Are there any other former MPs on the board?
I feel that the courts martial in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal are the real travesty. Most of these poor kids that are going to jail were in way over their heads. Graner was obviously a total snot and England was his weak-minded little moll but most of these other kids were let down by their own officers, IMO. Poor leadership seems to have been the rule rather than the exception in the entire 800th MP Brigade. In my experience, MP officers as a class were the dregs of the Army. The ones that got promoted often were so because they played the CYA game so well and the ones that looked out for their soldiers got passed over thrice and released. Even NCOs were constantly more worried about career advancement than NCOs in other branches with more upward mobility.
There is not another entry-level MOS in the Army that requires the responsibilty and initiative required to function as a MP. Unfortunately, such responsibility and initiative is so often rewarded with poor leadership and scorn.
Anyone with experience with Military Intelligence types can probably guess what happened at Abu Ghraib. Some people wearing uniforms without insignia (this means MI/CIA/CID/SF - someone with the authority of The Almighty - to most enlisted soldiers) told the MPs to soften up the prisoners. When asked to clarify, they gave some examples that were probably not too different from what ended up happening: make them uncomfortable, humiliate them, interfere with their sleep, etc.
After the sht hit the fan, I can well imagine that these poor MPs were trying to tell investigators that they were instructed to do what they did my people from MI. When asked for specifics, they can’t give any because many MI people walk around without rank insignia or nametags and are deferred to by other less secretive MI people so the MPs do what these “secret squirrels” want, mainly due to fear and uncertainty.
I have read that in at least one court martial so far, MI people have refused to testify and the Army has said that others are unavailable for testimony, denying any kind of effective defense. (It seems to me that it would be awfully easy to make sure certain people are unavailable by having the trials seperate and 10,000 miles away from the scene of the crimes.) I have also read that the MI unit at Abu Ghraib stonewalled MP supervisors from entering cell blocks they were not personally detailed to guard, cutting these MPs off from what little effective leadership they did have. It seems that one Captain in the 800th MP Bde at another prison did stand up to MI but I’d like to know how long he was left in command of that guard company after the Intelligence types threw their inevitable hissy fit.
[/rant]
This poor little Spec4 that got 6 months today reminds me so much of the good kids I served with. I could see her getting a “BCD special**”, at worst, since she didn’t speak up but former Abu Ghraib prisoners characterized her as “nice” and “like a sister” and stated that she took no part in the abuse.
Six months for not speaking up? Across the board, officers and NCOs in the 372nd MP Co and the 800th MP Bde got GOMORs - General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand - what in a civilian job would be referred to as a giant black mark in your company record from the CEO himself, something just a hair’s breadth short of termination. This poor little girl got six months in the pokey. Hardly fair.
Any thoughts?
*Much of my knowledge of the situations in Iraq come from the Inspector General’s report about the 800th MP Bde - aka the Taguba Report. link here
** Bad Conduct Discharge, not exactly pleasant but better than going behind bars and getting the BCD, which is what will happen to her.