Legislators differ in reactions to graphic prison images

By Charles Babington
The Washington Post

JIM MACMILLAN / AP Detainees gather yesterday to pray near tents used as quarters at Abu Ghraib prison. Congress was shown more photos of abuse at the prison.

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Related stories As abuse scandal grows, U.S. finding fewer friends Poll: Bush's approval rating slips to 44 percent

The private screenings arranged by the Pentagon — one for senators, one for House members — surely ranked among Congress' more bizarre scenes. House members silently crammed into a standing-room-only committee room as hundreds of images, some described as pornographic, flashed on a screen for a few seconds each. Those emerging from that session, and from a less-crowded Senate room, seemed almost at a loss for words.

"What we saw is appalling," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

"I saw cruel, sadistic torture," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told Reuters: "There were some awful scenes. It felt like you were descending into one of the wings of hell, and sadly it was our own creation."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., described the experience as numbing. Though the room was crowded, he said, "You could hear a pin drop."

Not everyone reacted the same way to the additional photos.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said he thought "some people are overreacting."

Congress' reaction to the abuse photos Dogs snarling at prisoners and women being forced to disrobe. "I don't know how the hell these people got into our Army." — Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo. A prisoner apparently sodomizing himself with a foreign object. "I didn't see anyone inflicting wounds, but it was certainly implied that they were inflicted." — Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz. More than seven soldiers standing in a hallway with a clump of people tied together on the floor. "You can't tell me all of this is going on with seven or eight Army privates." — Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. "Pornographic" acts between members of the U.S. military. "It certainly was so far unbecoming of what we expect from American soldiers. It's so terribly disappointing." — Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. — The Associated Press

"The people who are against the war are using this to their political ends," he said.

The photos and videos are the latest evidence in a scandal that's earned the United States condemnation from around the world, preoccupied the Bush administration and prompted calls for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., urged before the photos were shown yesterday that legislators use caution in describing them publicly.

"I think we've got to be extremely cautious ... not incite in any way further anger against our forces or others working in the cause of freedom," Warner said on the Senate floor.

Several legislators said the images differed more in quantity than in essence from photos beamed worldwide in recent days, and they questioned whether yesterday's revelations would substantially change the debate over U.S. treatment of Iraqi inmates in the Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere.

"It is consistent with the photos that you've seen in the press to date," Frist said.

He said the images should not be released by the Pentagon, but some in Congress said they should, on the assumption they will leak out eventually.

Some members of Congress said they feared that making the images public would inflame international outrage and endanger Americans in Iraq.

Images difficult to decipher

The private screening came one day after Islamic militants announced they had beheaded an American in Iraq to avenge abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison. While it often was difficult to determine what was happening in the photos and videos, some members said the pictures suggest that abuses were committed by more than the half-dozen low-ranking military personnel directly implicated thus far.

"It's not just seven reservists" shown forcing detainees into sexually humiliating poses or threatening them with snarling dogs, said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y. "I think it goes beyond that."

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., had a similar reaction. He said in one photo, which showed "troops that are in a hallway (in Abu Ghraib), where you've seen the clump of people tied together on the floor, we counted seven or eight troops. ... Now, you can't tell me that all of this was going on with seven or eight Army privates. And so the question is: How far up the chain of command did these orders (go)?"

Asked of reports that a video showed an inmate being sodomized with a broomstick, Nelson said, "You could not say that there was actually the act of sodomy, but it appears that that may be the preparation for it."

Nelson and numerous other legislators said they saw no evidence of rape or any type of sexual activity between an American and an Iraqi, although several people reported images of troops having sex with each other.

Rep. David Price, D-N.C., said there were images of male Iraqi detainees masturbating, apparently at the orders of U.S. guards.

Another video, he said, showed inmates "butting their heads into a wall, very hard. It's hard to tell what's going on." A House member "shouted out, 'What is this all about,' " but Pentagon officials showing the videos had no answer, Price said.

Harman speculated that the man was "probably trying to knock himself unconscious and avoid having to live through the experience."

The photos included images of Iraqi women exposing their breasts and of hooded Iraqi detainees masturbating, members of Congress said. The pictures of half-naked Muslim women are likely to further inflame the Islamic world, which puts a premium on female modesty.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said there were also some "gruesome scenes" that showed dead bodies, but without any explanation of how the victims had been killed or why.

