- NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S.
military police stacked naked Iraqi prisoners in a human pyramid, and attached
wires to one detainee to convince him he might be electrocuted, according
to photographs obtained by CBS News which led to criminal charges against
six American soldiers.
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- CBS said the photos, shown Wednesday night on "60
Minutes II," were taken late last year at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad,
where American soldiers were holding hundreds of prisoners captured during
the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
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- In March, the U.S. Army announced that six members of
the 800th Military Police Brigade faced court martial for allegedly abusing
about 20 prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The charges included dereliction of duty,
cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person.
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- In addition to those criminal charges, the military has
recommended disciplinary action against seven U.S. officers who helped
run the prison, including Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski, the commander of
the 800th Brigade, a senior military official said Wednesday in Baghdad.
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- The investigation recommended administrative action against
several of the commanders, which could include punishments up to relieving
them of their commands, said the official, speaking on condition on anonymity.
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- When the abuse charges were first announced, U.S. military
officials declined to provide details about the evidence. But on Wednesday,
at a news briefing in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the investigation
began in January when an American soldier reported the abuse and turned
over evidence that included photographs.
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- "That soldier said, 'There are some things going
on here that I can't live with,' " said Kimmitt, who also confirmed
that CBS had obtained the photographs.
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- One picture shows an Iraqi prisoner who was told to stand
on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his hands. CBS said
the prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted.
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- In another photograph, prisoners' bodies were stacked
in a pyramid, and one man had a slur written in English on his skin.
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- The Army ordered an investigation into the actions of
17 soldiers from the 800th Brigade, which is based in Uniondale, N.Y. Ten
were investigated for criminal actions, six of whom were charged in March.
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- The other seven were officers who faced an administrative
investigation. Those officers have received copies of the probe and will
now have the chance to rebut the claims, with a final decision expected
within a month, the senior military official said.
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- In an interview with CBS correspondent Dan Rather, Kimmitt
said the photographs were dismaying.
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- "We're appalled," Kimmitt said. "These
are our fellow soldiers, these are the people we work with every day, they
represent us, they wear the same uniform as us, and they let their fellow
soldiers down."
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- "If we can't hold ourselves up as an example of
how to treat people with dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations
do that to our soldiers," Kimmitt said.
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- "60 Minutes II" identified one of the implicated
soldiers as Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, who described to Rather
what he saw in the Iraqi prison.
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- "We had no support, no training whatsoever, and
I kept asking my chain of command for certain things, rules and regulations,
and it just wasn't happening," Frederick said.
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- "60 Minutes II" reported Frederick will plead
not guilty to charges including maltreatment and assault, claiming the
way the Army operated the prison led to the abuse of prisoners. He also
said he did not see a copy of the Geneva Convention rules for handling
prisoners of war until after he was charged, the show reported.
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- The show also quoted from an e-mail which Frederick reportedly
sent to his family in which he said of Iraqi prisoners: "We've had
a very high rate with our styles of getting them to break; they usually
end up breaking within hours."
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- Former Iraqi prisoners told The Associated Press last
November of mistreatment in detention, including beatings and punishments
that included hours of lying bound in the sun.
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- Amnesty International, the London-based human rights
group, said in March that many former detainees in Iraq claimed to have
been tortured and ill-treated by coalition troops during interrogation.
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- Methods often reported, it said, included prolonged sleep
deprivation, beatings, exposure to loud music and prolonged periods of
being covered by a hood.
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