M.P.'s Received Orders to Strip Iraqi Detainees

By ERIC SCHMITT and DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: May 18, 2004


ASHINGTON, May 17 — The American officer who was in charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison has told a senior Army investigator that intelligence officers sometimes instructed the military police to force Iraqi detainees to strip naked and to shackle them before questioning them. But he said those measures were not imposed "unless there is some good reason."

The officer, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, also told the investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, that his unit had "no formal system in place" to monitor instructions they had given to military guards, who worked closely with interrogators to prepare detainees for interviews. Colonel Pappas said he "should have asked more questions, admittedly" about abuses committed or encouraged by his subordinates.

The statements by Colonel Pappas, contained in the transcript of a Feb. 11 interview that is part of General Taguba's 6,000-page classified report, offer the highest-level confirmation so far that military intelligence soldiers directed military guards in preparing for interrogations. They also provide the first insights by the senior intelligence officer at the prison into the relationship between his troops and the military police. Portions of Colonel Pappas's sworn statements were read to The New York Times by a government official who had read the transcript.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/politics/18ABUS.html?ex=1085544000&en=7c907fdf41adc1c3&ei=5043&partner=EXCITE

some of these pugs just can't face the truth - "it was ONLY 6 or 7 soldiers".

for the abuse--and its consequences. The U.S. has lost credibility which hurts us with European allies and Arab nations. We are now far more vulnerable to terrorists.

~~Individual interrogation plans were drafted for each detainee, and were approved by Colonel Pappas or his deputy, he said. In every case, he said, the plans followed the guidance in the rules of interrogation that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top ground commander in Iraq, approved on Oct. 12.~~

who, for her leadership of the interrogations of Abu Ghraib, has been rewarded with the post of Commandant of Training and Doctrine for ALL of Military Intelligence at Fort Huachuca, AZ. I can't wait to see the tens of thousands of Intel soldiers she's going to be churning out after her stellar performance as commander of the Intel people at Abu Ghraib.

===
Religious remarks hound general
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published May 17, 2004

<snip>

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., twice asked to whom Pappas reported. Each time she got the vague answer "CJTF-7" - the main command force in Iraq, consisting of hundreds of military personnel.

But the hearing revealed that Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top intelligence officer in Iraq, had oversight of civilian contractors hired by U.S. Central Command in Tampa to interrogate prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Army's deputy chief of staff, said Fast required contractors to "read and state" they understood the interrogation rules. Asked if Fast had checked their experience and training, Alexander replied it "was part of the contract" that they met certain standards.

Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations said it is not surprising Fast would be responsible for civilian contractors because she would be "in the best position" to judge their work.

<snip>

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/17/Worldandnation/Religious_remarks_hou.shtml


==
Report steers clear of interrogators' boss

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published May 8, 2004

<snip>

But except for one brief mention, the 55-page report contains nothing about the role of the top military intelligence officer in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast. As head of intelligence for the U.S. command in Baghdad, Fast was in charge of interrogators at Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were beaten, sodomized and photographed in sexually degrading positions.

Experts contacted by the St. Petersburg Times say strict adherence to military protocol - and a possible reluctance to delve too far into intelligence operations - have kept Fast out of the spotlight even as her boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, faces blistering criticism and calls to resign.

<snip>

Over Karpinski's apparent opposition, military police units at Abu Ghraib were under the command of Col. Thomas Pappas, whose 205th Military Intelligence Brigade came under Fast's oversight.

"This effectively made a military intelligence officer, rather than a military police officer, responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that facility," the report says. "This is doctrinally unsound due to the different missions and agendas assigned to each of these respective specialties."

<snip>

But Korb, the former assistant secretary of defense, said "it's a legitimate question" why the investigation stopped at Pappas' level and didn't examine the role of his superiors, including Maj. Gen. Fast, head of intelligence in Iraq.

<snip>

As head of intelligence in Iraq, Fast would have been responsible for intelligence officers working inside Abu Ghraib. She also "would have been very interested in the interrogation reports coming out of that prison," says Charles Heyman, senior defense analyst for Jane's Consultancy.

<snip>

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/08/Worldandnation/Report_steers_clear_o.shtml

===============

Prison boss was officer at Huachuca

Written by azcentral.com

Friday May 7, 2004

<snip>

Huachuca connections

Pappas was division chief of the Futures Development Integration Center at Fort Huachuca, leaving that position four years ago.

The center plans and designs the future of the Military Intelligence Corps and develops intelligence concepts and training.

At some point, virtually every Army intelligence staffer undergoes training at the fort.

<snip>

(Maj. Gen. Barbara ) Fast is slated to return to Fort Huachuca as commanding general of the Intelligence Center.

