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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Military Intel Troop Exonerates His Unit and Superiors of Prisoner Abuse |
| 2004-06-05 |
| From Yahoo News, crediting The Los Angeles Times U.S. Army Spc. Israel Rivera had just returned to duty at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last October after minor surgery to remove shrapnel from his face. He was checking his e-mail, he recalls, when another military intelligence soldier approached. "Hey Izzy, did you hear about those detainees that raped that one kid?" asked the other soldier, Spc. Armin J. Cruz. Rivera hadn’t heard of the incident and asked what was going to happen to the prisoners. Cruz, Rivera said, responded with an invitation: "Do you want to go see what’s happening?" The two army intelligence analysts from a reserve unit in Texas walked over to the isolation cellblock at Abu Ghraib and into the middle of the prison abuse scandal that came to light in April. Their faces were among those captured in disturbing photographs of inmates being mistreated. In a telephone interview with The Times, Rivera described his involvement in the case for the first time, saying that he visited the cellblock largely out of curiosity and that he was stunned by what he saw: detainees being stripped naked, made to crawl on their stomachs and chained into a ball of limbs and flesh on the prison floor. Rivera, 20, is the first military intelligence soldier to come forward publicly and say that he witnessed a fellow intelligence soldier, Cruz, taking part in the abuse of prisoners in the isolation cellblock at Abu Ghraib. .... Because they are among only a handful of intelligence soldiers directly tied to the abuse in photographs, Rivera and Cruz are potentially important witnesses for military investigators seeking to determine the scope of the scandal — specifically whether the torture of detainees had any connection to the interrogation operation at Abu Ghraib. Rivera disputed such claims, saying the abuse he witnessed had nothing to do with "softening up" prisoners to get information from them. He insisted that his superiors did not know about the abuse, let alone sanction it. .... Rivera said he never informed his superiors and still hasn’t shared his account with military investigators. When he met with an Army Criminal Investigation Division agent in January, he refused to talk unless he was provided with an attorney. .... The episode Rivera witnessed came about two weeks before some of the most serious abuses took place, including nude prisoners being stacked up in pyramids or forced to masturbate in front of guards. .... Rivera’s account is the most detailed description to date of prisoner abuse that is believed to have occurred Oct. 25. According to military records, Rivera appears in photographs taken that night that show as many as seven U.S. soldiers and one civilian interpreter huddled around three naked detainees on the floor. .... Rivera was among at least four intelligence personnel at the scene, including Cruz; Spc. Roman Krol, an Army interrogator; and Adel L. Nakhla, a civilian interpreter employed by Titan Corp. Several of the seven MPs charged in the case have said they were encouraged or directed by interrogators to mistreat prisoners as a means of softening them up for questioning. Rivera said that was not the case. "Anyone who says this was condoned by MI — no, absolutely not," he said, adding that Cruz knew about the activities in the cellblock only because he was friends with an MP, Spc. Sabrina Harman, who has since been charged. .... Rivera did not accuse Nakhla of abusing detainees, but said Nakhla translated the MPs’ shouts and orders. .... Rivera said that he did not personally take part in any abuse that night. In the pictures, "I’m shown doing exactly what I did that night — stupidly watching, like a moron," he said. ... After about 15 minutes, Rivera said, he left the cellblock. The next day, Rivera said, he described what he saw to another soldier from his unit, Spc. Hannah Schlegel. Schlegel urged informing superiors, Rivera said, but he refused. Later that day, she indicated that she had done so herself. "She comes back and said, ’Izzy, you know that thing, don’t worry about it, I took care of it.’ " Rivera said he and Schlegel also sought to discourage Cruz and Krol from taking part in any future incidents by telling them that military investigators had heard about the incident in late October and were "sniffing around." .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |