"Treat Them Like Dogs" Part 2

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted October 26, 2005.

In April 2004, a secret Pentagon report concluded that U.S. soldiers had committed "egregious acts and grave breaches of international law" at Abu Ghraib. Since the photos first appeared, no senior Bush administration officials have been reprimanded for what happened at Abu Ghraib. Seven soldiers have been convicted for their role in the detainee abuse. Last month Lynndie England was sentenced to three years in prison. In January, Specialist Charles Graner was sentenced to 10 years. The highest ranking military officer reprimanded was Brigadier General Janis Karpinski who was commanding officer at the prison. She was demoted to colonel in May. She oversaw all military police in Iraq and was the first female ever to command soldiers in a combat zone. This is the second half of the transcript of her interview.

For the first part of the interview, click HERE.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about prisoner Triple X.

JANIS KARPINSKI: He was a very unusual circumstance. He was captured as a high value detainee, and we believe that when he was captured, of course, you know, he's captured by another agency, but we believed that he was going to be another one of the so-called "deck of cards" detainees.

AMY GOODMAN: What does that mean?

JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, the deck of cards was Saddam and his high-ranking people, and they assigned each one of them to a card, a different card.

AMY GOODMAN: Playing card.

JANIS KARPINSKI: Playing cards. And they called them the "deck of cards" prisoners. And we believed he was going to be one of them, because we had such little information on him. But when he was turned over to my control, we were told specifically to not -- by memorandum, by order from Secretary Rumsfeld, to not enter his name on any database. He was to be referred to only --

AMY GOODMAN: Rumsfeld told you this?

JANIS KARPINSKI: Yes. He sent a memorandum specifically about this individual. He was to be referred to as "Triple X." He was to be held in a separate location apart from any other detainees or any other contact. So, the instructions were very clear, and I -- when I saw the memorandum, I was not in Baghdad when it came in. They were in compliance with that. They kept him at a facility separate and apart from any other contact with anybody. Specific M.P.s were giving him his meals. He had -- he was for all practical purposes isolated or in solitary confinement without being in a confinement cell.

So, when I returned to Baghdad and saw these instructions, I went right to Colonel Warren, who was the legal adviser, and I said, "This is a violation." And he said, "Well, we'll try to get clarification, but this is from Rumsfeld's office." And I said, "It's a violation. You have to put people on the database. And how much longer are we going to be held responsible for him? You take control of him. If you want to violate a Geneva Convention, that's up to you, but I don't want to keep him in one of our camps this way."

AMY GOODMAN: Didn't you sign off on a request to the I.C.R.C. to be exempted from the Geneva Conventions?

JANIS KARPINSKI: No, I did not. An exemption from the Geneva Conventions?

AMY GOODMAN: In cases of military necessity.

JANIS KARPINSKI: No, in the report, the last report that I signed when -- the last report that I referred to before, the only military necessity was the case of isolation, solitary confinement, and that I.C.R.C. representatives would not have access to a prisoner who was undergoing isolation until the terms of that confinement or isolation was completed.

AMY GOODMAN: And you signed off on that.

JANIS KARPINSKI: I did.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, that was asking for an exemption from the Geneva conventions.

JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, it's not actually an exemption. You can put a person in - a prisoner in solitary confinement, and that is a -- as long as they're being treated fairly and humanely and receiving their meals.

AMY GOODMAN: So why did you need any kind of -- why did you need to request?

JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, as I said, that's not really asking for an exemption from it. It was just -- the exemption was that a visit from the I.C.R.C. would not include interrupting solitary confinement.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you regret doing that now?

JANIS KARPINSKI: I regret signing that I.C.R.C. report at all, because it was -- it was held -- you know, you have to have some sense of belief or trust in the people that you are working with. And when -- for example, when they said that it was important to communicate to the I.C.R.C. that interrupting solitary confinement or isolation for 72 hours removes all of the value, and you have to start the process over again. So, in my mind, rather than subjecting a prisoner to another 72 hours of isolation, it made perfectly good sense to not interrupt that process but to speak to the prisoner, if necessary, after that process was completed. But it fell into interrogations, which is why I regret signing that I.C.R.C. report.

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

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