don't know if it stops at Cambone, but I believe that he was orchestrating it, he was directing,” she said to The Signal.3
Seymour Hersh is no less explicit in his reporting for the New Yorker:
The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie … in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focused on the hunt for al-Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq.4
Later in the same article, he writes of his own sources – claimed to be reliable, experienced, and informed – who indicate that even the White House was aware of the plan to have Miller “Gitmoize” the Abu Ghraib intelligence operation.
… a Pentagon consultant … spread the blame. “The White House subcontracted this to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon subcontracted it to Cambone,” he said. “This is Cambone's deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers approved the program.” When it came to the interrogation operation at Abu Ghraib, he said, Rumsfeld left the details to Cambone.5
In his book, Chain of Command, Hersh also confirms the involvement of Lt. Gen. Boykin. “After the scandal became public,” he writes, “I was repeatedly told that Boykin had been involved, on behalf of Cambone, in the policies that led to the abuse at Abu Ghraib.”1
Hersh additionally notes the testimony of a source who maintained that the “sexual humiliation and the posed photographs” may have initially been intended – and for a “serious” purpose.
It was thought that some prisoners would do anything – including spying on their associates – to avoid dissemination of the shameful photos to family and friends. The government consultant [source] said, “I was told that the purpose of the photographs was to create an army of informants, people you could insert back in the population.” The idea was that they would be motivated by fear of exposure, and gather information about pending insurgency action ….2
Other details include the fact – noted in a Center for Public Integrity report – that Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, head of the Joint Interrogation and Detention Center where intelligence operations were consolidated in September 2003, “told investigators that the interrogation center had been put together at the direction of the White House”;3 and the fact that Charles Graner, during the sentencing phase of his January 2005 court-martial, persuasively (though unconvincingly) argued that senior intelligence officers ordered detainees to be roughed up so they would be easier to interrogate.4
A Special Access Program?
As if it weren't enough that there is first hand testimony and credible reporting as to the complicity of high authorities in decisions that set the stage for what transpired at Abu Ghraib, there's more. Seymour Hersh has detailed the possible export to Iraq of an alleged program with very tightly controlled and compartmented security – a “special-access program” or SAP, into which individuals from the nation's special operations and intelligence communities would be “read” in order to participate in the timely interrogation of, or strike missions against, “high value” targets in the “global war on terror.” These missions, Hersh notes, could take place anywhere in the world with only Rumsfeld's permission, based upon prior agreement between the various agencies – NSA, CIA, DoD, etc. – and using CIA interrogation sites around the world, along with commandos from the nation's special operations forces. The intelligence-gathering ability of this program was highly regarded within the Pentagon, according to Hersh's sources. “The intelligence would be relayed to the SAP command center in the Pentagon in real time,” he wrote, “and sifted for those pieces of information critical to the 'white,' or overt, world.”1
When Rumsfeld became exasperated with the lack of intelligence desired for combating the insurgency in Iraq, Hersh's intelligence source notes,
[he] and Cambone … expanded the scope of the sap, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation.2
Soon after, “[Gen.] Miller was 'read in' – that is, briefed – on the specialaccess operation,” Hersh's source claims, and military intelligence personnel were incorporated after after that.
Cambone then made [a] crucial decision …: not only would he bring the sap's rules into the prisons; he would bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the Iraqi prisons under the sap's auspices. “So here are fundamentally good soldiers – military-intelligence guys – being told that no rules apply,” the former official, who has extensive knowledge of the specialaccess programs, added. “And, as far as they're concerned, this is a covert operation, and it's to be kept within Defense Department channels” (emphasis mine).3
Hersh maintains that the SAP's existence was in fact confirmed to him by a ranking member of Congress, after his May 2004 New Yorker article on the subject was published.4 That said, it is perhaps impossible – at least for anyone without blanket access to high-level government officials and highly classified records – to confirm the veracity of the suggestion that Abu Ghraib is really the fallout from a covert program, called (among other things) “Copper Green,” which according to Hersh's sources, “encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.”5 Nevertheless, two aspects of the story make it seem at least credible. The first is the number of facts that fit this picture, though taken by themselves they might seem unrelated. The second is the degree to which the reviews and criminal proceedings that have thus far dealt with the Abu Ghraib abuses scrupulously (perhaps consciously?) avoid a serious investigation into whether or not the program that Hersh has portrayed actually exists. The completed and ongoing investigations could not be better tailored to protect the existence of the program.
