Abu Ghraib Guard Paints Harrowing Portrait of Abuse

WASHINGTON —  The first soldier scheduled for court-martial in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has told military authorities a harrowing tale of abuse, including an episode in which a guard used a nightstick to beat an Iraqi detainee who had been shot in the legs and handcuffed to a bed.

As the prisoner screamed, “Mister, Mister, please stop!” Military Police Spc. Charles A. Graner struck him twice with a police baton, fellow guard Spc. Jeremy Sivits told military investigators.

Sivits, whose statements are contained in investigative records obtained by The Times, provided the most detailed account to become public by one of the defendants in the abuse scandal. He described an atmosphere in which several military policemen repeatedly laughed, joked and mocked Iraqi detainees as they stripped them naked, struck and kicked them and forced them to hit each other.

Seven military police troops have been accused in the scandal that has shaken the Bush administration’s efforts in Iraq and at home, and investigations are continuing. Sivits, who faces lesser charges than his colleagues because of his cooperation with prosecutors, is expected to plead guilty at a special court-martial next week in Baghdad.

Sivits portrayed Graner, a former Pennsylvania prison guard who was accused of misconduct there, as a ringleader of the Abu Ghraib abuses. He said Graner was always “joking, laughing, pissed off a little, acting like he was enjoying it.”

Once, Sivits added, “Graner said in a baby-type voice” to an injured detainee, “Ah, does that hurt?’ ”

Graner denies military charges of maltreatment and indecent acts, said his civilian attorney, Guy Womack. Womack has said Graner was following orders and would not have known his conduct might be illegal.

Sivits also gave fresh details about the other suspects in the beating of prisoners, for the first time describing their moods as Iraqis were stripped and abused.

And he said all of this was done without the knowledge of their superiors in the Army chain of command.

“Our command would have slammed us,” he said. “They believe in doing the right thing. If they saw what was going on, there would be hell to pay.”

Some of the guards have said they acted on orders from above or from military intelligence to soften up inmates for questioning.

Sivits said Graner told him not to say anything.

Sivits said he first became aware of the abuse, and began photographing much of it, on Oct. 3, 2003, a month earlier than Nov. 7, the date previously thought to have marked the beginning of harsh treatment in the overcrowded and often-chaotic prison outside Baghdad.

Another guard tipped off criminal investigators Jan. 13 of this year, and Sivits was interviewed before noon the next day by military detectives at Abu Ghraib.

His interview with Army investigators, which is likely to be a key element in prosecution of the other six guards, noted the coldness of guards and the anguished cries of detainees. It also makes it clear that investigators focused from the start on Graner and Staff Sgt. Ivan L. “Chip” Frederick II as the ringleaders.

In addition to Graner, the five other defendants have declared their innocence and were not available for comment.

Sivits said Frederick seemed “mellow” as he hit prisoners and watched other guards join in. “He was really not saying too much. Just kind of enjoying it,” Sivits said.

He described Pfc. Lynndie England, the woman seen smoking and smiling in some of the photos, as “laughing at the different stuff that they were having the detainees do.”

England has contended that she was ordered to pose in front of the abused inmates.

Sivits said Spc. Sabrina Harman, seen next to a pile of naked male prisoners, was sometimes smiling, but “there was a few times she had a look of disgust on her face.”

“She did write the word rapist on the side of the leg of one of the inmates. She did this after she had found out from the processing sheets that he had raped someone. She wrote it with a dry erase black marker,” he added.

The one defendant Sivits did not mention was Spc. Megan Ambuhl. She is not seen in any of the photos yet made public, and a military hearing officer has recommended that two of the four charges filed against her be dropped.

“Their weakest case involves her,” said her lawyer, Harvey Volzer. “She was just watching. Nevertheless she is worried about having a conviction, which would basically be for guilt-by-association.”

Sivits emphasized that it was Graner and Frederick who led the guards in nightly revelries.

“I was laughing at some of the stuff that they had them do,” he conceded. “I was disgusted at some of the stuff as well. As I think about it now, I do not think any of it was funny.”

Asked specifically what was not funny, he said, “The tower thing” -- referring to prisoners being forced to strip and form a pyramid on the floor.

He described Graner striking inmates, and Sgt. Javal S. Davis, another of the suspects, running across the floor and jumping on them when they were handcuffed and piled on the floor.

“A couple of the detainees kind of made an ‘ah’ sound as if this hurt them or caused them some type of pain when Davis would land on them,” he said. “After Davis had done this, Davis then stomped on either the fingers or toes of the detainees. When he stomped the detainees, they were in pain, because the detainees would scream loudly.”

Sivits recalled that the prisoners usually were reluctant to strip in front of each other, and that Graner forced them to do so anyway. He said Graner once punched a detainee in the head so hard the man fell unconscious. “His eyes were closed and he was not moving,” Sivits said.

They later had to check to see that he was still breathing.

Later still, Graner was shaking his fist, saying, “Damn, that hurt.”

Another time, Sivits said, Graner punched a detainee in the chest.

“The detainee took a real deep breath and kind of squatted down,” Sivits said. A medic was called and Frederick thought the man was having a heart attack, Sivits said.

“I tried to show the detainee how to breathe slowly,” Sivits said. “It was as if his breath was gone.”

Sivits said Frederick forced naked detainees to masturbate, showing them how to move their hands back and forth until “one of them did it right.” Then, Sivits said, “Harman and England would put their thumbs up and have the picture taken.”

Another, he said, was handcuffed to a bed, with wounds on his legs from where “he had been shot with buckshot.” He said Graner did not care, and instead would wield a police baton and “strike the detainee with a half baseball swing.”

Said Sivits, “The detainee would beg Graner to stop by saying, ‘Mister, Mister, please stop.’ ”

Another time two inmates were told to strike each other. At first, they refused, Sivits said, then complied. “One of the inmates punched the other, then the other struck that one back. They hit each other once each.”

Sivits told the investigators that he now believed the behavior of guards was wrong, including his own, and in violation of the Geneva Convention prohibiting prisoner abuse.

“To be honest, it was mistreating the prisoners,” he said. “I know the war has stopped, but I know if they are POWs that is abuse of the Geneva Conventions.”

He was asked why he did not report the abuse when it was happening.

“I was asked not to,” he said. “And I try to be friends with everyone. I see now where trying to be friends with everyone can cost ya.”

Even though some of the abuse was directed at prisoners who had caused a riot, and some who were found with knives, or “shanks,” Sivits said, “I was in the wrong ... I should’ve said something.”

In another development Thursday, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) released copies of e-mail sent to him in March and April from Lt. Col. Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of the 320th Military Police Battalion who was relieved of duty and given a recommendation of reprimand.

Phillabaum said he assisted Army investigators in putting together the case at the prison he helped run, and yet he said, “I feel that I am being made a scapegoat by the Army.”

He added, “I have suffered shame and humiliation for doing the best job that anyone could have done given the resources I had to work with.” He also complained that military authorities were rushing to conclude that “the incident was a leadership problem and not the responsibility of the seven soldiers who took the photographs.”