Consequence (17 page)

After the meeting with Dent, Brent calls his own meeting and tells us there is a major problem brewing at Abu Ghraib. He says not to delete any of our digital photos. There are rumors about soldiers and contractors cooperating with CID at Abu Ghraib. There are rumors about Steven Stefanowicz being arrested. I remind Brent that I am in Fallujah on a temporary basis. I ask him about my position in Baghdad. He tells me to be patient.

Brent covers some administrative details before releasing the group to dinner. He pulls me aside and asks me to walk with him. He says he heard I went to seminary at Princeton. I don't correct him. He says he is Catholic. He says he's not so sure about some of the things that went on at Abu Ghraib, and he's not so sure he did the right thing. He's worried about the hard site. He says he knows I saw the hard site, too. He knows I know what he's talking about. He says he just never expected any of this. I don't have an answer for him.

In February 2004, the Abu Ghraib scandal is beginning to break. The photos of abuse that will alert most Americans to the realities of interrogation in Iraq won't be published for another two months, but in the meantime, the Army is doing its best to get ahead of the growing crisis. The check of our credentials is the first indication that the military intends to begin enforcing rules. This is how the Army often works. It establishes rules, encourages soldiers to ignore them in the name of completing a mission, waits for a reckoning, and then cuts the soldiers off in the name of accountability. The Army is about to cut us off.

We spend a few days in Fallujah, waiting to be reinstated. I receive notice that my credentials have been checked and I'm cleared to return to the interrogation booth. The same is true for Brent. There is no word about Jim. Jim tells Brent that his military interrogation training wasn't official. He says he attended the right schools but never received credit for graduating. He says the Army allowed him to do this so he wouldn't have to give up his job as an analyst. He says the Army wanted an analyst who was knowledgeable about interrogation. Both Brent and I suspect Jim is lying. We don't say this to Jim. Eventually, Jim says he'd rather not conduct interrogations.

None of us hear anything more of the rumors about Abu Ghraib. We go to dinner with Captain Dent and she tells us that we are all expected to be back at work the next morning. On our way back from the dining facility, we come across a crowd of soldiers heading to one of the amphitheaters on the base. It is in a large building with ornate marble columns. Iraqi officers must have gathered here for speeches and presentations. Saddam Hussein likely stood on the stage. Tonight, the Washington Redskins cheerleaders entertain the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne. They play “Hail to the Redskins,” followed by a series of patriotic John Philip Sousa marching songs. The finale is Lee Greenwood's “God Bless the USA.” Confetti falls from the ceiling as an American flag is unveiled. There is an autograph session with the cheerleaders. It is interrupted by incoming mortars.

The next morning, I interrogate a man named Raad Hussein. He has been badly beaten. His face is swollen. The capture report says that the injuries were sustained when Raad resisted capture. In Bethlehem, I detained men who were resisting arrest. If I had to beat them, I did not beat them in the face. I beat them in the arms and legs, in order to apply the handcuffs.

Hussein says he is the mayor of Fallujah. This makes the interpreter laugh. The interpreter says there are no mayors in Fallujah. Hussein speaks a formal version of Arabic that is easy for me to understand. He also speaks some broken English. I tell the interpreter to leave. I read the capture report. The capture report says Raad Hussein is the mayor of Fallujah. He has been captured because of his suspected involvement in an attack on the police station in the central part of the city. Twenty-three police officers were murdered. The capture report is written by the Army's 5th Special Forces Group. The 5th Special Forces Group often captures detainees in and around Fallujah and turns them over to the 82nd Airborne once they have finished conducting their own interrogations. By the time Raad Hussein sits before me, he has already been thoroughly interrogated.

Hussein tells me that he was attending a meeting with an officer from the 82nd Airborne Division. He says the name of the officer is Drinkwine. Hussein says he was cooperating with the officer and providing information about the attackers. He says the attackers are local extremists looking to impose a strict form of Islam inside Iraq. He says, “It's the Salafis.”

