Report vindicates soldiers prosecuted over Abu Ghraib abuses, lawyers say

A newly unclassified Senate report on the US government's treatment of terrorism suspects vindicates enlisted soldiers prosecuted for the abuse of inmates of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, lawyers for two of the soldiers and a US senator said today. Texas-based lawyer Guy Womack, who defended specialist Charles Graner, said he plans to seek a presidential pardon for his client. Graner was in 2005 sentenced to 10 years in a military prison on charges of conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees and other counts. Interrogation techniques such as the use of dogs and "stress positions" were "a direct cause of detainee abuse and influenced interrogation policies at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq", states the 232-page Senate armed services committee report, the most detailed investigation into abuse of terrorism suspects and war prisoners yet. "If the government had admitted that at the time, then they would have been obligated to dismiss the case against Graner because he was following orders, just as we had said at that time," Womack said. "They perpetrated a fraud on the court by successfully concealing that this was government policy and it was approved by higher government authorities than those poor MPs on the ground at Abu Ghraib." In finding Graner guilty, the military panel rejected Womack's arguments that the practices, which included stripping prisoners naked and threatening them with dogs, had been sanctioned higher up on the chain of command. Critics of George Bush have long claimed the soldiers who were punished in connection with the detainee abuses were just following orders. Attorney Jonathan Crisp, a former US army captain who represented private first class Lynndie England, said the new revelations present a "great opportunity" for an appeal or a clemency request. England was depicted in photographs smiling next to naked hooded Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib and leading one prisoner on a dog leash. She served more than a year in prison in connection with the abuses. Crisp said the report shows a soldier of her low rank and "cognitive deficits" could not have been expected to understand the distinction between approved harsh interrogation techniques and the "lewd and lascivious" conduct she was accused of. "It shows how out of control everything was," Crisp said. "And to expect a PFC to be able to say, 'you can beat somebody up, you can kick them, you can let dogs in, but more physically benign but, we'll say, morally perverse behavior is not legal,' that's an ambiguity that for someone in her position is going to be very difficult to discern." England has said that military intelligence had instructed the guards, through Graner, to "soften 'em up" for interrogation. Eleven US soldiers have been convicted in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Graner is the only soldier still imprisoned in connection with the case. The Pentagon cleared four of five top officers overseeing prison policies and operations of wrongdoing. One brigadier general was relieved of her command and given a written reprimand. The former brigadier general punished for dereliction of duty, Janis Karpinski, said the report vindicates her. She said that "from the beginning, I've been saying these soldiers did not design these techniques on their own." She said the report is "black and white proof" that uniformed servicemen and women did not act on their own. Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, today said that abuse of detainees held by the US was systematic. "In my judgment, the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and Afghanistan to low-ranking soldiers," Levin said. US justice department legal memoranda released this week by Barack Obama show top attorneys in the justice department approved nudity and the deprivation of sleep and food as interrogation techniques.