US soldier 'photographed having sex' in front of prisoners @ Abu Gharib

[General Duke]

US soldier 'photographed having sex'

13/05/2004 - 17:14:13

 

A female soldier at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal was photographed having sex with other military guards, sometimes in front of detainees, senators said today.

 

Private First Class Lynndie England has already become the face of the scandal, shown in pictures pointing at a naked Iraqi and holding another by a leash.

 

She has claimed she was following orders from senior personnel and the photos were used to terrify other inmates into talking.

 

But unpublished photographs show Pte England engaged in sex acts with other soldiers, some senators told NBC.

 

The 100 senators were able to view hundreds of sickening pictures of prisoner abuse last night – images which the Pentagon now say will not be made publicly available.

 

“She was having sex with numerous partners. It appeared to be consensual,” said one senator.

 

“Almost everybody was naked all the time,” another said.

 

Other senators branded the images of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, near Baghdad, “disgusting”.

 

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said: “I expected that these pictures would be very hard on the stomach lining and it was significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated.

 

“Take the worse case and multiply it several times over,” he added.

 

Some snaps showed Iraqi women commanded to expose their breasts.

 

“I don’t know how the hell these people got into our army,” said Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, from Colorado.

 

“There were several pictures of Iraqi women who were disrobed or putting their shirts up.

 

“They were not smiling in the pictures, that’s for sure. But it didn’t look like they had been beaten or hurt.”

 

“It was pretty disgusting, not what you’d expect from Americans,” said Senator Norm Coleman.

 

“There was lots of sexual stuff – not of the Iraqis, but of our troops.”

 

Pte England went on American television yesterday in a bid to defend herself. She said she was following orders when commanded to appear in photographs.

 

She told the KCNC-TV station: “I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there and hold this leash and look at the camera.”

 

The reservist said the pictures were intended to put psychological pressure on the Iraqi prisoners to talk.

 

She said military intelligence officers would tell the prison guards: “This is working. Keep doing it. It’s getting what we need.”

 

She said: “We think everything was justified, because we were instructed to do this and to do that.”

 

Pte England, is a petite 21-year-old from a trailer home in West Virginia.

 

According to some reports, England is engaged to, and carrying the baby of, Specialist Charles Graner, 35, who faces a possible court martial on criminal charges of maltreatment and indecent acts.

 

She was trained as an administrator and was sent to the Abu Ghraib centre to keep prisoner records.

 

Pte England, who wants to study to be a meteorologist, signed up for the Army at 17, before she had graduated from high school.

 

She is a cat-lover and sent money from her Army pay for her two sisters’ newborn babies, her family said.

 

Meanwhile, further evidence of soldiers mistreating Iraqi detainees came to light in a military prison guard’s video diary.

 

The unidentified female soldier said of the deaths of two inmates: “Who cares? That’s two less for me to worry about.”

 

Other soldiers are seen on the CBS 60 Minutes II programme, detailing poor conditions and overcrowding at Abu Ghraib and the Camp Bucca prison in Southern Iraq.

 

Two more soldiers are to be court martialled over the prisoner abuse scandal, it was announced yesterday.

 

Sergeant Javal Davis, 26, of Maryland, and Staff Sergeant Ivan “Chip” Frederick of Buckingham, Virginia, would face general courts martial, said US military spokesman Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.

 

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, making a surprise visit to the Iraqi prison at the centre of the abuse scandal, said lawyers were advising the Pentagon not to publicly release any more photographs of Iraqi prisoners being treated badly by US soldiers.

 

He dismissed as “garbage” any suggestion the Pentagon tried to cover up the prison abuse.

 

After meetings in Baghdad, Rumsfeld travelled to the Abu Ghraib prison.

 

Speaking about the unpublished photographs, he said: “As far as I’m concerned, I’d be happy to release them all to the public and to get it behind us.

 

“But at the present time I don’t know anyone in the legal shop in any element of the government that is recommending that.”