 Brigadier General Janis Karpinski She was the commander of three large US- and British-led prisons in Iraq in 2003, eight battalions, and 3400 Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling prisoners. Karpinski is one of those held responsible for abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.
Career
Karpinski had served with Special Forces and spent time in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. She moved from the regular Army to the Reserves in 1987, while serving as an intelligence and military police officer in the Middle East and United States. She also became a consultant who ran military-styled training programs for executives. She is married to George Karpinski, a lieutenant colonel at the Oman US embassy. She was awarded a Bronze Star.
In June 2003, following the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, Karpinski was given command of the 800 Military Police Brigade. This put her in charge of the fifteen detention facilities in southern and central Iraq run by Coalition forces. She had no experience running correctional facilities. Karpinski was also given command of the National Guard and Army reserve units in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
In 2003, Karpinski served as an unofficial spokesperson for the new Iraqi justice system. In September 2003, Karpinski led US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on a tour of the Abu Ghraib prison to demonstrate the way it had been used by Saddam Hussein to torture his enemies. Rumsfeld used the tour to point out how the country had improved since Hussein was overthrown.
Iraq prisoner of war abuse scandal
But in October 2003, allegations of abuse in the new Iraqi prisons began to surface. Karpinski insisted that prisoners under her watch were treated "humanely and fairly." In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times in December 2003, Karpinski said conditions in the prison were even better than many Iraqi homes, and joked that the prisoners were treated so well that she was "concerned they wouldn't want to
leave" [1] (http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/14/Worldandnation/Her_job__Lock_up_Iraq.shtml).
However in January 2004, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez formally suspended Karpinski and sixteen other soldiers with undisclosed reprimands. An investigation was started into the abuse, and Karpinski left Iraq for reasons that were explained at the time as part of "routine troop rotations."
In his final report, Major General Antonio Taguba blamed Karpinski for the abuse by not paying attention to the daily operations of the prison. According to Taguba, Karpinski rarely visited the prisons during her tenure, and reviewed and signed reports about claims of abuse without following up to make sure her orders were carried out. As a consequence, the abuse was allowed to continue and her subordinates developed a lax attitude towards protocol.
In April 2004, CBS 60 Minutes II broadcast photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured and humiliated at Abu Ghraib. Following the broadcast, Karpinski was suspended of her duties and replaced by Major General Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the detention camp known as Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay.
Karpinski's military career is currently in jeopardy with calls for an administrative investigation that could lead to receiving a letter of reprimand or being blocked from future promotions.
Karpinski has insisted she had no knowledge of the abuse and claims that particular wing of the prison was under control of military intelligence "twenty-four hours a day." She claims Army intelligence officers encouraged guards to abuse prisoners to aid their interrogations, and that she is now being used as a scapegoat.
Since her suspension, Karpinski has gone on the offensive, making controversial accusations against her superiors in a series of interviews. In an interview with BBC Radio, Karpinski claimed that Major General Geoffrey Miller, who was sent from Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo to improve interrogations at the Iraqi prison, told her to treat prisoners "like dogs" in the sense that "if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them" [2] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3806713.stm). Major General Miller denies that he ever made the comparison.
In another BBC interview, Karpinski triggered more controversy when she claimed that she met an interrogator at Abu Ghraib who was from Israel. If true, it would support claims that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were based on tactics used by Israeli interrogators. The Israeli government has emphatically denied sending interrogators to Abu Ghraib, and Israeli interrogators insist they have never abused Palestinian prisoners in the ways shown in the photographs.
In another interview for her hometown newspaper The Signal, Karpinski claimed to have seen unreleased documents from Rumsfeld that authorized the use of dogs, food and sleep deprivation, and isolation for Iraqi prisoners that were also signed by General Sanchez. Both have denied authorizing such tactics.[3] (http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhistory/signal/iraq/sg070404.htm)
Sources
- Taylor Martin, Susan. Her Job, Lock Up Iraq's Bad Guys (http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/14/Worldandnation/Her_job__Lock_up_Iraq.shtml), St. Petersburg Times. (December 14, 2003)
- Author Unknown. Rumsfeld Visits Iraqi Mass Grave, Execution Chamber (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-06-rumsfeld-iraq_x.htm), USA Today. (September 7, 2003)
- Author Unknown. Details of Army's Abuse Investigation Surface (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/20/sprj.nirq.abuse/), CNN. (January 21, 2004)
- Author Unknown. US general under scrutiny in Iraqi prisoner case (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1098210.htm), Reuters. (April 30, 2004)
- Sewell Chan and Jackie Spinner. Guantanamo Bay Chief Takes Over After Shameful Jail Abuse (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/30/1083224589166.html), Sydney Morning Herald. (May 1, 2004)
- Shenon, Philip. Officer Suggests Iraq Jail Abuse Was Encouraged (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/international/middleeast/02ABUS.html?hp), New York Times. (May 2, 2004)
- Fesperman, Dan. Soldiers' Story Shifts From Pride to Shame (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.cumberland02may02,0,7574567.story?coll=bal-home-headlines), Baltimore Sun. (May 2, 2004)
- Al Jazeera story (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A88B5EC6-9FCC-49D8-9215-99C91D2BD048.htm) - "US intelligence behind Iraqi prisoner abuse"
- Rod Nordland and John Barry. Rough Justice in Iraq (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4881156/), Newsweek. (May 10, 2004)
- Krane, Jim. AP: Army Drops Brigade From Medal List (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040510/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_tarnished_brigade_4), Yahoo News/AP. (May 9, 2004)
- Abu Ghraib general says she met Israeli in Iraq (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/07/03/israel.iraq/index.html),CNN
- Were Abu Ghraib abuses learned from Israel? (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/06/27/MNGMM7CTSF1.DTL), San Francisco Gate
|
