Fixing Hell (22 page)

We instituted a new policy that required physicians and medics to conduct brief histories and physicals on all of the detainees before and after they were interrogated. The medical staff then would document on the appropriate forms any signs of physical abuse and report the abuse to the attorneys. This helped us tremendously and proved that no detainee was abused physically or psychologically while I was in charge of the biscuit at Abu Ghraib. At the same time, unlike in Cuba, I was able to get an attorney assigned to our staff who specialized in the Geneva Conventions and the rules of engagement as it relates to POWs and land warfare. With this young man, Captain Brown, we were fulfilling Step 8 of my action plan—bring on board a military lawyer with expertise in the Geneva Conventions. Captain Brown was simply brilliant. He had the right personality, and most importantly, he told great stories, was fun to be with, and was filled with humor. After consulting with the intel center director, we made it a requirement that all interrogation plans be reviewed by the attorney to make sure there was nothing in any interrogation plan that would be out of line with the Geneva Conventions or any of the existing laws or guidelines. Initially, the interrogators hated it because it was just one more extra step that they had to go through. But after a while everyone began to see that it was there for their own protection and to make sure that none of them could ever be accused, after the fact, of crafting a plan to abuse or torture someone. Captain Brown was able to help me put into place very, very clear policies and procedures on what were appropriate and inappropriate behaviors for all interrogators. It became clear that if there were any doubts in an interrogator’s mind, he had to consult with the attorney.

By this point in September, I had been able to observe all of the interrogators and their skills. These skills ran the whole range from completely inadequate to very seasoned and competent. The intel center director was also aware of this range and wanted to capitalize upon having the biscuit present. He had us set up weekly training seminars on interviewing behaviors for the interrogators, fulfilling Step 9—institute specific training for all interrogators, and Step 10—put clear policies on acceptable and unacceptable behaviors into place in writing. It was mandatory for everyone assigned to the intel center. At first, it seemed to be overly burdensome for everyone, including myself and my staff. But after a while we just ended up having a whole lot of fun with it. We would frequently role-play scenarios with interrogators and teach them counter-resistance techniques and how to deal with these forms of resistance in legally and morally appropriate ways. Prior to our sessions, very few of these interrogators were taught how to build rapport and establish a relationship with a detainee. Private First Class Herb Coxan was so bad at just simply talking to people that he scared me. Coxan working as an interrogator highlighted the flaw in the screening and selection process for interrogators. Applicants were given a test to determine their skills, rough IQ, and aptitudes; it did not determine one’s interpersonal abilities. If someone scored high enough on the test, he or she would be selected to be an interrogator. The nineteen-year-old was without the ability to appropriately establish rapport with another human being—in any situation. I didn’t see how the man even ordered a hamburger at McDonald’s without getting into a fistfight, much less extracting useful intel from a detainee. His first inclination was to always yell, accuse, and shame the detainee. He was about five foot eleven and was part Asian, with Coke-bottle-thick eyeglasses that magnified the crazed look in his eyes. One time I overheard him say, “That fucker ain’t gonna get his medication unless he talks to me.” My response was, “Son, if that guy doesn’t get his medication, you won’t have to worry about him not ever talking to you again.”

“Well, why is that, sir?” he asked.

“Coxan, the detainee will die, and you’ll spend many years in prison for detainee abuse. You can’t withhold a prisoner’s right to decent health care because he won’t talk to you.”

Coxan still didn’t seem to get it. He worried me and we set up many training sessions for him. Eventually, we slowly assigned him more administrative duties. I told his supervisor that there is a reason why some physicians work with human beings who are alive and why some physicians are pathologists and only work with dead people.

Most of the interrogators were outright shocked and surprised when I would recommend going to the cafeteria and getting food, fruits and vegetables, desserts, and sodas and bringing them to the interrogation room. Most of them simply just wanted to go into an interrogation room and start yelling and screaming at the detainee. Eventually they would learn that building rapport was the way to go and that if you treated most detainees with decency and humanity, they would talk to you. Building rapport and establishing a relationship would soon take hold like it did in Cuba—it became the way to get detainees to talk and provide accurate and reliable information. It wasn’t that we were giving them fruit and sodas to be nice to them; we were doing it because that is the way to get the information we wanted. Did they enjoy the treats we provided? Yes, but I didn’t care as long as we were getting the intel. I’d rather be accused of coddling the detainees and getting useful intel than showing how badass and tough we were and not getting any information out of the prisoners.

We also instituted roaming MP patrols to fulfill Step 11, the last item on my action plan. The MP officers were a harder sell when it came to accepting my philosophy, but they really didn’t have a choice in the matter because of my rank and my relationship with General Miller. One day I was walking through the camp and I could hear the guy who was second in command of the MP battalion, Major Townson. Townson was on a verbal and psychological rampage. He had two young MPs standing at his desk and he was yelling and screaming at them.

“You stupid fuckers! Both of you got shit for brains, I can’t believe I have someone so goddamn fucking stupid working for me. I should just fire your asses right now.”