Karpinski's testimony is one part of the set of facts that fit the larger picture of a SAP for aggressive interrogations. She believes that the pictures “were staged and set up to be used to show to a detainee as they were getting ready to undergo interrogation.” It might be a way to get information “more quickly and more efficiently from a new detainee,” if he were threatened with images projected on a screen or printed “in living color” of what happened to his friends – and what might happen to him.1
An additional argument in favor of the SAP's existence emerges from a comparison of those in Iraq who would likely have been “read in” to the program, against those who have in fact been implicated (even if exonerated thus far) in contributing to the abuses that occurred. Many of the same individuals are found in both groups.
The event that set things in motion – Lt. Gen. Boykin's trip to GTMO – was known not only to the traveler but also to Rumsfeld, Cambone, and Miller. Karpinski's testimony indicates that once Miller arrived in Iraq from GTMO, he worked directly with the commander – Sanchez – and Sanchez's intelligence chief, Barbara Fast. Karpsinski further indicated that Miller planned to adopt Abu Ghraib for his intelligence gathering operation, telling her, “Ric Sanchez said I could have whatever facility I wanted, and I want Abu Ghraib, and we're going to train the MPs to work with the interrogators.”2
The interrogators he refers to were those he brought with him from GTMO. A New York Times report confirmed, that “[a]ccording to a military officer on the Miller delegation to Iraq, interrogation teams from Guantánamo took part in interrogations at Abu Ghraib …. ”3 Karpinski again says the same thing:
Gen. Miller … talked about his interrogators, the ones that he was going to send up from Guantánamo Bay and the ones that he brought with him, that they knew what the rules were, and that they would share them with the interrogation team.4
Karpinski wasn't the only one given to understand that Miller intended his interrogators to train the MI personnel and the MPs. Pappas, then head of the 205th MI Brigade, told her that w
as his understanding as well, according to her Signal interview: “We're supposed to have these interrogators that he's sending up from Guantánamo Bay, and they're going to give some kind of training to my interrogators and to your MPs.”1 By mid or late September, she remembered, the maximum-security cells where the abuse would occur – in cellblocks 1A and 1B – were being run by MI, and Pappas, who worked directly for Fast, the intelligence chief, was living at the prison. It thus came as no surprise to her when Sanchez, the CJTF-7 commander, issued an order (on November 19, 2003) making Pappas the commander of the prison, even though it was staffed by MPs who worked for her, because by that time the MI personnel had been running the interrogations in the high-security areas for two months.2 What is apparent is a gradual move by MI, following Miller's visit from GTMO, to take over operations at Abu Ghraib.
Karpinski remembers specifically a conversation she had with Pappas following the promulgation of the order placing him in charge of the prison. “[Fast] wanted Abu Ghraib” Pappas told her, “and she wanted the interrogation operation run a certain way, and this was her solution.”3 A later conversation she had with Fast elicited a similar remark, illustrating Fast's central position in intelligence decisions there: “… we're going to run interrogations the way we want them run.”
Part of running interrogations according to MI desires was selecting a few MPs to learn whatever techniques were necessary to support the new interrogation methods. It was up to Miller's imported “interrogation teams and the interrogators to tell the MPs what they needed them to do,”4 Karpinski said. Miller specifically told her, in fact, as far as she remembers, “[W]e're going to select the MPs who can do this, and they're going to work specifically with the interrogation team.” Her suspicion was that those implicated in the abuse scandal were, in fact, “six or seven individuals who may have been specifically selected. Because they were likely to participate …“ (emphasis mine).5
Two other individuals who have been the subject of scrutiny worked directly for Fast, the intelligence chief in Iraq. One was Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, head of the Joint Intelligence and Debriefing Center (JIDC) at Abu Ghraib, where many interrogations were conducted by MI personnel. He “[told] investigators that he acted in a liaison role and ultimately reported to Major General Barbara Fast, the head of intelligence operations at Coalition headquarters.”1 The second was Col. Stephen Boltz, the second-ranking MI officer in Iraq, just under Fast. His guidance regarding interrogations was reflected in an email from a MI captain:
The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees, Col Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken. Casualties are mounting and we need to start gathering info to help protect our fellow soldiers from any further attacks.2
Still others, according to a Baltimore Sun report from 2004, claimed to work directly and exclusively for Fast:
Some of the intelligence officers and civilian contractors at the prison said they were on special assignments for Fast or worked directly for her. “They would play the 'General Fast card,' saying they only reported to her,” said a military intelligence soldier who served at Abu Ghraib.3
Finally – among those potentially “read in” to a SAP – there is the question of other units that likely would have been part of the alleged program and that have recently been implicated in assisting with the “migration” of interrogation techniques from elsewhere into Iraq. The JDIC, under Lt. Col. Jordan, was stood up by (once again) Barbara Fast – then a one-star – in September 2003. Some of the personnel assigned to support intelligence operations there were part of the 519th MI battalion, which had run interrogations in Afghanistan in late 2002.4 In Afghanistan they copied interrogation rules “almost verbatim” from the July 15, 2003, “Battlefield Interrogation Team and Facility Policy” of Joint Task Force 121, a secretive Special Operations Forces/CIA mission seeking former government members in Iraq.1 It would be reasonable to assume that JTF-121 was cut in on any special interrogation program, given the sensitiveness and importance of its mission. Support for such a supposition is found also in Hersh's book, where he says – without naming the task force – that, according to his intelligence source, “the SAP was involved in a few assignments in Iraq …,” where “CIA and other American special forces operatives secretly teamed up to hunt for Saddam Hussein and – without success – for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.”2
The Schlesinger report also detailed the adoption by the 519th MI battalion of a February 2003 document, “Special Operation Forces Standard Operating Procedures,” prepared in response to a data call from the Pentagon for an interrogations procedures working group report. The officer in charge of the company in Iraq from the 519th “prepared draft interrogation guidelines that were a near copy of the Standard Operating Procedure created by SOF.”3 Again, it is reasonable to speculate that the SOF procedures may have benefited from guidelines that existed within the confines of the alleged special access program.
