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Huachuca sergeant blamed in abuse of prisoners

A sergeant from Fort Huachuca's military intelligence school "contributed to the abusive environment" at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and was one of several soldiers from the Sierra Vista post who failed to provide proper instruction to interrogators at the infamous jail, an Army investigation determined. About two dozen Army interrogators and contractors working at the prison approved or took part in abuses of Iraqi detainees, the inquiry found. It confirmed for the first time that military intelligence personnel were intimately involved in the scandal. One of the civilian contractors who abused detainees with snarling dogs and humiliation likely got the ideas from the Fort Huachuca sergeant, a report on the findings said. The sergeant sent an e-mail to Army investigators two months ago saying "he may have contributed to the abuse at Abu Ghraib," the report said. Army Gen. Paul Kern, who oversaw the investigation that looked at the role of military intelligence personnel at the prison, said the inquiry found failures at many levels of the intelligence hierarchy in Iraq. "There were failures of leadership, of people seeing these things and not correcting them. There were failures of discipline," Kern said Wednesday in a Pentagon news conference. "This is clearly a deviation from everything we've taught people on how to behave," Kern said. However, he noted that the abuse took place while an insurgency was taxing the capabilities of commanders who might otherwise have paid closer attention to goings-on at the prison. The officers in charge of Abu Ghraib were negligent in the training and management of their troops, and some may face criminal charges, Army officials said. Until now, just seven lower-ranking military police soldiers have been charged. The involvement of Fort Huachuca personnel came to light in a section of the report that described the actions of a mobile team that Fort Huachuca dispatched to Abu Ghraib last October to train and advise interrogators. One of the team members, a Fort Huachuca soldier identified only as "SFC Walters" - SFC means sergeant first class - was asked informally by a civilian contract interrogator for advice on how to get prisoners to talk. "SFC Walters related several stories about the use of dogs as an inducement," and suggested that the contractor "talk to the MPs about the possibilities." said the report. Walters told the unidentified contractor that prisoners are most vulnerable in the first few hours after capture when they are "taken from their familiar surroundings, blindfolded and put into a truck and brought to this place (Abu Ghraib); and then they are pushed down a hall with guards barking orders and thrown into a cell, naked." Walters "also suggested (the contractor) could take some pictures of what seemed to be guards being rough with prisoners … so he could use them to scare the prisoners," the report said. The advice Walters gave may have played a role in abuses the contractor later carried out, the report said. "This conversation certainly contributed to the abusive environment at Abu Ghraib," the report said The contractor, who worked for Virginia-based CACI International, later used unmuzzled military dogs to frighten prisoners, the report said. Investigators also said the contractor kicked a detainee, failed to report abuse, lied about his use of military dogs and bragged about shaving the hair and beard off a detainee and dressing him in red women's underwear. The report said some members of the Fort Huachuca training team had worked previously on missions at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or in Afghanistan where more aggressive interrogation techniques, such as nudity and sleep deprivation, had been used on some prisoners who were deemed to not fall under Geneva Convention protections. Those aggressive techniques weren't authorized for Iraqi prisoners, but the Fort Huachuca trainers passed them on anyway to Abu Ghraib interrogators, the report said. "The training that was given was ineffective and certainly did nothing to prevent the abuses occurring at Abu Ghraib," the report found. The Fort Huachuca team's "lack of understanding of approved doctrine was a significant failure," it said. Col. Thomas Pappas, who was stationed at Fort Huachuca until 2002, was among those singled out for blame in the report. Pappas, head of the military intelligence battalion working at the prison, was cited for weak leadership and failure to act on early warning signs of prisoner abuse. Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, who was Pappas' superior and the chief of military intelligence in Iraq, was not faulted individually, and was praised in one part of the report for improving intelligence collection and saving U.S. lives during a period in the Iraqi insurgency last fall. However, another section of the report found that the command team Fast was part of in Iraq failed to set clear policies and standards at the prison and that the resulting uncertainty was an indirect factor in some of the abuses. Another Abu Ghraib investigation released Tuesday reached a similar conclusion: It found that Fast failed to properly advise her boss what policies and procedures were needed to properly run intelligence operations at the prison and elsewhere in Iraq Fast, who has not been recommended for any discipline, is due to become the new commander of Fort Huachuca and its military intelligence school, though some have voiced doubts about putting her in charge there before all Abu Ghraib investigations are done. Several inquiries on the prison abuse are still in the works. Fast couldn't be reached for comment. Fort Huachuca spokesman Maj. Paul Karnaze said Wednesday that Fast is away on Army business, and will make stops in Washington and elsewhere before returning to the Sierra Vista Army post the first week of September. Karnaze declined to comment on the Fort Huachuca findings in Wednesday's report. He referred a request for comment to an Army spokeswoman in Virginia who said she was not authorized to comment on behalf of Fort Huachuca. The investigation also found deficiencies in Fort Huachuca's interrogator-training program, saying it was "ineffective" in teaching soldiers the rules of proper prisoner treatment. "It is clear from the results at Abu Ghraib … that soldiers on the ground are confused about how they apply the Geneva Conventions and whether they have a duty to report violations," said the report, which recommended training upgrades and a new course for officers who oversee interrogation operations. The new report identifies 27 people attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which oversaw interrogations at Abu Ghraib, who are accused of complicity in the abuses. Of those, 23 are soldiers and four were civilian contractors working for the unit. The investigation report says the violent and sexual abuses - particularly those captured in pictures of naked and frightened prisoners - were mostly the work of a group of guards and military intelligence personnel who were not conducting interrogations but instead amusing themselves. The report distinguishes this group of abuses from mistreatment committed during actual interrogations, which also occurred. Army officials said 15 of 23 soldiers from the 205th who are accused of abuse were interrogating prisoners and wrongly believed they were using approved techniques to question them.