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.

The "Hard Site" and the Failure of "Intelligence" at Abu Ghraib

The hard site was a specific area at Abu Ghraib where the most violent prisoners would be held. In one section were the criminally insane and high security prisoners, and in another area were women and children. The women and children were used to lure in a relative suspected of being a terrorist. The army would tell the alleged terrorist 'we have your wife or son or daughter and if you turn yourself in, they will be set free'. There were about 1,000 detainees in this part of the prison that were all suspected to be in some terrorist group, whether it is al-Queda or the Taliban or any other terrorist who killed Americans. Only 6 or 7 guards were in the hard site to watch over the world's most violent prisoners.

The problem with getting intelligence in the hard site was that most prisoners were there out of speculation. About 75-80% of the detainees had no information on terrorism, so the intelligence officers were getting nothing of value. The idea was to get enough prisoners that they would get at least a little bit of intelligence out of some of them, but they were unsuccessful.

Abu Ghraib: The Location, Atmosphere, and Situation

Abu Ghraib was a horrible site of the destruction of the Iraqi people during Saddam's regime. There were pictures of Saddam Hussein everywhere, and wild dogs running around digging up bodies. In one room, there were ropes hanging where Saddam's regime would hang 80-100 people a day, and in another room there were two ovens, where the bodies would be incinerated. According to one guard, the prison smelled of urine and feces, and it was "a combination of Apocalypse Now and the Shining, except this is real."

The 372nd Military Police Company came to Iraq with intentions of being on the front lines of a war, but instead were sent to Abu Ghraib to work as prison guards. With no training of being a prison guard, they were told to put their weapons away. However, Abu Ghraib was the most attacked position in Iraq, where there were frequent mortars. This is to include the road that leads up to Abu Ghraib, where a person driving on the street would not know if they were going to make it to their destination. In Abu Ghraib by the end of September, 2003, there were over 6,000 prisoners and a little less than 300 guards.

American Techniques of War and Iraqi Civilians

Americans did not know who was a terrorist and who was not, and there was really no way of telling in Iraq. The techniques of war were repulsive in the way that the U.S. soldiers were told that "if it looks like the enemy, shoot it". Techniques of war really did not exist because they were not techniques. Soldiers just killed anyone they thought may have been a terrorist and arrested anyone they thought may know something or someone. These soldiers did not need a reason for anything they did. Iraqi civilians were degraded by any means and sometimes arrested for nothing at all. American soldiers would burst into a house and at times would steal money and arrest the civilians. Many times there is no reason for any of the abuse the citizens take, but the American soldiers are on orders and that is their order.

The Justice Department and the UN Convention Against Torture

According to the Justice Department, the Geneva Conventions do not clearly state the definition of 'torture' and other words such as 'severe'. The Justice Department wants to redefine these terms so that it cannot be interpreted differently. What John Yoo and the Justice Department came up with was that physical pain amounted to "organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, and death". One critic claims that this analysis of torture is to narrow and should be more broad. Another critic shows his disgust with the definition by saying that this allows for many of the things Saddam Hussein does and the document should be burned but it is instead now US policy.

Geneva Conventions on the War on Terror

The Geneva Conventions are an agreement between the United Stated and multiple other countries that describes the rules of war and the way POWs and all others should be treated. It was signed in 1949. It ensures that all people will be treated with respect and not tortured, humiliated, or degraded in any way. The Geneva Conventions represent the human standard of war. Americans like it because, like other soldiers, it ensures American captives will be treated properly. Before the signing of the Geneva Conventions, Americans actually held standards higher than those of the Geneva Conventions.

The Geneva Conventions first became an issue in Afghanistan in the war on terror. According to John Yoo and the Justice Department, al-Queda operatives do not apply to the Geneva Conventions because they did not sign it and they do not abide by it. Al-Queda constantly undermines the laws of the Geneva Conventions, therefore, they do not count as part of it. For the first time in American history, in early 2002, President Bush decided the Geneva Conventions would not be a factor in the war on terror, because unlawful combatants do not have rights under the Geneva Conventions.

The Context of the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal

Iraq in the summer of 2003 had been chaos. There was really no set plan of what the United States Army would be doing there and there was very little intelligence. American soldiers arrested any Iraqi citizens for basically anything they could think of. Those arrested would be sent to prison to be interrogated but there was little intelligence coming out of it. The soldiers were not trained to interrogate people, and there were only a few hundred soldiers for the thousands of detainees held. Iraqis, however, were rewarded for any crime against the U.S. troops. This began the spur of many car bombings, grenades thrown, and even snipers. The Americans had been in denial of an insurgency in Iraq until on August 7, when the Jordanian embassy was bombed then just a few days later, the UN was bombed. This was proof that there was in fact an insurgency in Iraq.

In September 2003, the secretary of defense went to Iraq to observe the situation and found that American soldiers had little intelligence on the situation in Iraq. Soldiers began arresting more citizens for absolutely nothing. Donald Rumsfeld decided to allow harsh interrogation techniques to get more intelligence out of the Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib, which was a prison outside of Baghdad. Rumsfeld signed a document that stated that Abu Ghraib could now conduct interrogations in a way that Guantanamo had conducted interrogations. This included allowing isolation, deprivation of light, twenty hour interrogations, and exploitation of phobias.

Many instances of abuse were reported among the army from this doctrine. In one case, some soldiers put an Iraqi general into a sleeping bag and sat on him then proceeded to roll him on the floor. Another incident was when a man who's son was recently killed by American soldiers and buried was forced to dig up the body. On September 11, 2003, one Iraqi detainee had been handcuffed in an isolation cell, and a soldier came in and shot him for no apparent reason. Many of the attacks on the Iraqi citizens were not for a reason. One soldier admitted that, "everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration, you show up and the PUC tent," where they would beat detained Iraqis, nearly to death.

In late April 2004, photos of the harsh conditions of Abu Ghraib went public. The army risked losing support of the American public when these pictures were shown. The response of one commander about the photos was that "guards were trained to guard people, not to interrogate".