The deputy commander of the U.S. Army's intelligence force is leading an investigation into interrogation practices at an Army-run prison where Iraqi detainees were allegedly beaten and sexually abused, officials announced Saturday. The move came amid allegations that military guards abused prisoners at the behest of military intelligence operatives.
A soldier accused of abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib facility wrote to his family last December that military intelligence officers were pleased with how the Iraqis were being treated, according to correspondence provided by the soldier's family.
"We have had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break," the soldier, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, wrote in a Dec. 18 e-mail released by Frederick's uncle. "They usually end up breaking within hours."
Frederick also wrote that he questioned some of the abuses. "I questioned this and the answer I got was: This is how military intelligence wants it done," he wrote.
The Army Reserve commander who oversaw the prison said that military intelligence, rather than the military police, dictated the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. "The prison, and that particular cellblock where the events took place, were under the control of the MI command," Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski said in a telephone interview Saturday night from her home in Hilton Head, S.C.
Karpinski also described a high-pressure atmosphere that prized successful interrogations. A month before the alleged abuses occurred, she said, a team of military intelligence officers from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came to Abu Ghraib last year. "Their main and specific mission was to get the interrogators -- give them new techniques to get more information from detainees," she said.
The naming of Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, of the Army Intelligence and Security Command, to review the methods and procedures used in questioning Iraqi prisoners represents a widening of the probe into conditions at Abu Ghraib, a prison 25 miles outside of Baghdad that was notorious for torture and executions under the government of former president Saddam Hussein.
'Sadistic, blatant and wanton'
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency said Saturday that its inspector general is working with the Pentagon to determine whether the CIA was involved in the abuses, which have drawn international attention. "We are opposed to abusing prisoners in Iraq, and we have found no direct evidence connecting CIA personnel with incidents" of abuse, the spokesman said.
On Saturday, Arabic satellite television networks repeatedly broadcast photographs of naked prisoners being humiliated. The images have been broadcast around the world and drawn condemnation from President Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
In March, the Army charged six military police officers, all from one Army reserve unit, with the physical and sexual abuse of 20 prisoners at Abu Ghraib in November and December. A criminal probe into the actions of four other soldiers is continuing.
In an e-mail, a commissioned officer in the unit, the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cumberland, Md., acknowledged that the abuses had occurred but attributed them to a far-reaching failure in leadership.
"I won't defend my soldiers," the officer wrote, on the condition of anonymity. "They knew better."
The officer added: "I am extremely disappointed in the way the Army has handled the entire situation and feel the leadership has been made the scapegoat for a few individuals. I think the leadership problems go much higher than the brigade commander."
An issue emerging in the defense of military police allegedly involved in abuse is whether the treatment was condoned or encouraged by military intelligence units interrogating Iraqi prisoners.
According to a source familiar with the March findings of an administrative review conducted by the Army, the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which helped oversee the questioning of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, pressed members of the military police unit, 372nd Military Police Company, to use rough tactics to prepare prisoners for questioning.
U.S. officials said the review, by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, found that prisoners at Abu Ghraib were regularly subjected to cruel and harsh punishments. In an article posted on its Web site, the New Yorker magazine reported in its May 10 issue that Taguba found a pattern of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at the prison.
Setting physical, mental conditions
According to the New Yorker article, by Seymour M. Hersh, a report last November by Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, the Army's top law enforcement officer, concluded that military intelligence did not order military police to put pressure on prisoners to prepare them for interrogations. Taguba, the article states, disagreed.
"Contrary to the findings of MG Ryder's report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to 'set the conditions' for MI interrogations," Taguba wrote, according to the article. Army intelligence officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractor "actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses," according to the article's account of Taguba's report.
The top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, made no attempt Saturday to defend conditions at Abu Ghraib, which holds a majority of the nearly 8,000 detainees in Iraq.
"The very fact that we can't hold our detainee operations as a shining light for how things should be done is personally and professionally embarrassing to me," he said Saturday evening during a somber talk with reporters.
Kimmitt added that he and other commanders in Iraq felt "absolute disgust" at the images, which CBS first broadcast Wednesday night. However, he disputed the idea that the abuses were a result of inadequate training or supervision. "Those soldiers knew what the right thing to do was," he said.
The company was attached to the 800th Military Police Brigade, based in Uniondale, N.Y. In January, 17 soldiers from the company, including seven officers and the six soldiers who were later charged, were suspended from their duties.
Karpinski said she was stunned and sickened to learn of the abuses months after they had occurred.
"If I had ever heard -- and soldiers were never afraid to talk to or approach me about everything -- that there was even a hint or suggestion of abuse, I would have responded immediately and vigorously, and I was never given the chance," she said. "I became aware of these abuses -- these crimes -- when the investigation was near-complete and Sanchez was being briefed on it," she added, referring to the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez.
"I hadn't been included, I hadn't been informed, and I knew nothing," she said. Following the administrative review, Karpinski was reassigned.
In addition to Frederick, criminal charges were filed against Spec. Megan M. Ambuhl, Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Spec. Sabrina D. Harman and Spec. Jeremy C. Sivits, according to sealed charging papers provided to The Post.
The appointment of Fay, who is based in Fort Belvoir, Va., came two days after the military announced that another two-star general, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, has taken over U.S. military prisons in Iraq in the new position of deputy commander for detainee operations.
Amon reported from Washington. Staff writers Dana Priest, Thomas E. Ricks and Christian Davenport in Washington contributed to this report.