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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
So was there a general understanding that the security detainees did not fall under the rubric of the Geneva Conventions?
Yes, there was a general understanding from [Maj.] Gen. [Barbara] Fast [head of intelligence for the U.S. command in Baghdad] and Col. [Marc] Warren [Sanchez's legal advisor] and Gen. Sanchez that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to these detainees.
Talk about the detainees who were purposely not listed anywhere because they potentially had a very high intelligence value -- the so-called ghost detainees.
Before those individuals were turned over to us by the task force or OGA [for "other government agency," typically a reference to the CIA], we received a message: "This individual will not be entered in any database. REPEAT not entered in any database. The individual will be secured in a separate section in a location with no contact with other prisoners." So if the Geneva Conventions say that prisoners will be listed in a database, and you're not calling them a prisoner, you're bypassing the Geneva Convention. Most of these messages said at the beginning, "Rumsfeld Sends."
"One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story"
By Janis Karpinski
Miramax Books
242 pages
Nonfiction
What was your understanding of how they were being treated as individuals? Were they under the military intelligence people?
In some cases they were. And if the interrogators knew that an ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] team was coming to Abu Ghraib they would relocate them until the ICRC team was finished.
To hide them from the ICRC teams.
Yes.
Was there any time when you thought to yourself, I am being a party to, or I am being used by, some forces that are just not right in what they're doing, i.e., Sanchez or Rumsfeld?
Well, I hate to say this, but I could detect that there were things that were amiss from the beginning. I know I sound like I'm defending myself, but I'm not. In July and August, we had a plan and we were following the plan. We repeatedly said we're only using [Abu Ghraib] for as long as we need to until we can get the prisoners transferred to other prison facilities around Baghdad or other locations as they become available. We briefed [on] it every week to Bremer and Sanchez, every week.
Then, in August, it changed. They decided to do these raids, hold these security detainees in Abu Ghraib. Without any discussion with me whatsoever, they're going to make it the interrogation center for Iraq, which makes even less sense. If you have a higher-value detainee, why are you going to put this individual in the middle of the most hostile fire zone in Iraq, the Sunni Triangle?
Let's talk about what went wrong at Abu Ghraib and how it possibly got to that point.
In September [2003], Col. [Thomas] Pappas [head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib] asked for control of cellblock 1A and a couple of days later, about a week later, he asked for control of cellblock 1B. And after Gen. Miller's visit, all of these interrogators started to arrive at Abu Ghraib. Col. Pappas was under tremendous pressure to find Saddam. So there was a handover and then a request, a specific request for [Spc. Charles] Graner to work the night shift in cellblock 1A, because the company commander said he was a prison guard in his civilian role and he would be good to work on the night shift. And they were really shorthanded out there. They took on this mission, and by mid-November they were taking instructions directly from Col. Pappas.
And was he their official C.O. at that point?
No, no. There was never a transition made between him taking command of the units. However, Col. Pappas requested clarification on the chain of command and he was told by Gen. Fast that "he owned all of it" -- that was his quote exactly.
So Gen. Fast told Col. Pappas that he was in charge.
Right. This was in November, early November.
Early November. But in fact, theoretically, you were still in charge of everyone in the 800th.
Yes, that's correct, theoretically. Now, I'm not onsite out at Abu Ghraib, of course. I have 17 different prison facilities and I need to go visit the soldiers at all of them. I'm not going to run Abu Ghraib for the battalion commander because he is responsible for the battalion out there, and I've had several conversations about where he needed to improve. So I'm in fact mentoring him as he's doing this mission. And then Col. Pappas starts to direct his work. That's what raised the first concern, because the battalion commander came to me and he said, "Ma'am, I just need to know from you, is Col. Pappas my boss or are you my boss?" And I said, "I am still your boss, why?" And he said, "Because Col. Pappas is telling us how to run detention operations." So when I saw Col. Pappas down at ambassador [Paul] Bremer's headquarters that Friday, he said yes, that was his understanding, that he was giving instructions. And I said, "Does Col. Jordan work for you?" (He was a lieutenant colonel who was always running the operations at cellblock 1A and B.) And he said, "No, ma'am, he doesn't work for me. He works for Gen. Fast." And then I left Baghdad [for a few days on other military business] and when I came back, that was when I found out that they had transferred control of the prison to Col. Pappas.
But even before then it seems like it was a hugely confusing environment just in terms of who was doing what. Then add to that all of the contractors who were there interrogating people and the OGAs. Was there a time when you felt that you were no longer really in control of what was going on there?
Yes. When these security detainees were coming in, we had no release policy that applied to them. Nobody seemed to be concerned about a release policy. And ambassador Bremer, who should have been the person in the middle, didn't object. This was supposed to be a function that was eventually turned back over to the Iraqi people -- to run their courts, to run processing, to run detention operations, to release criminals, to hold criminals, to try criminals -- and that was in ambassador Bremer's lane. But he didn't object.
And when our prisoner population out at Abu Ghraib in two months' time went up to over 6,000 because of the security detainees, that's when I felt, I have no control over this at all.
