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| AP: Army Drops Brigade From Medal List | |||
| 2004-05-10 | |||
| BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The prisoner abuse scandal has so tarnished the Army's 800th Military Police Brigade that soldiers slated to receive an Army Bronze Star medal have been dropped from the list, the brigade's commander, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, said Sunday. "The vast majority of fine, outstanding soldiers in the brigade are paying dearly," Karpinski told The Associated Press in an e-mail. After the Army started its investigation into abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib penitentiary, "many, many" of the soldiers' recommendations for the Army medal were downgraded, said Karpinski, whose 2,800-member brigade operated 12 U.S. prisons and detention camps across Iraq, including the sprawling Abu Ghraib facility west of Baghdad. An Army report into the abuses at the prison, written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, faulted Karpinski and other commanders in the brigade and its subordinate battalions, saying leaders paid too little attention to the prison's day-to-day operations. Previous abuses of prisoners or lapses at the prison went unpunished or unheeded, the report found. Karpinski's subordinates at Abu Ghraib at times disregarded her commands, and didn't enforce codes on wearing uniforms and saluting superiors, which added to the lax standards that prevailed at the prison, said one member of the 800th MP Brigade. The soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said commanders in the field routinely ignored Karpinski's orders, saying they didn't have to listen to her because she was a woman.
Karpinski said the decision to cancel Bronze Star awards was yet another blow to an already demoralized brigade, which was stretched thin across Iraq while handling some of the Army's toughest tasks. "This will contribute in a large way to the morale of the soldiers who placed their lives on the line every day and survived, despite often seemingly insurmountable obstacles and challenges," she said. The general, who works as a business consultant in civilian life, said low morale inside the brigade and at Abu Ghraib was no secret. Soldiers "spoke openly about their concerns" to visiting members of Congress and other high-level visitors. Those included occupation chief L. Paul Bremer, U.N.'s top Iraq official Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was killed in a bombing last August, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. A personal Web site created by one member of the brigade, Sgt. First Class Bill Sutherland, mentions the abuse and calls the 800th MPs a "dysfunctional" unit. "I'm ashamed that I was with them," the text on the site says. "But I will agree with one thing: the unit was very dysfunctional. From the HHC, to S2, S3 and S4 shops," or the brigade's headquarters command, intelligence, operations and supply sections.
The report commends two individual soldiers and a sailor for either halting abuse at Abu Ghraib or refusing to participate. But those commendations are tucked at the end of the report. The soldier interviewed said he worried that the stigma of the abuse scandal will intrude on his civilian career. "If I put on my resume that I was with the 800th MPs, I probably wouldn't get a job," he complained. "It's gotten bad enough to make people suspect that I did something."
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #14 Old Spook, when it comes to awards and decs, it's not who you know, it's who you blow. Just look at Kerry. The V for valor on the Bronze Star still has some meaning. Like you said, the Bronze Star without the V has been administratively awarded for superior performance in a war zone damn near forever. I have (had) a friend who was awarded one in WWII for improving the availability of radios for the 8th AF. You don't want to know about the diminuation of requirements for Air Medals and DFC's during Viet Nam. Kind of like the grade inflation that went on in universities back in the states. Still depressing. |
| Posted by: Random thoughts 2004-05-10 6:20:31 PM |
| #13 some thoughts: 1) Downgrading medals due to actions of others is bullshit pc thinking that hurts the morale of good troops. Give them where they are due and be fair about it. 2) How about we let the mil courts take care of this instead of saying "this or that guy needs to be hung" and "what were they thinking!", from experience I've learned that second guessing those on the scene is for amateurs. AFAIK none of us were present and don't know how the system ran there. 3) If intel was coercing guard behavior (I haven't seen enough on this yet) and the guards followed it - then they are both wrong. 3) Were they dealing w/true epw's or out of uniform irregulars/terrorists? 4) mixed gender training at the boot camp level is bullshit and fairly useless from what I've witnessed. Thank God the Corps has resisted that fiasco. 5) James - w/equal rights comes equal responsibility, everyone takes the same oath and signs the same dotted line. Hold nothing back in training - your country demands it. Hit first, hit hard, hit often. Good luck. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-05-10 2:21:08 PM |
| #12 Very good points but involving those MP's in interrogations crossed a line that should not have happened.Is it not true that military intelligence was in command over most MP's ? |
| Posted by: rich woods 2004-05-10 1:19:32 PM |
