American intelligence gathering in Iraq and Guantanamo bay...

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American intelligence gathering in Iraq and Guantanamo bay... I haven't read the below article. All i have heard this morning was that the washington post gives evidence that the abuses by american soldiers in Iraq and guantanamo bay is common practice to try and put more pressure on the prisoners to talk. The things I have heard on the radio they do, in guantanamo, includes: Sleep-deprivation while interogating Strong lights while interogating interoggation while the prisoner is naked Maybe they say that in the below article... Also amnesty international and/or the red cross a year ago already reported on these abuses THE ROAD TO ABU GHRAIB : Gathering Intelligence in a War Zone As Insurgency Grew, So Did Prison Abuse Needing Intelligence, U.S. Pressed Detainees By Scott Wilson and Sewell Chan Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, May 10, 2004; Page A01 Second of three articles BAGHDAD, May 9 -- In the fall of 2003, U.S. officials watched anxiously as a potent guerrilla resistance rose across broad swaths of northern and central Iraq. Insurgents assassinated diplomats, detonated car bombs and mounted daily hit-and-run strikes on U.S. soldiers. Fearful of reprisals, Iraqis shrank from collaborating with an occupation authority that appeared powerless to reverse the tide of violence and lawlessness. Less than two weeks after 1,000 pounds of explosives demolished U.N. headquarters here on Aug. 19, driving the organization from Iraq, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller arrived in Baghdad from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was warden of the U.S. detention facility for suspected terrorists. Miller's mission in Iraq signaled new zeal to organize an intelligence network that could hit back at the insurgents, but through unorthodox means. "He came up there and told me he was going to 'Gitmoize' the detention operation," turning it into a hub of interrogation, said Brig. Gen. Janis L. Karpinski, then commander of the military prison system in Iraq. "But the difference is, in Guantanamo Bay there isn't a war going on outside the wall." The worsening war outside the walls of the U.S. prison system in Iraq had a direct bearing on the abuses that occurred inside the facilities, according to Iraqi and American sources. Through the summer and fall of 2003, when detainees at Abu Ghraib prison suffered mistreatment now notorious throughout the world, the security situation in Iraq and the treatment of Iraqi prisoners ran parallel courses, both downward. U.S. officials were under mounting pressure to collect wartime intelligence but were hobbled by a shortage of troops, the failure to build an effective informant network and a surprisingly skilled insurgency. In response, they turned to the prison system. Today, as outrage spreads over images of abused prisoners, the practices inside the prisons have the potential of strengthening the insurgency that they were designed to defeat. Interviews with U.S. officials, former prisoners and Iraqis who have supported the occupation, along with findings outlined in the Army's internal investigation of prison abuses, make clear that there was a connection between changes in conditions inside the prisons and the struggle to control an increasingly hostile country. Last fall, U.S. military leaders cast about for ways to generate more information on the insurgency after focusing their early intelligence efforts on the hunt for Saddam Hussein, his top lieutenants and the weapons of mass destruction that were the Bush administration's rationale for going to war. The urgency of the problem prompted U.S. officials to accept a new intelligence service they once opposed because of its similarity to Hussein's. It also led to more widespread detentions of Iraqis. The strategy was reflected in the rising number of Iraqis arrested for questioning across the country in the late fall. At Abu Ghraib alone, the number of prisoners rose from 5,800 in September to 8,000 five months later, when Karpinski received an official admonishment. The harsh treatment of prisoners was seen by some of the perpetrators as consistent with Miller's recommendation for "setting conditions" for interrogations by military intelligence officers. Although abuses of prisoners have been denounced as aberrations, former detainees describe humiliation, pain and discomfort as commonplace. The treatment could also be traced to other outside pressures on the American jailers. Pre-interrogation punishment at Abu Ghraib was dispensed by reservists embittered by their prolonged stay in Iraq and plagued by frequent attacks from outside the prison walls, according to the Army investigation conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. "sychological factors, such as the difference in culture, the soldiers' quality of life, the real presence of mortal danger over an extended time period, and the failure of commanders to