Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation. These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict a dead Iraqi detainee, Manadel al-Jamadi, whose body had been stored by CIA personnel overnight in a shower room at Abu Ghraib. Two of the photos show Graner and Harman posing with al-Jamadi’s corpse.
On the night of Nov. 4, 2003, someone in the military intelligence wing at Abu Ghraib wrote an entry in the military police logbook: “Shift change normal relief 1 OGA in 1B shower not to be used until OGA is moved out.”
In military lingo, OGA stands for “other government agency” and denotes clandestine operations conducted independent of the military chain of command. At Abu Ghraib, OGA referred “almost exclusively” to the Central Intelligence Agency, according to the investigation by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. According to logbook entries, OGA detainees sometimes accounted for roughly one-fifth of the 30 to 50 inmates included in the daily head count in the military intelligence wing.
Military police told investigators that they believed CIA personnel followed their own rule book. “You know these guys can kill people,” Graner said in an April 2005 statement to the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID). “The OGA guys do whatever they want. They don’t exist.”
Several Army and Department of Defense investigations found that the CIA presence may have contributed to the abuse committed by military police. “There was at least the perception, and perhaps the reality, that non-DOD agencies had different rules regarding interrogation and detention operations,” an investigation report by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones concluded. “Such a perception encouraged soldiers to deviate from prescribed techniques.”
A subsequent CID investigation showed that the OGA detainee entered into the logbook was Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi man who had been detained by the CIA. According to the investigation, al-Jamadi had been captured by a Navy SEAL team, which suspected him of involvement in an attack against the Red Cross. “He was reportedly resisting arrest, and a SEAL Team member butt-stroked him on the side of the head to suppress the threat he posed,” the Fay report found. Two CIA operatives brought al-Jamadi to Abu Ghraib shortly after 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 4.
On April 7, 2004, Sgt. Walter A. Diaz, a military police soldier on shift at the time al-Jamadi arrived, gave a statement to the CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG), which was later obtained by Salon. He described al-Jamadi walking into the prison under his own power. Diaz said that al-Jamadi was wearing a shirt, but no pants, and appeared to be shivering from the cold. Diaz said he had helped to shackle al-Jamadi, at the direction of the OGA, to a window in the shower room in preparation for interrogation.
“They used two pairs of handcuffs and secured Al-Jamaidi [sic] in a standing position with his arms over and behind his head,” the CIA OIG reported. Some time later, Diaz said the OGA agents asked him to return to the shower room to reposition al-Jamadi higher on the window. Diaz said he remembers the OGA interrogator telling him, “This guy doesn’t want to cooperate.” Diaz reported that at this point, the detainee’s face was swollen and deformed, and he was bleeding from the mouth. Diaz said he also realized that al-Jamadi no longer had a pulse.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology later ruled al-Jamadi’s death a homicide, caused by “blunt force injuries to the torso complicated by compromised respiration.” According to the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, al-Jamadi’s death occurred less than an hour after his arrival at the prison.
Military police Capt. Christopher R. Brinson also gave a statement, on April 5, 2004, to the CIA OIG, which was obtained by Salon. He said he reported to the shower area on the morning of Nov. 4, 2003, where a CIA interrogator and a translator were waiting next to al-Jamadi’s body. According to the interview with the CIA inspector general, Brinson told investigators that “the interrogator seemed shaken up and had said something like, ‘The guy just died on us.’” At that point, according to Brinson, al-Jamadi was lying on the ground face up. One of his eyes was bloody, and there was a smudge of blood on the floor about the size of a man’s palm. Brinson said there were ligature marks on al-Jamadi’s wrists consistent with the handcuffs used during interrogation.
At the direction of an OGA official, Brinson said, he ordered the military police to put al-Jamadi’s body in a bag and pack it with ice. The body was left in the shower room overnight, and a notation was made in the military logbook.
According to Graner’s April 2005 testimony to CID investigators, shortly after he and Harman came on the night shift, he remembered noticing that an odd fluid was leaking out of the 1B shower into his office. He said he pulled a spare key he had to the shower room and opened the door. Graner said that there, on the far side of the room, he and Harman saw a sealed body bag leaking fluid across the floor. “We opened it up and looked at it,” Graner said. “No one told us not to go into the shower.”
Graner and Harman decided to pose for pictures with the body. At one point, Harman gave a thumbs-up sign above the Iraqi’s mutilated face. A close-up shot was taken with Harman’s camera of the dead man’s thumb, which had bruising that Graner said he found “out of the ordinary.” Graner said he cleaned up the leaking fluid with cleaning crystals and chlorine.
