Rummy's scapegoat

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski -- former commander at Abu Ghraib -- says she was hung out to dry by the Pentagon.

By Jen Banbury

Nov 10, 2005 | In April 2004, when we first saw the Abu Ghraib photos -- hooded Iraqis being tortured, menaced by dogs, sexually abused under the prods and grins of their American captors -- our outrage and disgust were just barely tempered by the notion that the U.S. occupation of Iraq could not, and would not, ever be the same. It seemed certain that the photos would change the way the U.S. handles detainees, and bring down the policymakers who made it possible for such behavior to flourish. But a year and a half later, with a handful of low-level soldiers from Abu Ghraib -- the proverbial "bad apples" -- behind bars, what has really changed? In September, Human Rights Watch issued a lengthy report detailing how troops in the 82nd Airborne routinely tortured detainees at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base near Fallujah, often in response to direct orders from military intelligence. Three soldiers from the 82nd Airborne, including Capt. Ian Fishback, gave a full debriefing to Human Rights Watch after numerous attempts to report the abuse through their chain of command were ignored.

However, when the Abu Ghraib story broke open, one higher-up in the military did get hung out. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski arrived in Iraq in June 2003 with the understanding that she would be in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade as it transitioned from guarding EPWs (enemy prisoners of war) to helping Iraqis retake control of their own prison population. Right away, Karpinski learned that many soldiers under her command who were supposed to be headed home were, in fact, being ordered to stay in Iraq for three to six additional months at least. She also learned that she would be overseeing 17 prisons, including the notorious Abu Ghraib, which was being used temporarily to house a few hundred felons and low-level criminals.

Given that she acted as commander of the prisons, it would seem obvious that Karpinski was responsible for what happened at Abu Ghraib. But her case is complicated. Within months of her arrival in Iraq, Abu Ghraib became a holding pen for massive numbers of Iraqis swept up in U.S. military raids and held as "security detainees." And while Karpinski was in charge of the military police at the prison, she had no control over interrogations being handled by military intelligence, the CIA or even private contractors. Karpinski contends that as the chain of command and the policies regarding the security detainees at Abu Ghraib became murkier and murkier, she tried in vain not to be sidelined. Ultimately, she says, she had no clue as to the horrific acts taking place inside the prison.

In her new book (written with Steven Strasser), "One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story," Karpinski makes a strong argument that she was made a scapegoat by George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, her immediate bosses and military intelligence commanders. Frustratingly, Karpinski never steps up and takes responsibility, in any way, for what happened at Abu Ghraib. Yet, despite her lack of accountability or mea culpa, the book is an often shocking, guns-a-blazing indictment of the inept occupation of Iraq, and of the men who planned it and continue to run it today. Salon reached Karpinski by phone this week to talk about the Gitmo-ization of Abu Ghraib, the policy that keeps thousands of innocent Iraqis behind bars, and the reasons that the people truly responsible for Abu Ghraib are still in power.

At what point after you arrived in Iraq did the U.S. begin rounding up security detainees -- people arrested by the U.S. military on suspicion of ...

Terrorism. In late August [2003] they started these very aggressive raids. The first operation, up in Mosul, resulted in 37 security detainees arriving in Abu Ghraib. Within about 30 hours, the military interrogation teams had interviewed each one of those 37 and determined that only two of them had value and needed to be held. The other 35 were eligible to be released. And that was a firestorm, because nobody was going to be released.

I was at a briefing over at [Lt. Gen. Ricardo] Sanchez's headquarters [as the head of coalition forces in Iraq] and the deputy commander, [Maj.] Gen. [Walter] Wodjakowski, turned around to me and said, "You are not to release any one of them, Janis." And I said, "Sir, that information came from the military intelligence." And he said, "Get me somebody from the military intelligence." So this captain comes over and is trying to explain that none of these 35 had any further value. They were in fact in the wrong place at the wrong time, [gathered] up with the target individuals. So, Gen. Wodjakowski now turns on this guy and tells him, "You are not to release any of them. Do you understand me? Am I making myself perfectly clear? You are not to release any one of them." And this captain tries valiantly to explain that we'll be holding innocent people, and Gen. Wodjakowski says he doesn't care.

Well, by the end of September they brought in just over 3,000 security detainees. And none of them were released. And the following month it was at least another 3,000 added to the already 3,000 that were not being released. So in two months' time, the population at Abu Ghraib was 10 times more than what we had been holding when it was just a regular detention operation.

That means that a huge percentage of people who were in the prison had no reason to be there.

That is unfortunately true. So, say, generally 90 percent of the security detainees being held at Abu Ghraib were just innocent, had no information at all.

In September, Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld had sent [Guantánamo Bay commander] Gen. Geoffrey Miller to come and work with the interrogation teams to help them improve their techniques and get more actionable intelligence from their interrogation effort. I was invited to come and sit in his introductory briefing. After the briefing was over, I specifically went to the JAG [Judge Advocate General] officer and I said, "How are you releasing prisoners down at Guantánamo Bay?" She said, "Releasing them? We're not releasing anybody. These are detainees; these are terrorists; these are not prisoners. And every one of them will likely spend every last day of their lives at Guantánamo Bay."

I thought, "How can we hold hundreds or thousands of these people in Iraq? We'll never get out of here." But that was the plan. And Gen. Wodjakowski said, "I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent Iraqis, we're winning the war." And I said to him, "No, sir, not inside the wire you're not, because every one of those detainees becomes our enemy when they're released, and they will be released one day." [Last week a spokesman for the U.S. military's prison operations said that U.S. forces are holding a total of 13,885 detainees in a number of facilities throughout Iraq.]

Next Page: "There was a general understanding ... that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to these detainees"

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