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OT Bring Down The Brass -- Don't Give 'em Freedom Medals
[context: Abu Ghraib]
<CITE:http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact>
Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead
men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the
bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in
ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.
The 372nd's abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine-a fact of Army
life that the soldiers felt no need to hide.
On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a
grand jury) in the case against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory,
near Baghdad, one of the witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P.,
told the courtroom what happened when he and other soldiers delivered
seven prisoners, hooded and bound, to the so-called "hard site" at
Abu Ghraib-seven tiers of cells where the inmates who were considered
the most dangerous were housed.
The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section of the
prison. Wisdom said:
"SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and threw him into a pile. . . . I do
not think it was right to put them in a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT
Davis and CPL Graner walking around the pile hitting the prisoners.
"I remember SSG Frederick hitting one prisoner in the side of its [sic]
ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to SSG Frederick. . . . I left
after that.
When he returned later, Wisdom testified:
"I saw two naked detainees, one masturbating to another kneeling with
its mouth open. I thought I should just get out of there.
"I didn't think it was right . . . I saw SSG Frederick walking
towards me, and he said, "Look what these animals do when you leave
them alone for two seconds." I heard PFC England shout out, "He's
getting hard."
Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and
assumed that "the issue was taken care of." He said, "I just
didn't want to be part of anything that looked criminal."
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