The next morning the CIA directed the removal of al-Jamadi from the prison by placing him on a stretcher and placing an I.V. in his arm, according to Brinson’s statement. The goal, according to the Fay report, was to make it appear as if al-Jamadi “was only ill, thereby not drawing the attention of Iraqi guards and detainees.”
Both Fay and Jones concluded that this working relationship between OGA and military personnel, without any formal written arrangement, directly put Army soldiers at risk of breaking the law. “It is clear that the interrogation practices of other government agencies led to a loss of accountability at Abu Ghraib,” concluded Fay and Jones in a joint introduction to their reports. “Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines should never be put in a position that potentially puts them at risk for non-compliance with the Geneva Convention or Laws of Land Warfare.”
The Department of Defense review of detainee operations led by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger noted that the CIA conducted interrogations at a number of Department of Defense facilities. “In some facilities these interrogations were conducted in conjunction with military personnel, but at Abu Ghraib the CIA was allowed to conduct interrogations separately,” the report found. The Fay report blamed part of this variation on Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the director of the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib.
“LTC Jordan became fascinated with the ‘Other Government Agencies,’” the Fay report said. “LTC Jordan allowed OGA to do interrogations without the presence of Army personnel.” As a result, Fay concluded, Jordan “did not help the situation,” contributing to a sense among soldiers and civilians that they did not need to follow Army rules.
On Feb. 24, 2004, Jordan gave a statement to Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba about the al-Jamadi death. Jordan said he had been instructed to work with OGA by Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, because of Jordan’s “clearance level back at Langley” — a reference to CIA headquarters in Virginia. Jordan’s military records show he is a specialist in tactical and strategic intelligence.
After al-Jamadi’s death, Jordan told Taguba that he remembered Pappas saying, “Well if I go down, I’m not going down alone. The guys from Langley are going with me.” To date, no criminal charges have been filed against any CIA personnel for the death of al-Jamadi.
Read Chapter 6: Nov. 7-9, 2003 — “Dog pile”
View the slide show
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation. These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict a long night of physical and sexual abuse of seven detainees accused of inciting a riot inside the prison. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Harman, Spc. Jeremy Sivits, Pfc. Lynndie England and a soldier CID identifies as unknown.
At approximately 7 p.m. on the night of Nov. 7, military police at Abu Ghraib noted in their logbook that a riot had broken out at Camp Ganci, a detainee facility that was part of the Abu Ghraib complex. In response, the military intelligence wing was put in a state of lockdown. Word filtered through that a detainee had managed to escape, according to the log. At 10:15 p.m., it was noted in the log that the military police had received “seven inmates from the Ganci Riot.”
For at least two hours, these seven suspected rioters were subjected to some of the worst documented abuse at Abu Ghraib. They were verbally abused, stripped, slapped, punched, jumped on, forced into a human pyramid, forced to simulate masturbation, and forced to simulate oral sex, several Army reports concluded. The Army’s investigation identified Frederick, Graner, Harman, Sgt. Javal S. Davis, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Sivits and England as involved in the abuse. “CPL Graner knocked at least one detainee unconscious and SSG Frederick punched one so hard in the chest that he couldn’t breath and a medic was summoned,” a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay found.
England told the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) on Jan. 14, 2003, that she had visited the military intelligence wing in the early morning hours of Nov. 8, because it was her birthday and she wanted to see her friends. She said Graner and Frederick told her they were bringing in seven prisoners from a riot at Ganci. “The prisoners were brought in in handcuffs and bags on the heads and wearing civilian clothes,” England said. She said she initially watched the ordeal from a higher tier. “Everyone else was downstairs pushing the prisoners into each other and the wall. Until they all ended up in a dog pile.” Later, England was photographed smiling and pointing at naked detainees.
Sivits told CID investigators on Jan. 14, 2004, that he believed he saw Davis run across the room twice and jump on the pile of detainees. “A couple of the detainees kind of made an AH sound as if this hurt them or caused them some type of pain,” Sivits said in his statement. The Fay report concluded that Davis, Frederick and Graner all jumped on the detainees. On Jan. 15, 2004, Davis admitted to investigators, “I did fall on the inmates on purpose and not on purpose. I was very upset at the inmates for wanting to kill some of my fellow soldiers.” At one point, Sivits said he remembered Graner saying, “Damn that hurt,” after punching a detainee.
Once they were stacked, Harman and Graner posed for photographs behind the pile. At some point, Frederick told the detainees to simulate masturbation, the Fay report found. England told investigators that she saw Frederick move a detainee’s arm in a masturbating motion. “He let go of the prisoner’s arm and the prisoner continued to masturbate,” England said.