I have written a number of interrogation reports in Fallujah about the Salafis. This is what secular Iraqis call their more religiously minded countrymen. Secular Iraqis blame the Salafis for violence in Iraq. In turn, Salafis blame secular Iraqis.

Raad Hussein says that after he left the meeting with Drinkwine he was captured by American Special Forces. He says he knows they were Special Forces because they beat him. He says everyone in Fallujah knows that Special Forces beat people. He also says they drugged him. He tries to show me needle marks, but his skin is too bruised and scarred. I read more of the capture report. There is a page stapled to the back of the report. It says that Raad Hussein has been given a drug. It details his behavior under the influence of this substance. It says he was groggy and unresponsive and the results of the procedure were inconclusive. The report from 5th Special Forces Group concludes that Raad Hussein is of no further intelligence value.

That night, Henson and I gather in a common room where soldiers can watch television on the Armed Forces Network. We are talking about Raad Hussein. We convince each other that he is lying. His whole story is unreasonable. He cannot be the mayor of Fallujah and there cannot be an army officer named Drinkwine. Hussein's English was weak. He must have meant that he was drinking wine with the officer. We laugh about this. The Armed Forces Network is broadcasting PBS. There is a
Frontline
documentary about Iraq. Martin Smith from PBS is traveling throughout the Sunni Triangle to assess the progress of the war. Henson and I watch as he arrives in Fallujah. He talks to Iraqi citizens who criticize the occupation. Then he talks to the mayor of Fallujah. Raad Hussein. Later, Martin Smith interviews an American officer named Lieutenant Colonel Brian Drinkwine. The interview is interrupted by another soldier, who tells Drinkwine that an American helicopter has been shot down.

During the day I catch up on paperwork and read through screening reports about detainees who have yet to be interrogated. In the afternoon a new batch of detainees arrives. Ferdinand asks me to help him with the screenings. These are simple interviews consisting of basic questions. We photograph the detainees, inventory their belongings, and escort them to the detention facility. Ferdinand and I spend the day together pretending we are police officers again.

At the end of the day, we return to the office and file the completed screening reports. Tyner and Dent are in the office. Dent ordered Tyner to interrogate Raad Hussein after I determined he was of no further intelligence value. Tyner says, “Did you hear about your friend Raad?” Raad Hussein confessed to conspiring with the group responsible for killing the twenty-three police officers in Fallujah. It was likely a power play designed to win the approval of former Baath party elements looking to regain control of the province. Raad found himself in a difficult position. He wanted to secure his job, so he helped murder twenty-three police officers. Tyner cross-referenced Raad's confession with other sources. It's confirmed. Raad is guilty of facilitating the deaths of twenty-three Iraqi police officers.

We pass by the interrogation room where Tyner has been working on Raad Hussein. We haven't heard Tyner scream or throw anything today. The door to the room, a flimsy sheet of plywood, has blown open in the hot desert wind. Inside, Raad Hussein is bound to the Palestinian chair. His hands are tied to his ankles. The chair forces him to lean forward in a crouch, forcing all of his weight onto his thighs. It's as if he's been trapped in the act of kneeling down to pray, his knees frozen just above the floor, his arms pinned below his legs. He is blindfolded. His head has collapsed into his chest. He wheezes and gasps for air. There is a pool of urine at his feet. He moans: too tired to cry, but in too much pain to remain silent.

Henson comes out into the hallway and walks past the room. He covers the side of his face as he walks by and says, “I don't even want to know.”

I am silent. This is a sin. I know it as soon as I see it. There will be no atonement for it. In the coming years, I won't have the audacity to seek it. Witnessing a man being tortured in the Palestinian chair requires the witness to either seek justice or cover his face. Like Henson in Fallujah, I'll spend the rest of my life covering my face.

Tyner says he's leaving Raad in the chair for a while, just to see if there's anything else he hasn't shared. I think of the dead police officers in Fallujah. I want to avenge these men, so I tell myself I have an obligation to use aggressive techniques against people like Raad Hussein. I tell myself that Raad is evil and it is necessary to lie to him, necessary to torture him. In a test of my own convictions I say, “He deserves it.”

