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Journalism of Courage
There were no rules and little training. But the mission was clear. Spc. Sabrina D. Harman, a military police officer charged with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, said she was assigned to break down prisoners for interrogation. ‘‘Our job was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk,’’ she said by e-mail from Baghdad. Harman, one of seven charged in the case, is the second of those soldiers to speak publicly about her time at Abu Ghraib, and her comments echo findings of the investigation into prisoner abuse there.
Her face is now famous as belonging to one of two soldiers posing in the photograph of naked Iraqi detainees stacked in a pyramid.
Harman is accused by the Army of taking photographs of that pyramid and videotaping detainees who were ordered to strip and masturbate in front of other prisoners and soldiers. She is also charged with photographing a corpse and posing for a picture with it; with striking several prisoners by jumping on them as they lay in a pile; with writing ‘‘rapeist’’ on a prisoner’s leg; and with attaching wires to a prisoner’s hands while he stood on a box with his head covered. She told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box, her chargesheet said.
Harman said detainees would be handed over to her unit by Army intelligence officers, CIA operatives or by the contractors. Prisoners were stripped, searched and then ‘‘made to stand or kneel for hours,’’ she said. ‘‘The person who brought them in would set the standards on whether or not to ‘be nice’,’’ she said. ‘‘If the prisoner was cooperating he could keep his clothes, mattress and allowed cigarettes or even hot food. But if the prisoner didn’t give what they wanted, it was all taken away. Sleep, food, clothes, mattresses, cigarettes were all privileges and were granted with information received.’’
She said there were no standard operating procedures and Army intelligence officers ‘‘made the rules as they went.’’
Harman is charged with conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, making false statements, and assault. In his investigation into abuse at the prison, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba used a portion of Harman’s sworn statement to conclude that prisoners had been abused. Harman ‘‘stated … regarding the incident where a detainee was placed on box with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis, ‘that her job was to keep detainees awake’.’’
Harman took many photographs while in Iraq, her family said. Among hundreds of digital pictures passed around her MP unit is one taken before the soldiers got to Abu Ghraib in October. In it, Harman is smiling, crouching slightly, a thumb up, and leaning toward a decaying corpse with long fingers and a gaping mouth. The photo was taken at a combat morgue in Al Hillah, her family said, citing letters that Harman sent with the picture.
Harman brought the photographs home to Virginia during a two-week leave. An Army investigator showed up on January 16 and took a CD of photos and Harman’s laptop. — (LAT-WP)