Two detainees later gave statements to the Army’s criminal investigators, describing their experience that night. One detainee told investigators on Jan. 20, 2004, that the guards were laughing during the abuse. “They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees,” he said. “And we had to bark like a dog and if we didn’t do that, they start hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy.”
Another detainee also described the forced masturbation in a Jan. 18, 2004, interview with Army investigators. According to the criminal file, this detainee’s ripped pant leg can be seen on the far left of a photo in which Graner sits atop a pile of detainees, his arm cocked in preparation for a punch. “How did you feel when the guards were treating you this way?” an investigator asked the detainee.
The detainee replied: “I was trying to kill myself but I didn’t have any way of doing it.”
Read Chapter 7: Nov. 17-Dec. 9, 2003 — “Lacerations”
View the slide show
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation. These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick II. They depict two instances of soldiers providing medical attention to detainees with cuts on their faces, and several detainees who are naked or hooded. One naked and hooded detainee is shown with a number written on his chest and smiley faces drawn on his nipples. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, a soldier the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) identifies as Sgt. Wallin, a soldier the CID identifies as Spc. Christopherson, Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Pfc. Lynndie England, civilian contractor Adel Nakhla, a soldier the CID identifies as Sgt. Evans and several soldiers the CID identifies as unknown.
In addition to humiliation and abuse, the military police at Abu Ghraib photographed and documented detainee injuries. These photographs, which were taken partly as a boast and partly for official records, according to military police testimony, show two detainees with significant cuts on their faces.
The first of this series of photographs was taken on Nov. 14, after six detainees, including at least four who claimed to be Iraqi generals, were brought into the military intelligence wing, all of them charged with attempting to incite a riot at Camp Vigilant, a nearby detainee facility.
One of those prisoners, identified as G—– by Army investigators, was photographed several times with Graner’s camera. According to an entry in the military police log, the detainee received treatment for a “1.5 inch laceration on the right side of his chin.” In his April 2005 statement to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, Graner said the injury was caused when he shoved the hooded detainee against a wall. “I had brought him over to the wall where we were processing people and he had been resisiting [sic] me the whole time,” Graner said. “When I put him up near the wall, he had come back on me. I pushed him forward against the wall, blood started coming from underneath his sandbag.”
A report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay repeats this account of events, adding that a medical corpsman was called to stitch up the detainee’s chin. Nonetheless, Graner can be seen working on the wound in one photo. A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba notes that a military police guard was improperly allowed “to stitch the wound of a detainee.” The Fay report did not reach a conclusion about whether G—–’s injury was caused by “reasonable force.” “When, where and by whom this detainee suffered his injuries could not be determined,” Fay concluded.
As part of the same incident, another detainee claimed to investigators that he was “slammed to the ground, punched, and forced to crawl naked to his cell with a sandbag over his head,” according to the Fay report, though the report gives no indication of who allegedly committed the abuse. These two detainees, as well as four others who arrived on Nov. 14, were considered “high value Iraqi General Officers or senior members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.”
About two hours later, Graner made another log entry saying he was told by military police Sgt. Hydrue S. Joyner — who was in turn told by Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, one of the commanders in charge of interrogation operations — to “strip out” and “PT” the six detainees. In his report, Fay said he was unable to conclude whether “PT,” which commonly means “physical training,” meant physical stress or abuse. Fay also did not determine whether “strip out” meant isolation or removal of clothing. Nonetheless, Fay found that the facts suggest that “MI [military intelligence] could have provided direction or MP [military police] could have been given the perception they should abuse or ‘soften up detainees.’” According to Graner’s log entry, Capt. Christopher R. Brinson overrode the orders to “strip out” the detainees. The detainees were, instead, placed in jumpsuits in their cells. “Having them stand in their cells would be their PT,” Graner wrote in the log.
On Dec. 1, Graner’s camera captured a similar set of photographs of a man Graner identified as an Iraqi corrections officer accused of smuggling weapons into the prison and giving them to a detainee. According to the CID investigation, on Nov. 24 a detainee had obtained weapons and fired several rounds at the military police guards. Soldiers fired shotgun rounds at the detainee’s legs, and the detainee was dragged from his cell and sent to the hospital. According to an appendix to the Taguba report, when this detainee returned to the prison, Graner “beat him severely, including direct blows to his leg wounds.”
