But that doesn't mean it wasn't done. Because a lot of the time the interrogators would take the prisoners into the showers and close the doors and we would have to put like sheets or blankets up over the windows.
We could hear what was going on but we couldn't see. At the time, were you aware of people being killed while at Abu Ghraib? One of them was the guy they called "The Iceman". Yeah, I heard about it. Actually, I was there the night the Iceman was killed.
I went to Tier One and someone said this guy had been taken to the showers and they had the water running, and you could hear this guy just screaming bloody murder. It got to the point where it was so loud and unbearable that I went back to my room. And the next day when I came back there was this puddle of water outside the shower.
Not long after Sivits arrived in Iraq, he was assigned to work at Abu Ghraib, a prison in Baghdad where he filled in as a mechanic and a driver. At the time about 2, Iraqi men, women and children were held at the prison. Many were innocent and knew nothing about the insurgency - they'd been picked up accidentally in raids. By this time, the US had approved the use of harsh interrogation methods at US-run detention facilities.
With that goal in mind, Washington officials recast laws in order to allow for interrogation methods that had long been defined as torture, and the techniques were used on prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Detainees were beaten - some to death. One photograph shows the corpse of a prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, who had been held there by the CIA. His body was wrapped in plastic.
Standing in the pizzeria, Sivits describes the events that he witnessed at the prison. One evening in November , he helped a guard he says was known as "Freddie" - Ivan Frederick - to escort detainees to Tier 1A, a cellblock for dangerous prisoners.
After they got there, they saw naked prisoners lying in a hallway, jumbled together. Charles Graner, Lynndie England and other soldiers were standing around, laughing.
Frederick and Sivits placed their men onto the heap. Why didn't you do that? You lose track of time, and it's like you're in a big warp. In the midst of the cacophony, Sivits noticed that the "flex cuffs", as military handcuffs are known, were bound too tightly on one prisoner, causing his hands to swell and turn purple. Sivits turned to Graner and said: "Dude, this guy's going to lose his hands.
Afterwards, Sivits tells me, the prisoner relaxed: "His hands - you could see the blood flow started back. Graner handed Sivits a camera and crouched next to a hooded man in an orange jumpsuit who was crumpled on the floor.
With one hand, Graner held the prisoner's head gently. Graner balled his other hand into a fist. Sivits took a picture. Then Graner punched him, says Sivits.
Then he sighs. He has a detached manner, as if someone else - not him - was there that night. When the Abu Ghraib photos appeared on television the following spring, President George W Bush said: "We will learn all the facts and determine the full extent of these abuses. Those involved will be identified. They weren't innocent. They're trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It's like saying sorry to the enemy. She works for an old family friend during tax season doing basic accounting but otherwise can't find anyone to hire her.
This makes it difficult to raise her seven-year-old son, especially since the boy's father Charles Graner, whom The Daily calls "ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuses," refuses to acknowledge his existence.
In an attempt to explain her post-traumatic stress disorder, England recounted, "Somebody dropped something off the [store] shelf and I freaked out. The next day, when she was sentenced, she apologized for appearing in the pictures, though not for the maltreatment and assault committed on the prisoners. Seven other members of her company were charged with similar offences, including her then-boyfriend, Sgt, Charles Graner, who was sentenced to ten years for his role in the abuse.
In December , according to wire service reports, her family complained in that she was burned and given inadequate medical treatment. England worked in the kitchen of the prison, from which she was paroled on March 1, , after having served days, according to a Reuters report.
She remained on parole through September , when her three-year sentence was complete and she received a dishonorable discharge. She was an absolute asset. Hard worker or not, England has found it difficult to find a paying job.
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