The Fay report highlights a similar process. When, in September 2003, CJTF-7 requested that the judge advocate from the 205th MI brigade, commanded by Pappas, produce a set of interrogation rules, the draft submitted was based upon the April 16, 2003, secretary of defense interrogation memo (originally drafted specifically for GTMO interrogations) that Miller brought with him when he visited Abu Ghraib. This draft reply was then sent to the 519th MI battalion for coordination, and the 519th added “the use of dogs, stress positions, sleep management, sensory deprivation, and yelling, loud music and light control” from its own 2003 interrogations memo.4
Other snippets of fact fit the picture of a special access program that included Abu Ghraib interrogations. An NBC News report of May 20, 2004, alleged the existence in Iraq of the Battlefield Interrogation Facility (BIF) – maintained by Army Delta Force personnel at Baghdad airport – where “the normal rules of interrogation don't apply.”5 Of note is the claim of “top U.S. military and intelligence sources” that Rumsfeld,
through other top Pentagon officials, directed the U.S. head of intelligence in Iraq, Gen. Barbara Fast, and others to bring some of the methods used at the BIF to prisons like Abu Ghraib, in hopes of getting better intelligence from Iraqi detainees.1
As head of the JIDC, Lt. Col. Jordan promulgated a policy allowing the CIA to conduct interrogations without the presence of Army personnel.2A former Navy SEAL, Dan Cerrillo, testifying at the court-martial trial of Navy Lt. Andrew Ledford – the SEAL accused in conjunction with the death of al-Jamadi – said that he beat another prisoner because he believed he was being directed to do so by CIA personnel.3 Seymour Hersh's New Yorker piece also documents the presence of “[h]ard-core special operatives, some of them with aliases, [who] were working in the prison.” Though
[t]he military police assigned to guard the prisoners wore uniforms … many others – military intelligence officers, contract interpreters, CIA officers, and the men from the special-access program – wore civilian clothes.4
This is consistent with the testimony of Karpinski, who recalls escorting a general officer to an interrogation facility and chatting there with some individuals in civilian clothes. “Are you local?” she remembers asking one.
Because he looked like he was Kuwaiti. I said, “Are you an interpreter?” He said, “No, I'm an interrogator.” And I said, “Oh, are you from here?” And he said, “No, actually, I'm from Israel.” And I was kind of shocked. And I think I laughed. And I said, “No, really?” And he said, “No, really, I am.”5
Other reports raise similar concerns. A January 13, 2005, wire report indicated that the White House admitted to having “urged Congress to drop a legislative proposal that would have curbed the ability of U.S. intelligence to use extreme interrogation tactics.”6 Furthermore, a 13-page confidential report was submitted by retired Col. Stuart A. Herrington to general officers in Iraq as early as December 2003, saying “that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees.”7 One may be forgiven for wondering
how much more evidence there is, conforming to the pattern of an extremely secret interrogation program responsible for the Abu Ghraib mess, that still hasn't been released.
Damage Control
Whether a SAP covering the Abu Ghraib interrogations existed or not, the efforts that the U.S. government seems to have gone to in order to keep the damning details about the policy and practicalities of interrogation in Iraq out of the public eye is extraordinary. The Horton testimony is particularly revealing in this regard. His impression is that
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