Graner told CID investigators that a contract interrogator told him to rough up the Iraqi corrections officer. Graner said that he and Frederick tried to move the hooded corrections officer out of the cell to a shower, but the detainee tried to escape. “He ran right into the top bunk of a metal bunk bed,” Graner said.
The Fay report discusses at length other abuses that occurred in the course of finding the Iraqi policeman who had smuggled in the gun. “During the interrogations of the Iraqi Police, harsh and unauthorized techniques were employed to include use of dogs … and the removal of clothing,” Fay wrote. “It was the general understanding that evening that LTG [Ricardo] Sanchez and COL [Thomas M.] Pappas had authorized all measures to identify those involved, however, that should not have been construed to include abuse.” Fay determined Jordan was responsible for the harsh and humiliating treatment of the Iraqi police suspects.
A few days later, in the early morning hours of Dec. 6, several more naked detainees had their pictures taken. According to Graner, a number of these hooded detainees were OGA (other government agency) prisoners. At one point a person whom Graner identifies as a medic — CID documentation further identifies him as Sgt. Evans — can be seen filling out paperwork while one of these OGA detainees stands nearby. Nakhla, a Titan Corp. interrogator, can also be seen in this photo.
Another series of photos taken later that night shows two naked detainees shackled together. One of these men has what appear to be several cuts on his head.
Read Chapter 8: Dec. 12-30, 2003 — “Working dogs”
View the slide show
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation. These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. and Sgt. Ivan Frederick II, as well as a third camera whose owner is not identified by the Criminal Investigation Command (CID). They depict two incidents of detainees being confronted with military dogs, a detainee who has been bitten by a military dog and a detainee receiving medical attention from soldiers for his wounds. The photos also show a detainee who has apparently been shot in the buttocks using nonlethal ammunition. In addition to the detainees, the pictures show Graner; Frederick; Sgt. Michael Smith; Sgt. Santos Cardona; civilian contractor Adel Nakhla; Spc. Sabrina Harman; a soldier the CID identifies as Spc. Strothers; persons the CID identifies only as “Hofecker,” “Richards,” “S. Hubbard” and “Barhouti”; a soldier the CID identifies as Sgt. Cathcart; several soldiers the CID identifies as unknown; and at least one person the CID identifies as a member of the Iraqi police.
Dogs arrived at Abu Ghraib on Nov. 20, 2003, and were used to abuse detainees just a few days later, according to Army reports. The use of dogs had been recommended two months earlier by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the U.S. prison facility at Guantánamo Bay, as part of his plan to improve interrogation in Iraq, according to a Department of Defense investigation led by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. Miller brought with him Guantánamo Bay interrogation guidelines and 200 pages of operating procedures that he used in Cuba, according to a statement Miller made to defense attorneys on Aug. 21, 2004. Miller later told Army investigators that he never intended for the dogs to be used during interrogations. But soldiers and officers on the ground in Iraq say they received a different message.
Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who became commander of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib in November 2003, said Miller told him military working dogs were effective in “setting the atmosphere for interrogations,” according to a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. Then, in a Sept. 14 memo approved by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, interrogators were authorized to use dogs in interrogations under controlled circumstances. On Oct. 12, Sanchez issued another, more narrow set of guidelines allowing for the selective use of muzzled dogs during interrogations.
The idea of using dogs in interrogations was not an aberration. At least two other military memos referenced exploiting many Arabs’ known fear of dogs, including an Oct. 11, 2002, review of potential interrogation tactics for Guantánamo Bay, which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drew from for his Dec. 2, 2002, memo authorizing harsh tactics at that prison.
“The use of dogs in interrogations to ‘fear up’ detainees was generally unquestioned and stems in part from the interrogation techniques and counter-resistance policy,” the Fay report concluded.
The trainers from five dog teams that arrived at Abu Ghraib did not receive proper instruction on the intended use of the dogs, the Schlesinger report said. “Navy dog handlers indicated they had not previously worked in a prison environment,” the report said. One Navy handler explained to investigators that “he had not received an orientation on what was expected from his canine unit nor what was authorized or not authorized at the compound,” the Schlesinger report said. “He further stated he had never received instruction on the use of force in the compound.”
Most of the photographs in this set were taken on the night of Dec. 12, during a dog bite incident with a detainee. In his April 2005 statement to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, Graner said he had discovered that a sheet of plywood was missing from the window in the cell of the detainee named M—–, whom Graner called “the Iranian.” Graner said he decided that he needed to search the cell to make sure that no contraband or weapons had been smuggled to the detainee through the open window. He enlisted the help of Frederick and two dog handlers, Sgt. Michael Smith and Sgt. Santos Cardona. Other soldiers came down to watch. “You know, it’s a big deal having a canine there,” Graner said.