recognize these pressures contributed to the perversive atmosphere that existed at Abu Ghraib," Taguba wrote. Purge Damages Occupation Some American and Iraqi commentators attribute the growth of the insurgency to the decision in May of last year by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, to dissolve the Iraqi military. The decision was another step in the dismantling of Hussein's government, once dominated by members of the Baath Party. But it had a practical effect of leaving an estimated 400,000 men with military training without jobs. U.S. commanders worried about the consequences, which Iraqis sympathetic to the U.S. project now say have turned out worse than any of the Americans expected. Many former Baathist officials fled Iraq for their safety, according to former military officers, taking with them their intelligence training and unrivaled knowledge of Iraq's pre-war political landscape. Many who stayed were too angry or too frightened to help the Americans, these officers said. One result, the former officers said, was that violence against U.S. troops began to increase almost at once. Twice as many U.S. troops were killed in hostilities in June than in May, when President Bush had declared an end to major combat operations. "The way to get information was very easy for the Americans, if they had chosen," said Abdul Jalil Mohsen Muhie, a retired Iraqi brigadier general with the Iraqi National Accord, a party that opposed Hussein from exile and has a long-standing relationship with the CIA. "The intelligence and security services were intact, they were experienced and would have been highly useful after purged of pro-Saddam elements." The continuing strife had an impact on troops deployed in Iraq and looking forward to a prompt return home. In early June, the 800th Military Police Brigade, which would play a central role in the future U.S. intelligence strategy, received disheartening news. Instead of returning to the United States, the soldiers would be staying on in Iraq. Their job would now be to administer the new prison system and supervise several specific detention centers, including Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib and the special ward for "high-value detainees" at Camp Cropper on the grounds of Baghdad International Airport. The brigade had been in charge of the Army's Camp Bucca, a prison in the southern city of Umm Qasr that in the war's aftermath held 7,000 to 8,000 prisoners. The 320th MP Battalion was assigned to Abu Ghraib, a prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad synonymous with Hussein's oppression. The unit was severely understaffed, with 450 soldiers responsible for as many as 7,000 prisoners at a time, according to the Taguba report. The jail was built to hold 4,800 prisoners. "Morale suffered," Taguba wrote, "and over the next few months there did not appear to be any attempt to mitigate this morale problem." Karpinski, a business consultant from South Carolina who was a member of the reserves, took command of the brigade at the end of June. Although she had participated in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and later helped oversee a women's military training program in the United Arab Emirates, she had no experience running a large prison. As Karpinski took charge, American troops were in the midst of Operation Sidewinder, the largest offensive since the invasion. The air and ground assault swept through the heart of the resistance in the crescent of Sunni territory north of Baghdad. There and in the capital, U.S. forces seized hundreds of suspected insurgents. Amnesty International, the London-based human-rights organization, criticized the U.S. military for subjecting Iraqi prisoners to "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" conditions in a July 1 report. At the time, a U.S. official said, "We are more than complying with our obligations under the Geneva Convention." Then, on July 3, more than 50 militants ambushed an Army patrol near the town of Balad. Another attack rained mortars on a base, wounding 17 soldiers.. Suddenly, the insurgency seemed capable of taking the initiative. "At first, there wasn't so much fear and there was a little cooperation" by Iraqis with the Americans, said Saher Dabbagh, a former Iraqi lieutenant colonel who has worked with U.S. officials here and supports the occupation. "But the curve declined very quickly after that." The Balad attack surprised U.S. military commanders for what it revealed of the size and skill of the insurgency, several said at the time. On the next day, an audiotape believed to be from Hussein was broadcast on Arab television. In his first public comments since the fall of Baghdad, he called on Iraqis to resist the occupation and claimed that guerrilla cells were being formed to do so. In the following days, U.S. military officials began to worry publicly whether the 150,000 U.S. troops then in Iraq were sufficient to maintain order. U.S. officials reached out to Iraqi political allies for help, turni