Ferdinand hears me say this. He grabs my shoulder in an aggressive way and says, “Hey, man.” I drop my head, close my eyes, and touch my face with my fingertips. Ferdinand says, “I know, me too.” We accept the undeniable truth that we are guilty.

Ferdinand and I walk to the dining facility and talk about Raad Hussein. On the way, on an exposed portion of the base, mortars rain down. Ferdinand lifts his arms in the air and pretends he is a baseball player trying to catch a pop fly. He says, “I got it, got it.” We both laugh. Ferdinand says, “It would be a mercy killing.”

6.4

There is an operations center on base where I can access a classified computer network. I use the computer from time to time to prepare for interrogations. I look at aerial photos of Fallujah and examine pictures of the neighborhoods where the detainees live. I access reports on IED attacks and study information about the types of weapons being used. I find a report about the attack on the police station in Fallujah and in it there are photographs of dead police officers. They rest on the floor, side by side, as if in formation. Some are still dressed in uniform, black pants and a light-blue shirt. Shoulder boards display their rank. Others have been stripped naked, their uniforms taken by insurgents for use in future attacks. Some of the faces show the shock of death, a frozen acknowledgment of the end of life. Other faces are torn open, leaking fluids onto the floor. The police station has large rooms where the officers likely gathered for briefings, smaller rooms that housed higher-ranking individuals, and a front desk where reports were taken. There is blood in every one of these rooms.

I think of the police station in Bethlehem. I think of the patrol room and the front desk and the records room. I think of my friends with bloodied uniforms, or naked, or with holes in their faces. I think I would kill the men responsible.

Ferdinand and I walk to work. We talk about the police stations where we worked and the police officers we worked with. We talk about how difficult the job was and how poorly people treated us. We talk about the impossible job required of Iraqi police officers.

But no matter how hard we try, no matter how much someone like the mayor of Fallujah disgusts us, we cannot justify the Palestinian chair. And as we struggle to justify the chair, we struggle to make sense of everything else we have done. We have been justifying the use of different forms of torture by calling them enhanced techniques and filling out the appropriate paperwork. We have told ourselves all of it has been done in the pursuit of a defensible cause, that it has been done to men like Raad Hussein, and it has been done to men guilty of so much worse. But having seen the Palestinian chair, it's impossible to deny that it has all been wrong.

When we arrive at the office, we agree to take turns in the Palestinian chair. Maybe it's not as bad as we've made it out to be. We experiment with different positions and tell each other what hurts the most. We agree that having your hands secured to the lowest part of the chair puts the most strain on our legs. What begins as a searing burn in the calves and quads evolves into a tearing sensation in the hamstrings and lower back. You sweat, you shake, you can't breathe. It is a violent and frightening pain. It's torture.

Captain Dent arrives to find Ferdinand and me recovering from the chair. She has just come from a briefing with the division commander. He wants better results from the interrogation team. He's not impressed. He may show up in person to observe our interrogations. We'd better be ready.

This is typical for the Army. A lower-ranking officer wants to motivate the troops, so the lower-ranking officer threatens enlisted soldiers with the words of a higher-ranking officer. To hammer home the point, the lower-ranking officer says the higher-ranking officer might show up in person. In truth, the higher-ranking officer has no intention of showing up. And the higher-ranking officer may never actually have said the things attributed to him by the lower-ranking officer, but the tactic has its desired effect. Captain Dent says the division commander wants better results. Captain Dent knows what goes on in the interrogation booths in Fallujah, she knows about stress positions, she knows about slapping detainees, and she knows about the Palestinian chair. Now she says more is expected of us.

6.5

As violence increases throughout Fallujah, the number of detainees at our facility grows. We never expected to have more than a dozen detainees assigned to any one interrogator at a time. There are now more than two hundred in the holding cells. We have fallen behind. We can no longer afford to have interrogators sitting around waiting for one of the two interrogation rooms to become available. Captain Dent breaks us into two shifts. Ferdinand, Henson, and I are assigned to the night shift. She tells us to cancel the day's interrogations and return in the evening. I give the screening reports to Tyner.