<snip>

Intelligence training

Fort Huachuca conducts a variety of training and education in military intelligence specialties. Among its missions, the Intelligence Center trains interrogators like those in Pappas' unit.

<snip>

Taguba's report accuses the soldiers of beating prisoners, videotaping and photographing naked male and female prisoners, forcibly arranging prisoners in sexually explicit positions, forcing naked male prisoners to wear women's underwear, killing some prisoners and raping at least one female prisoner.

"We train human intelligence collectors here at Fort Huachuca and in the field through mobile teams," Marks said.

"None of our training involves the kinds of actions described."

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0507iraq-pappas07.html
http://www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=3486

===


Ft. Huachuca to get new leader

General's name arises in Iraq abuse inquiry
By Carol Ann Alaimo
ARIZONA DAILY STAR 5/8/04

<snip>

Maj. Gen. Barbara G. Fast, who is now the fort's deputy commander and is serving in Baghdad, will take over as head of the Sierra Vista Army post and its military intelligence school in late summer or early fall.

Fort Huachuca, about 75 miles southeast of Tucson, is the home of Army interrogation training and produced virtually all the Army interrogators now working in Iraq.

The Pentagon approved Fast's new post several weeks ago, according to a Defense Department Web site.

In a recent Army report on the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the commander of several Military Police officers facing criminal charges, blamed Fast as the person largely responsible for causing overcrowding at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison, where many abuses took place.

Fast has been serving since last summer as intelligence chief for the U.S. military command in Baghdad. In that role, she was the person responsible for approving the release of prisoners who were "of no intelligence value and no longer pose a significant threat" to American forces and allies.

Karpinski told Army investigators that Fast routinely refused to approve the release of such prisoners even after a military review panel in Iraq had recommended that they be released.

<snip>

http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/sports/21177.php

==



05-10-2004
Prison Abuse: An MI Officer Sounds Off



Hack,

The abuse and humiliation actually took place at 3 prisons in the Baghdad area. This was not done by accident, it was a planned, systematic way to break down the prisoners will to resist any interrogation, degrade them and then blackmail them into working for US Intelligence.

The pictures were taken as a way to intimidate the prisoner and then keep them working as low level collectors (if they did not the pictures would have been released to their family and tribes) Videos were also made as a way to record the "success" to be used as a teaching tool at Fort Huachuca (to train future interrogators). The MPs and Interrogators were told the Geneva Convention did not apply to Iraq Soldiers and Civilian Detainees. The methods the MPs used were actually taught to the MPs by military intelligence professionals and civilian contractors. This was a sanctioned operation and the methods were known to be used by Generals in the chain of command. Women MPs were sought out to further humiliate the Iraqi prisoners. The female MPs who accepted the jobs, conducted degrading acts upon the Iraq men, because such acts by women on men in the Arab culture are so humiliating, it was thought that the men would then talk just to stop the abuse by the female MPs. This abuse was done in stages and the less cooperative Iraqis were given the more degrading abuse to condition them to interrogation. The Major General (Barbara Fast) in charge of the MI personnel in Baghdad sanctioned this treatment.

Hack, if they are going to hang privates and NCOs for meting out this abuse, they better go after the Generals and Colonels who sanctioned and approved these methods be use. This is a not an isolated case of abuse by a few soldiers, this was a planned campaign well know by the entire chain of command. There is also evidence that people in the Pentagon also knew and approved of these methods many months prior to the pictures being relased and only told the President when the pictures were published.

The DOD is now trying to pin the blame on anything else, other than the Generals amd Colonels who sanctioned this treatment.

MI Senior NCO

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Feedback%202004.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=13&rnd=832.9569443463192

<snip>

A 'quiet guy'

Pappas did not respond to repeated requests for comment. While other players in the scandal have gone before congressional committees or television cameras over the past two weeks, Pappas has remained out of sight. Some of his subordinates in Germany say they were unaware that he had faced disciplinary action until the first news reports about Abu Ghraib.

Even in Iraq, they said, Pappas remained largely out of view - working from the living quarters that doubled as his office and frequently in meetings with Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. general in Iraq, and Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top intelligence officer reporting to Sanchez.

"He went to an awful lot of meetings with those folks," said the military intelligence officer who worked with Pappas and spoke to The Sun on condition of anonymity.

The officer described Pappas as a "pretty quiet guy, didn't seem like a screamer." But he would press subordinates to interrogate more people and come up with more information. If Pappas wasn't satisfied, he would say, "That's all? You guys have to do more," the officer said.

<snip>

Career military man

Pappas was appointed commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in June 2003, after graduating from the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Earlier, Pappas served for four years as a division chief at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., where officers are expressly taught practices allowed and forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

<snip>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.pappas17may17,0,1237036.story?coll=bal-home-headlines