Where are Lyndie England and Charles Graner Now?

Lyndie England was released in 2007 after serving three years of her sentence. She is now living with her parents in a trailer in West Virginia. She is now 26 and has a child with Charles Graner that was conceived while still in Iraq. England is having trouble finding a job. Even fast food restaurants in her area do not employ convicted felons.

Charles Graner is now 42 and information about where he is living or heading has not been released. He was released from prison after serving 6 1/2 years of his 10 year sentence. He is now married to Megan Ambuhl and does not visit his son that he has with Lyndie England. Graner will be on probation until December 25, 2014.

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

Senator Carl Levin and Senator John McCain conducted an investigation into the treating of detainees at Abu Ghraib and wrote a report of what they found in December 2008. In the report, Levin and McCain dismissed all claims that the defense department had nothing to do with the torture, and stated that the policies were in fact approved by Rumsfeld and other top officials. The report found that Rumsfeld felt that "physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees." Senior officials allowed harsh techniques. The report also talks about the influence of SERE on the military for the treatment of detainees. SERE is a program that teaches soldiers in the US military to be able to resist giving information during harsh interrogations in the event of being captured. SERE uses many techniques that were used in Abu Ghraib, but did not teach the soldiers how to perform the techniques, only how to resist them. Although the report is still mostly classified, what we can read shows evidence that top officials are partly or primarily responsible for the torture inflicted at Abu Ghraib.

Antonio Taguba and His Report, May 2004

Antonio Taguba investigated the scandal at Abu Ghraib in 2004. What he found was immense torture, pictures of the torture, and e-mails of torture. He determined that what was being done at Abu Ghraib was torture, not abuse. He found that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." He continued in his report to describe acts of torture that were committed at Abu Ghraib. Taguba said more than 50 interrogation techniques were allowed, some of which including sleep deprivation, controlled diet, and isolation. The harsher techniques came from the lack of discipline, lack of training, and lack of proper leadership. Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder omitted in a statement that MP's did in fact have orders to facilitate interrogation in such ways that they were doing.

How did the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal Become Known and What was the Immediate Result?

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal finally became known to the public in spring of 2004. Jospeh Darby, military police, asked Graner to borrow his pictures so that he could have copies of the ones from major sights in Iraq. Darby did not know that he would find one CD of pictures of abuse in Abu Ghraib. Upon finding the pictures, Darby turned the CD in to army investigators, the CID. The CID began an investigation where they told anyone working at Abu Ghraib to turn in any pictures and paraphernalia and all would be forgotten. The story broke out to the public when the New Yorker and 60 Minutes aired the photos and told of the abuse. The investigators did not find evidence of orders to do this to the detainees. Abu Ghraib was not properly characterized as an "Animal House" because the soldiers working there were not trained in this field. They had no prior experience in being a prison guard and were not previously aware of the abusive stress positions they were ordered to inflict. Some of these actions were brought about in Brazil and only someone trained in the category would know about it. Eleven soldiers were court marshaled and charged for the crimes at Abu Ghraib. There sentences ranged from 6 months to 10 years, or a demotion in rank. Of these were Charles Graner, Lynndie England, Javal Davis, and Roman Krol.

What Happened at Abu Ghraib?

Abu Ghraib is known for the prison abuse scandal in 2003. During this scandal, guards were ordered to perform some of the most horrific acts of violence to the detainees. The guards became numb to the abuse they were inflicting, so this became a normal routine. Many prisoners were forced to hang from chains or listen to loud noises for hours at a time so they could not sleep. According to one detainee, it was "hunger, abuse, and harassment."

In the fall of 2003, a prison riot broke out. The guards became so infuriated with the rioters, that they became more abusive. Most inmates were ordered to strip naked. Some were forced to walk around naked or crawl through the hallway. There were instances of detainees stripping naked then forced to form a pyramid on the floor, or to get on top of another detainee and masturbate. Prisoners were forced into more stress positions, usually naked, and were left there to be laughed at by the guards.

During the interrogations, men, and women, were subject to more abuse, including beatings. One prisoner explains his father's death, saying that he came back from an interrogation badly bruised and had a fever. He began to foam at the mouth, then died. There were many other accounts of people dying from being beaten in interrogations, but the U.S. Army has never made public the number of deaths at Abu Ghraib. Only one of the deaths at this prison was ruled a homicide. That was the death of a man named al-Jamadi, who was only ruled a homicide because pictures were taken of his body after death. The murderers were never charged with the crime.

Military Police Moved from Incarceration Staff and Placed Under Military Intelligence (MI)

In September 2003, the Military Police at Abu Ghraib were removed from the control of Janet Karpinski and were placed under the control of military intelligence. The military police were now part of the interrogations. They were commanded by intelligence agencies who only cared to get information out of the suspects. The military police were told when someone needed to have a bad night, or if a person was not supposed to sleep at all one night. They were told that they could basically use their imaginations to make sure the person being interrogated next would not go to sleep that night. The result of all this was more torture at Abu Ghraib. Anyone that would be interrogated one day was not able to sleep the night before. The military police were allowed to splash water on the inmate, play loud music, smash trash cans; virtually anything to keep them awake.

Major General Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez and Interrogation Techniques

General Miller was the general at Guantanamo Bay that would go to the extremes to get results. He only was concerned about getting intelligence from his detainees. Miller essentially turned Guantanamo Bay into  a prison that used extreme techniques, such as chaining a person in fetal position for 18-24 hours at a time with no food or water. Rumsfeld approved Miller's techniques and devised his own action memo that allowed solitary confinement, noise, light, dark, stress positions, sexual humiliation, and forced standing.

General Miller was sent to Iraq in August 2003 to help them get more intelligence. Miller immediately said they were treating the prisoners there too well, and they needed to instead treat them like dogs. Ricardo Sanchez then issued a memorandum for the most extreme techniques, then issued a new memo one month later rescinding the techniques he previously approved. This created general chaos at Abu Ghraib because guards were not sure what was and was not acceptable. There were prisoners forced naked on a daily basis. More harsh techniques were also used during interrogations. Some of the techniques used included staring at the detainee in silence, changing the diet of a detainee, or playing on emotional love or hate a detainee has for someone or something.