Why the Pentagon Doesn’t Want Me to Testify About Abu Ghraib

By Sam Provance, AlterNet
Posted on August 31, 2007, Printed on September 2, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/61241/

As an Army intelligence analyst, my job at Abu Ghraib was systems administrator ("the computer guy"). But I had the bad luck to be on the night shift. And so I saw the detainees dragged in for interrogation, heard the screams, and saw many of them dragged out.

When I heard that the officer in charge of the interrogation/torture operation at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was being court-martialed, my first thought was: "Finally an officer is being held accountable."

But since my own attempts to stop the torture and identify those responsible were repeatedly rebuffed, you will perhaps excuse my skepticism that justice will be done.

Watching Act I of the faux-trial of Lt. Col. Steven Jordan last week at Fort Meade, Md., confirmed my worst suspicions. I know Jordan; I was in place for his entire tenure at Abu Ghraib, including when prisoners were being tortured. He was an immediate boss.

Enter from the wings reserve Maj. Gen. George Fay. MG Fay was handpicked to run interference for then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by conducting the same kind of "full and thorough investigation" that former President Richard Nixon ordered for Watergate.

With Fay, too, I speak from personal experience. Shortly after photos of the torture at Abu Ghraib were published, I found myself being interviewed by Fay on May 1, 2004. It was a surreal performance, with Fay seeming to take his cue at times from Peter Seller's Inspector Clouseau.

Except it wasn't funny then, and it is not funny now. To me, Fay showed himself singularly uninterested in what really was going on at Abu Ghraib. I had to ask him repeatedly to listen to my account. Whereupon he said he would recommend action against me for not reporting what I knew sooner for, if I had done that, I could have prevented the scandal. Right.

In my view, it was clear that Fay's job was to quiet any discordant notes from noncommissioned officers like me and help Rumsfeld push the responsibility down to "bad apples" at the bottom of the chain of command...[Open in new window]