ASHINGTON, May 25 — An Army summary of deaths and
mistreatment involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and
Afghanistan shows a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military
units than previously known.
The cases from Iraq date back to April 15, 2003, a few days after
Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in a Baghdad square, and they extend
up to last month, when a prisoner detained by Navy commandos died in a
suspected case of homicide blamed on "blunt force trauma to the torso and
positional asphyxia."
Among previously unknown incidents are the abuse of detainees by Army
interrogators from a National Guard unit attached to the Third Infantry
Division, who are described in a document obtained by The New York Times
as having "forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees in an attempt to
obtain information" during a 10-week period last spring.
The document, dated May 5, is a synopsis prepared by the Criminal
Investigation Command at the request of Army officials grappling with
intense scrutiny prompted by the circulation the preceding week of
photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. It lists the status of
investigations into three dozen cases, including the continuing
investigation into the notorious abuses at Abu Ghraib.
In one of the oldest cases, involving the death of a prisoner in
Afghanistan in December 2002, enlisted personnel from an active-duty
military intelligence unit at Fort Bragg, N.C., and an Army Reserve
military-police unit from Ohio are believed to have been "involved at
various times in assaulting and mistreating the detainee."
The Army summary is consistent with recent public statements by senior
military officials, who have said the Army is actively investigating nine
suspected homicides of prisoners held by Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan
in late 2002.
But the details paint a broad picture of misconduct, and show that in
many cases among the 37 prisoners who have died in American custody in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army did not conduct autopsies and says it
cannot determine the causes of the deaths.
In his speech on Monday night, President Bush portrayed the abuse of prisoners
by American soldiers in narrow terms. He described incidents at Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq, which were the first and most serious to come to light, as
involving actions "by a few American troops who disregarded our country
and disregarded our values."
According to the Army summary, the deaths that are now being
investigated most vigorously by Army officials may be those from
Afghanistan in December 2002, where two prisoners died in one week at what
was known as the Bagram Collection Point, where interrogations were
overseen by a platoon from Company A, 519th Military Intelligence
Battalion, from Fort Bragg.
The document says the investigation into the two deaths "is continuing
with recent re-interviews," both of military intelligence personnel from
Fort Bragg and of Army Reserve military police officers from Ohio and
surrounding states, who were serving as guards at the facility. It was not
clear from the document exactly which Army Reserve unit was being
investigated.
On March 4, 2003, The New York Times reported on the two deaths, noting
that the cause given on one of the death certificates was "homicide," a
result of "blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary
artery disease." It was signed by an Army pathologist.
Both deaths were ruled homicides within days, but military spokesmen in
Afghanistan initially portrayed at least one as being the result of
natural causes. Personnel from the unit in charge of interrogations at the
facility, led by Capt. Carolyn Wood, were later assigned to Iraq, and to
the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib.
Lt. Col. Billy Buckner, a spokesman for the 18th Airborne Corps, said
in an e-mail message on Monday that no one from the 519th Military
Intelligence Battalion had yet been disciplined in connection with any
deaths or other misconduct in Iraq. He declined to say if anyone from the
unit was the subject of an ongoing investigation.
The document also categorizes as a sexual assault a case of abuse at
Abu Ghraib last fall that involved three soldiers from that unit, who were
later fined and demoted but whose names the Army has refused to
provide.
As part of the incident, the document says, the three soldiers "entered
the female wing of the prison and took a female detainee to a vacant
cell."
"While one allegedly stood as look-out and one held the detainee's
hand, the third soldier allegedly kissed the detainee," the report said.
It says that the female detainee was reportedly threatened with being left
with a naked male detainee, but that "investigation failed to either prove
or disprove the indecent-assault allegations."
The May 5 document said the three soldiers from the 519th were demoted:
two to privates first class and one to specialist. One was fined $750, the
other two $500 each.
In what appeared to be a serious case of abuse over a prolonged period
of time, unidentified enlisted members of the 223rd Military Intelligence
Battalion, part of the California National Guard, were accused of abusing
Iraqi detainees at a center in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
The unit, based in San Francisco, operated under the command of the
Third Infantry Division, the armored force that led the Army assault on
Baghdad last April and continued to patrol the city and the surrounding
region into the summer.
According to the Army summary, members of the 223rd "struck and pulled
the hair of detainees" during interrogations over a period that lasted 10
weeks. The summary said they "forced into asphyxiations numerous detainees
in an attempt to obtain information."
The accusations were based on the statement of a soldier. No other
details of the abuse — not the number of suspected soldiers nor the
progress of the investigation — were disclosed.
A spokeswoman for the California National Guard in Sacramento, Maj.
Denise Varner, said she could not discuss any investigation.
Another incident, whose general outlines had been previously known,
involved the death in custody of a senior Iraqi officer, Maj. Gen. Abed
Hamed Mowhoush, who died last November at a detention center run by the
Third Armored Cavalry, of Fort Carson, Colo. Soldiers acknowledged to
investigators that interviews with the general on Nov. 24 and 25 involved
"physical assaults."
In fact, investigators determined that General Mowhoush died after
being shoved head-first into a sleeping bag, and questioned while being
rolled repeatedly from his back to his stomach. That finding was first
reported in The Denver Post.
According to Army officials and documents, at least 12 prisoners have
died of natural or undetermined causes, including nine in Abu Ghraib. In
six of those cases, the military conducted no autopsy to confirm the
presumed cause of death. As a result, the investigations into their deaths
were closed by Army investigators.
In another case, an autopsy found that a detainee, Muhammad Najem Abed,
died of cardiac arrest complicated by diabetes, without noting, as the
investigation summary does, that he died after "a self-motivated hunger
strike."
In two cases, involving the deaths of prisoners at Abu Ghraib on Jan.
16 and Feb. 19, investigations continue even though the causes are
believed to be natural. In the Feb. 19 case, Muhammad Saad Abdullah was
found dead with "acute inflammation of the abdomen." An autopsy classified
the death as natural, apparently caused by "peritonitis secondary to
perforating gastric ulcer."
Army officials have been reluctant to discuss the type of detail that
the document describes, even when investigations into the cases are
closed. The Army has refused to make public the synopses of Army criminal
investigations into the deaths or assaults of Iraqi or Afghan prisoners
while in custody.
At a Pentagon briefing on Friday, a senior military official and a
senior Pentagon medical official said the Army was investigating the
deaths of 37 detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, an increase from at least
25 deaths that a senior Army general described on May 4.
Army officials have given rough breakdowns of those deaths, including
those ruled natural deaths, homicides and ongoing investigations. But Army
officials have been stingy with details. Of the two homicide cases the
Army has closed, for instance, officials have given only spare details
about a soldier who shot and killed an Iraqi detainee who was throwing
rocks at the guards. The soldier was demoted and dishonorably discharged
from the Army.
When asked Friday about details of pending investigations that military
medical examiners had characterized as homicides, and that had been
described in news accounts, a senior official would only confirm, "That's
an ongoing investigation."
The official described the dates, locations and number of deaths
involved in four cases ruled justifiable homicide, all in Iraq, including
three at Abu Ghraib. But the official did not give details about the
individual cases.