| #11 Handling EPWs (POWs) is part of their training mission every drill weekend and annual training period. Better grab those training records before they disappear. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-05-10 1:07:48 PM |
| #10 Jame_Retief: Don't worry, pugil sticks are phase three. By that point, there won't be one person in your platoon, male or female, that you won't want to hit as hard as you can. ;) |
| Posted by: Cthulhu Akbar 2004-05-10 12:31:06 PM |
| #9 The 800th MP BDE is an EPW handling unit per several websites I checked. Handling EPWs (POWs) is part of their training mission every drill weekend and annual training period. For soldiers from that unit to say that they weren't prepared to process and imprison EPWs (as I've been reading in interviews all weekend) is pure BS. Every aspect of their Mission Essential Task List would be tailored to the EPW mission. By the way, the unit is a Reserve outfit. Apparently the BDE fielded two great battalions and one crappy one. Consistency is always a problem in the reserves and National Guard. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2004-05-10 12:02:54 PM |
| #8 and the results we see in that prison are predictable if you know the lack of discipline and professionalism the Clinton-era leadership allowed - it was more concerned with appearance and PC (mixed gender boot camp, "Don't Ask Dont Tell", "inclusiveness" etc) Don't even bring up mixed gender basic. I love my wife, think women are great. But when I am in basic two weeks from now and standing in front of some chick holding pugil sticks . . . I am going to be so tempted to not hit as hard as I should. It is conditioned into me. The ladies will be coddled, not by the DI's, but by their fellow soldiers, some because of conditioning, some because of what they want from the ladies . . . face it, 19 year olds are chock full-o-hormones. Sticking them in close proximity is a recipe for accidents galore, everything from pregnancy to rape (both real and imagined). Or maybe not. If they keep the recruits too tired to think about sex . . . |
| Posted by: Jame_Retief 2004-05-10 11:08:38 AM |
| #7 It is pretty obvious that the 800th Brigade commander, brigade staff, HHC, and at least one battalion were not members of the US Army, but a uniformed mob. Dereliction of duty does not begin to describe this situation. I am looking forward to Genl Karpinski's court martial, and the announcement that the officers and NCO's who were supposed to be in command and controlling the unit have been busted to E-Nothing and assigned as a cleaning crew in support of the CPA's cleaning of the Baghdad sewers! |
| Posted by: Anonymous4785 2004-05-10 10:35:24 AM |
| #6 If Gen Karpinski spent half the time inspecting her subordinates' operations that she has spent on talk shows doing the Mea Culpa and ass-covering, things wouldn't have gotten out of hand |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-10 10:29:37 AM |
| #5 Military SOP: Make everyone pay for the sins of the few, and they will be motivated to police their own ranks. I agree with this. |
| Posted by: Cthulhu Akbar 2004-05-10 10:27:52 AM |
| #4 I agree with the downgrading of the medals - but not the reasoning behind them. Bronze Stars should not be given out routinely like this. An Army Commendation medal is the proper award. The Army has cheapened the Bronze Star by awarding it routinely in Iraq, and that is crap. I got mine for "exceptional actions" while engaged in combat against the enemy, on a battlefield, under fire. Not for just doing my job in a war zone. As for the rest of it, it sounds more like the remnants of Clinton's Kindergarten Army (and the officers it produced) than a real military unit - and the results we see in that prison are predictable if you know the lack of discipline and professionalism the Clinton-era leadership allowed - it was more concerned with appearance and PC (mixed gender boot camp, "Don't Ask Dont Tell", "inclusiveness" etc) than combat effectiveness and discpline. It starts with the commander and flows down hill from there. Thank God there were a gew good non-com's who blew the whistle on this crap. This 2-star should have his resignation on the desk along side the 1-star in the article. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-05-10 8:32:25 AM |
| #3 RC, Are you saying anyone else besides you or Zenster? |
| Posted by: Mr. Davis 2004-05-10 8:21:44 AM |
| #2 Anyone else think Karpinsky was removed from her post with cause? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-05-10 7:14:23 AM |
| #1 Karpinski's subordinates at Abu Ghraib at times disregarded her commands, and didn't enforce codes on wearing uniforms and saluting superiors, which added to the lax standards that prevailed at the prison, said one member of the 800th MP Brigade. The soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said commanders in the field routinely ignored Karpinski's orders, saying they didn't have to listen to her because she was a woman. Disregarding orders is pretty serious stuff. Although Karpinski may need to take some heat over the lax discipline, those soldiers who used a commanding officer's gender as an excuse for misconduct exhibit more of a resemblance to the enemy than their own comrades. Once again, it's difficult not to imagine that part of their orientation prior to arrival in Iraq specifically dealt with the local culture's endemic disrespect and mistreatment of women. To have then gone on to mirror exactly that same sort of discriminatory attitude is nothing more than jock mentality behavior and unprofessional in the extreme. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-10 1:14:19 AM |