Investigators recommend criminal charges in Abu Ghraib prison scandal

Army investigators are recommending that criminal charges be filed against 23 soldiers and four contract employees for their role in abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison complex outside Baghdad between July 2003 and February of this year. Investigators additionally recommended that six soldiers and two contract employees be charged with failing to report abuse they knew had occurred.

The charges would be in addition to those already pending against seven military police soldiers.

The investigators documented 44 cases of abuse, ranging from physical assault to one incident where soldiers used dogs to terrorize two adolescents in a contest to try to make them urinate and defecate. According to the report, which was released Wednesday: "At the extremes were the death of a detainee in [another government agency's] custody, an alleged rape committed by a U.S. translator and observed by a female soldier, and the alleged sexual assault of an unknown female."

Besides recommending charges against personnel involved in abuse, investigators recommended that five ranking officers be disciplined, not for any direct involvement but for leadership failures that allowed the abuse to occur.

The recommendations were made in a 170-page Article 15-6 investigation into intelligence activities at Abu Ghraib. The lead investigators, Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones, chief of staff of the Army Training and Doctrine Command, and Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, briefed reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday, along with Gen. Paul Kern, the appointing authority for the investigation.

Because of the pending charges, investigators declined to discuss the roles of specific individuals for fear of jeopardizing those cases. However, they were especially critical of Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was in charge of interrogations at the prison, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, chief of U.S. forces in Iraq at the time the abuses occurred.

"We did not find Gen. Sanchez culpable, but we did find him responsible for things that did and did not happen," said Kern.

A convoluted chain of command at the prison, far too few trained military police and intelligence personnel, and poorly communicated policies all contributed to the abuse, investigators found, echoing an earlier investigation into failures within the 800th Military Police Brigade, which also operated at the prison.

Fay said there clearly was collusion in abuse between some intelligence personnel and some military police at the prison.

When asked if the abuse amounted to torture, Fay said that while torture was a subjective word, "unfortunately I think in some instances it was used."

"Most, though not all, of the violent or sexual abuses occurred separately from scheduled interrogations and did not focus on persons held for intelligence purposes," the report says. "No policy, directive or doctrine directly or indirectly caused violent or sexual abuse. In these cases, soldiers knew they were violating the approved techniques and procedures."

The investigation also revealed the presence of at least eight "ghost" detainees, whose presence was deliberately undocumented, a practice prohibited by Defense Department policy.

"Were there more? We don't know," said Kern. "Without records, it's hard to document." The investigators recommended that both the Defense Department inspector general and the CIA inspector general begin inquiries. In addition, Kern said "more than one other federal agency is potentially involved."

Charges against contractors will be filed by the Justice Department, Kern said.