A
horrible story in the NY Times. It looks like Sgts Graner and Frederick are the sadists-in-chief of this despicable bunch.
Some excerpts -- this is mostly the testimony of Jeremy C. Sivits, who is planning to plead guilty and provide information on the others:
The soldiers pulled seven Iraqi detainees from their cells, "tossed them in the middle of the floor" and then one soldier ran across the room and lunged into the pile of detainees, according to sworn statements given to investigators by one of the soldiers now charged with abuse. He did it again, jumping into the group like it was a pile of autumn leaves, and another soldier called for others to join in. The detainees were ordered to strip and masturbate, their heads covered with plastic sandbags. One soldier stomped on their fingers and toes.
.. and:
[Sivits] described another night when a dog was set upon a detainee, and another when a detainee was handcuffed to a bed.
"Graner was in the room with him," he said. "This detainee had wounds on his legs from where he had been shot with the buckshot." Specialist Graner, he said, would "strike the detainee with a half baseball swing, and hit the wounds of the detainee. There is no doubt that this hurt the detainee because he would scream he got hit. The detainee would beg Graner to stop by saying `Mister, Mister, please stop,' or words to that effect."
"I think at one time Graner said in a baby type voice, `Ah, does that hurt?' " Specialist Sivits added.
It does appear they were more or less acting on their own:
The soldiers knew that what they had done was wrong, Specialist Sivits told investigators, at least enough to instruct him not to tell anyone what he had seen. Specialist Sivits was asked if the abuse would have happened if someone in the chain of command was present. "Hell no," he replied, adding: "Because our command would have slammed us. They believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going on, there would be hell to pay."
and
The platoon sergeant standing on a tier above the room heard the screams and yelled down at Sergeant Davis to stop, surprising the other soldiers with the anger in his command, Specialist Sivits said. But within two minutes, the platoon sergeant left, and the soldiers resumed the abuse.
There's another NY Times story about Graner's past, before he joined the reserves:
By late 2001, Charles A. Graner Jr.'s life was on a steady downward spiral. His ex-wife and two children had left after a bitter divorce. He had pleaded guilty to stalking and beating his ex-wife. He had been fired from his job as a state prison guard and was having trouble paying the smallest of bills.
Sheesh!! What were they thinking in hiring this guy to work at a prison?
I've had a hard time thinking straight since I read this. Angry, disgusted .... even more than before. This is going to get worse and worse.