According to Graner’s account, he opened the cell and ordered M—– down on the ground. “He had been petrified,” Graner said of the detainee. “I went to go search his cell, and he bolted towards the door.” The detainee began punching and kicking him, Graner claims.
At least one of the dog handlers released his dog on the man, and the detainee was bitten several times in the legs. Graner said pictures were taken so that one of the dog handlers could use them in a report about the incident.
On Jan. 27, 2004, Smith gave a statement to the CID that also described the detainee attacking Graner. Smith said that Cardona released his dog twice on the detainee in defense of Graner. “Since the prisoner was attacking an MP [military police], he [Cardona] allowed his dog to go in and bite the detainee,” said Smith.
The Fay report concluded that this incident resulted from military police “harassment and amusement.” Both Smith and Cardona are scheduled to go on trial by summer 2006 on charges of misusing their dogs at Abu Ghraib.
A second set of images depicts a dog menacing a terrified Syrian detainee, named A—–, in an orange jumpsuit. The detainee cowers against a wall while a leashed dog barks at him from a few feet away. According to the Fay report, this detainee was considered a “high value” target by military intelligence. Fay said that the detainee had been transported to Abu Ghraib from a Navy ship, and was suspected of being involved with al-Qaida. The Fay report found that it was “highly plausible” that this abuse was directed by a contract interrogator from CACI International, who was later identified by the Associated Press as Steven Stefanowicz.
Though both the Fay and Taguba reports accused Stefanowicz of leading abuse at Abu Ghraib, the former interrogator has not been criminally charged.
“Mr. Stefanowicz’s conduct throughout was always done with respect to the policies and orders in effect,” his lawyer, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., told Salon.
“None of the individuals mentioned in any of the various reports and investigations are currently employed by CACI. Beyond that, CACI does not comment on personnel matters,” a CACI spokesperson told Salon in an e-mail. “CACI has cooperated fully with the U.S. Army and other organizations of the U.S. government in all its inquiries and investigations and will continue to do so.”
Read Chapter 9: Nov. 4-Dec. 2, 2003 — “Mentally deranged”
View the slide show
Warning: Photos contain disturbing images of violence, abuse and humiliation. These photos were taken using cameras owned by Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., Sgt. Ivan Frederick II and Spc. Sabrina Harman. They depict several incidents of unusual behavior by a single detainee, whom the soldiers described as mentally deranged. The detainee is shown harming himself, and being restrained and otherwise toyed with by guards. In addition to the detainee, the pictures show Graner, Frederick, Sgt. Javal S. Davis and civilian contractor Adel Nakhla.
In addition to “high value” intelligence targets, accused rioters and rapists, the military police at Abu Ghraib had to manage some mentally disturbed inmates, who had no apparent ties to any national security concern. The most prominent of these was a detainee named M—–, who was referred to by U.S. prison personnel as “Shitboy.” Over the course of five weeks, he was photographed dozens of times in various humiliating and self-destructive situations. At several points, soldiers chose simply to take photographs and video of M—– harming himself, instead of stepping in to stop him. When the detainee was in restraints, Graner posed for photographs alongside him like a big-game hunter displaying a catch.
A July 2004 report by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command (CID) concluded that the horrors depicted in these photos did not involve criminal acts by guards. This includes incidents in which the detainee sodomized himself with a banana, covered himself with his own feces, and banged his head repeatedly against a steel door until his head was bloody. At several points, military police claimed they put this detainee in restraints allegedly to “prevent the detainee from sodomizing himself and assaulting himself and others with his bodily fluids,” found a report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay.
Nonetheless, Army investigators say these photographs show clear evidence of abuse. “A detainee with a known mental condition should not have been provided the banana or photographed,” the Fay report concluded. Military investigators did not further address the legal or moral consequences of U.S. soldiers’ allowing a debilitated prisoner in their custody to cause himself serious physical harm.
In his April 2005 statement to the CID, Graner describes several efforts by military police to control this detainee. At one point, Graner said he even injected M—– and another mentally deranged detainee with Benadryl to calm them down: “All our nut cases, we were just feeding them Benadryl because we had the psychotropic medications, but nobody would issue [them], which would have made life a lot easier for us.”
Graner said he believed that military intelligence had a psychiatrist at Abu Ghraib. But, Graner added, “he couldn’t help us out.”
Read Chapter 10: Video
View the slide show
All caption information is taken directly from CID materials. Editor's notes appear in brackets.
