Duty, Honor, Country

Whatever else Americans may learn about the mistreatment that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison complex and elsewhere in Iraq, it is clear that the operations of the 800th Military Police Brigade were far removed from the order and discipline that defines most military units. Undisciplined soldiers, negligent officers, a high-pressure environment, low morale and a muddy chain of command all contributed to the abuses that have not only tarnished the Army, but have endangered troops on the battlefield and shaken U.S. foreign policy. The brigade, which was responsible for internment and resettlement operations throughout Iraq, was understaffed and poorly trained, but those factors don't account for the grievous misconduct that took place, former military leaders say.

The picture that emerges from the remarkably candid investigation by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba is of a unit out of control. Taguba, the deputy commanding general for support at the Coalition Forces Land Component Command, was asked by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the chief of U.S. forces in Iraq, to investigate operations within the brigade after Army commanders learned that a criminal investigation had begun into abuses at Abu Ghraib, a sprawling 280-acre complex of prison camps about 20 miles west of Baghdad.

Taguba, who briefed his superiors on his findings March 3, discovered that basic administrative procedures for keeping track of prisoners were not followed; soldiers were not trained to manage prisons-nor did their commanders seek to obtain training; soldiers were unfamiliar with laws and regulations governing their jobs-the Geneva Conventions were not posted, though this is a legal requirement; copies of Army regulations and field manuals spelling out exactly how the unit was to operate were largely absent. In addition, morale was extremely low and fraternization and sexual activity among soldiers was widespread. "Daily processing, accountability and detainee care appears to have been made up as the operations developed with reliance on, and guidance from, junior members of the unit who had civilian corrections experience," Taguba wrote.

At Abu Ghraib, the situation was critical. Troops were dangerously outnumbered by prisoners and faced nightly mortar and grenade attacks. There was no mess hall, no barbershop, no recreation facility, nowhere to go to escape stress. Sanitation was extremely poor. "A stinking hole" is how one Army officer who visited the prison late last year describes it. Discipline was lax. Uniform dress codes were not enforced; soldiers regularly failed to salute. More than two dozen civilian contractors involved in intelligence operations operated freely within the prison, and guards often confused them with military intelligence personnel.

The prison command structure was so convoluted that senior officers and Pentagon officials testifying under oath before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 11 disagreed among themselves over who was in charge-the 800th Military Police Brigade or the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. For the soldiers on the ground, the reporting structure was just as unclear. Guards charged with abuse have said they were acting at the behest of military intelligence personnel, who allegedly requested that the guards "soften up" prisoners for interrogation, according to Taguba. He found no evidence of a policy to use guards in the interrogation process, but wrote that "it is obvious from a review of comprehensive . . . interviews of suspects and witnesses that this was done at lower levels." The Army is investigating the role of military intelligence at the prison.

Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, former commandant of the Army War College, believes that the guards had to have known what they were doing was unlawful. "They knew it was wrong, and they thought they could get away with it because they knew their commander was too weak and ineffective to be aware," Scales says.

'Where Were the Officers?'

Photographic and video evidence collected during the criminal probe that preceded Taguba's investigation shows guards from the 372nd Military Police Company on Tier 1 at Abu Ghraib abusing Iraqi prisoners and engaging in sexual activity among themselves described as "pornographic" by those who have seen it. Taguba found that company commander Capt. Donald Reese rarely visited the cellblock. Neither Lt. Col. Jerry Philla-baum, the commander of Reese's parent unit, the 320th Military Police Battalion, nor Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, spent significant time with soldiers, Taguba found, despite Karpinski's claims to the contrary.

There's no excuse for not knowing what the soldiers under your command are doing, says James Villa, a federal attorney and former Army officer. From 1989 to 1992, Villa commanded the 372nd Military Police Company now embroiled in the abuse scandal. "If your people are working the graveyard shift, you go out and do it with them," he says.

While a lack of training may be a factor, Villa believes it does not explain what went on at Abu Ghraib. "The Army has nothing if not manuals. If you don't have the training, you don't just make it up. If it's not there, you go find it." Every unit leader along the way has the responsibility to make sure his or her unit is trained and is operating to some standard procedure, Villa says.

During the May 11 hearing, senator after senator expressed astonishment that no officers seemed to be checking on the soldiers in Tier 1. "Where were the officers of this brigade?" wondered Sen. James Talent, R-Mo. "What is unusual to me is how the enlisted people in this unit could have conducted behavior on this scale and nobody knows it's going on."

"At the bottom of it all is a failure of leadership," Scales says. "Within every unit there is a critical point. For an artilleryman, it's the gun line. A good battery commander always walks the gun line because he knows that if anything is going to go wrong, it's going to happen there. For a prison, [the critical point is] within the cell blocks. Commanders who avoid the critical points do so because they don't want to know what's going on there."

Army doctrine dictates that an average military police battalion, typically 350 to 400 soldiers, should be able to handle about 4,000 prisoners. Karpinski and her staff poorly allocated their eight battalions, Taguba found. For example, only one battalion was assigned to Abu Ghraib, which held between 6,000 and 7,000 prisoners. At the same time, a battalion at Camp Cropper at the Baghdad airport was guarding only about 100 detainees. Taguba could find no reason for such an imbalance. He faulted Karpinski for putting the 320th Military Police Battalion, a troubled unit headed by Phillabaum, who had a record of poor leadership, at Abu Ghraib.

Warning Signs

There were signs of trouble in the 320th more than a year ago. On May 12, 2003, four battalion guards severely beat detainees at Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in southern Iraq. The soldiers were court-martialed and discharged, but Taguba could find no indication that anyone learned from that incident. Likewise, he investigated dozens of shootings and escapes, riots and other violent incidents at prisons under the control of the 800th Brigade, and found that reports on various incidents were "rubber-stamped" by Karpinski, and there was no evidence any were acted upon.

Equally troubling, on Nov. 6, 2003, the International Committee of the Red Cross submitted a report to Karpinski documenting prisoner abuses in units under her command, according to Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, who testified at the May 11 hearing. Karpinski did not respond until Dec. 24, he said. Karpinski has publicly disputed Alexander's account, saying she saw the report only after others on Sanchez's staff had reviewed it, and that the response she signed was actually drafted by a lawyer on Sanchez's staff. It is not clear what the report said, but a February Red Cross committee report to Sanchez made public in May by the Wall Street Journal documents troubling practices by coalition forces throughout Iraq. Taguba said he found no evidence of a policy of abuse. He said he believes the mistreatment at Abu Ghraib was carried out by low-ranking personnel-guards and possibly civilian and military interrogators-of their own volition.

Retired Army Col. Stuart Herrington, a former intelligence officer who was involved in interrogations in Vietnam, Panama and during the first Gulf War, says, "It is completely foreign to my experience that MPs were in any way, shape or form being used to 'soften up' prisoners. Professional interrogators, if they have an ounce of common sense about human nature, particularly Iraqi human nature, understand that humiliating prisoners is simply not-apart from being illegal and immoral-pragmatically speaking, how you get good information. It also encourages reciprocity and puts your own forces in jeopardy."

With numerous probes under way and the eyes of the world upon it, the Army is working to discover how things went so far off the rails at Abu Ghraib and take corrective action. In the meantime, Karpinski has launched a public relations blitz. She told U.S. News and World Report in May that the Army is making her a scapegoat and that Taguba was a "kiss-up" out for a promotion. That response is "shocking," Scales says. "If the ship runs aground, the captain takes responsibility. That's the way our culture works."