Photographs of prisoner abuse NOTE: These images are graphic and may be disturbing. They have been provided as part of a news service and have not been independently verified. · See images

Feinstein opposes release

Brownback said all the images that involved Iraqis should be released, but that he saw no compelling reason to release photos that involved only Americans engaged in sexual acts.

"That's basically pornography," Brownback said. "They can be used for courts-martial, but not released to the world."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said after viewing the images that she didn't think the newest batch should become public.

"I think it's important that we see them so we know what we're dealing with," she said, "but I think the nation has had enough of a sample."

Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell were among those who viewed the photographs.

Murray expressed shock, saying they "were exceptionally graphic and disturbing. They depicted outrageous mistreatment of our Iraqi prisoners."

Cantwell said the images did not add anything new to the controversy.

"They were very disturbing and graphic pictures, but they were in the same class as the pictures we've (already) seen."

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, said the images should be made public, but in a way that allows people a choice whether to look or not.

Cantwell, who joined a delegation to Guantánamo Bay in December to review the legal status of prisoners there, said Congress should demand action against those who allowed or encouraged the mistreatment of Iraqis.

And she suspects the chain of command goes far up the military hierarchy.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who conducted the Army's first investigation into the abuse, told Congress on Tuesday that he believed the pictures were taken by military personnel using their personal digital cameras.

But Warner has said he believes some were staged as part of the interrogation process. Shortly before the viewing began, Rumsfeld defended military interrogation techniques in Iraq, rejecting contentions that they violate international rules and may endanger Americans taken prisoner.

Rumsfeld told a Senate committee that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stressful positions.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also noted that the rules require prisoners to be treated humanely at all times.

Durbin, the Illinois senator, said some of the approved techniques "go far beyond the Geneva Convention," a reference to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.

Myers said the military has taken steps to correct the problems, including replacing the military police unit that took some of the photos.

"This was a unit that had issues with just adhering to the Army's standards," Myers said. "They didn't have standardized uniforms. They were allowed to carry guns in their civilian clothes when they were off duty. They had things written on their cap. They didn't particularly want to salute."

Also yesterday, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt announced that two more American soldiers have been ordered to stand trial in the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal.

Sgt. Javal Davis, 26, of Maryland and Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II of Buckingham, Va., were ordered to undergo a general court-martial, Kimmitt said. He said the trial date and venue had not been set.

Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits, of Hyndman, Pa., goes on trial Wednesday before a special court-martial, which cannot levy as severe a sentence as a general court-martial.

Davis has been charged with conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty for failing to protect detainees from abuse, maltreatment of detainees, rendering false official statements and assault.

Frederick has been charged with conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty for negligibly failing to protect detainees from abuse, maltreatment of detainees, and wrongfully committing an indecent act by watching detainees commit a sexual act.

In the charge sheet, Frederick was accused of having taken part in forcing a prisoner to stand on a box with wires placed on his hands — a scene displayed in one of the photos that broke open the abuse scandal.

Frederick was also accused of forcing naked detainees into a pyramid position and photographing the scene. He was alleged to have ordered detainees to masturbate in front of other prisoners and guards and then "placing one in a position so that the detainee's face was directly in front of the genitals of another detainee" to simulate oral sex while photographing them.

Davis was also accused of lying to an investigator about such incidents, the charge sheet said.

According to the same report, Davis told Army investigators he was "made to do various things that I would question morally."

Officers said 'great job'

He also told investigators that military intelligence personnel appeared to approve of the abuse. "We were told they had different rules," he told investigators, according to the report.

Before deployment in February 2003, Frederick, 37, was a corrections officer at Buckingham Correctional Center, a state prison in rural Dillwyn, in south-central Virginia. In Frederick's written accounts of conditions at Abu Ghraib prison that he sent to his family, he said his job was to prepare prisoners for interrogation and that he was told, "This is how military intelligence wants it done." He said military intelligence officers "encouraged us and told us, Great job.' "

Seattle Times staff reporter Alex Fryer contributed to this report. Information from The Associated Press and Knight Ridder Newspapers is included.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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