I later caught up with one of these soldiers at the chow hall and she told me that Major Townson was a jerk and didn’t know much about being an MP. This young, scared twenty-one-year-old redhead from Idaho said, “Sir, his only way to motivate you is to try to use shame and to ridicule us. I just want to cry every time I see him coming towards me.” I was amazed at the insight this young reserve MP had about Major Townson and his leadership shortcomings. By age twenty-one, she had already figured out that a good leader praises in public and disciplines in private. She said, “Sir, I can’t understand why Major Townson has to use the foul language all time and he can’t talk to you unless he’s yelling and screaming at you, calling you a stupid fucker. Colonel, I’m a Mormon and I’m not used to his type of hate.” She went on to tell me that in her young Army career, Major Townson was the most “impaired” leader she had ever seen. Then she stunned me by saying, “Sir, my father is a retired Army sergeant major and it would hurt him deep down in his heart if he knew how his young daughter from Idaho was being treated on an almost daily basis by Major Townson.”

My deputy chief of the biscuit happened to walk in the chow hall just as that young female soldier got her tray and left the chow hall. He sat down and said, “Sir, I’ve been meaning to talk with you about that guy Townson. He’s an angry jerk and an awful leader. Colonel, I think he is harming and abusing many of the young MPs.” I told my deputy chief that I would talk with the commanding general about this and see how he wanted it to be handled when I went back to Camp Victory on Saturday. That Saturday, I boarded a Black Hawk helicopter and flew into Camp Victory. I didn’t know it, but the general had received many complaints about Major Townson. While at Camp Victory, I liked to visit the library, and so did the general. While I was hanging out at the post library Saturday evening, in walked Major General Miller.

“Larry, I’m glad I bumped into you ’cause I need to talk with you. When you get back over by the headquarters building stop by my office,” he said. “I need to talk with you about an abusive officer over at Abu Ghraib.”

Well, to my surprise and relief, General Miller wanted to talk with me about Major Townson. He wasted no time telling me he wanted to “fire his ass.” Holding out one last hope for an improvement, he directed me to go and talk with this officer and see if I could “help turn him around,” because otherwise he would fire him, put his ass on a plane, and send him home.

“Got it, sir,” I replied. “I’ll be back at Abu Ghraib on Tuesday afternoon and I’ll stop in and have a chat with Major Townson.”

That following Tuesday, I loaded up on a convoy and headed back into Abu Ghraib. When I got back to my office I went to see Major Townson’s boss, Lieutenant Colonel McNabb. McNabb, like Townson, was not the sharpest tool in the toolshed. He was a short, bald-headed reserve MP officer who told me that there was nothing wrong with Townson but that he was just an old rough-and-tough soldier.

“Well, McNabb, okay, thanks for sharing, but Major General Miller wants to fire his ass because he has received many complaints from the troops that Townson is an abusive jerk.” McNabb didn’t want to hear this and tried to interrupt me in midsentence.

“Stop!” I told him. “You need to hear me on this. There is no place in the Army anymore for this kind of bullshit. We’re supposed to protect our soldiers, not tear them down. Destroying nineteen- to twenty-one-year-old kids was not part of the plan.”

“Sir, I was not aware that General Miller received several abuse allegations and complaints about the guy.”

“Well, McNabb, the boss gave me simple instructions. Meet with Townson on a daily basis if need be to help turn him around. Otherwise, if he gets another complaint, Townson will be out of here.”

McNabb sighed. “I’m tracking with you, Colonel. I’ll have Townson report to your office tomorrow morning.”

Townson showed up at my office the next morning and he and I had a long talk. He was very apologetic, with tears in his eyes, and said that he was amazed that anyone would ever see him as abusive. He saw nothing wrong with yelling, “You stupid fucking idiot!” at the top of his voice. That’s how he grew up as a soldier, he said.

“Townson, that was many, many years ago and these young kids today are different from when you were an enlisted soldier twenty years ago,” I told him.

Townson and I had many one-on-one conversations about leadership, supervision, mentoring junior soldiers, and life in general. He went on to finish his assignment at Abu Ghraib and was not fired by Major General Miller.

Out of this came many other opportunities to be actively involved in the development of other officers, helping to shape their style of leadership, molding their style of motivation without screaming, cussing, or belittling their subordinates. Not only had we been abusing detainees as America watched, but in the fray our senior officers and soldiers seemed to have turned on one another out of frustration, depression, hopelessness, anger, and rage. It was clear that the situation required me to be a levelheaded leader. What was needed was for me to be a very calm, objective voice. As important, I needed to be there, to be an active, energetic leader who would be a positive force throughout every aspect of the operation—an officer people respected and also enjoyed being around.

In my fourth month at Abu Ghraib, I was beginning to think I could make a real difference. Having instituted some controls and stopped the downward spiral there, I had time to think more about what caused this mess. Who (or perhaps what) caused Abu Ghraib to occur? Was it an intentional, evil plan by the Bush administration? Was it just the natural evil in normal human beings coming out under stress? Was it an institutional problem or the actions of a few bad apples? Some argue it was the eight bad apples whom the Army court-martialed, while others would claim that the fault lay with poor leadership. Others, including social scientists (with Dr. Philip Zimbardo leading the charge), assert that it was the barrel itself (the military structure and the environment) that was bad and the not the apples (the individual soldiers).

“You’re crazy. That’s an illegal order and you can’t make me do that shit. This is my dog and you ain’t gonna tell me to make him hurt anybody.”
That was the quote Lieutenant Colonel Ray Frantz told me about. Ray and I were having one of our two-hour-long debates over the apple versus the barrel. Ray Frantz was a big strapping fellow from West Virginia and a proud redneck. He stood about six foot two and must’ve been on the heavy side of 230 pounds. I think we all felt safe around this big heap of a fellow. Ray had a way of getting things done in his country-boy, no-bullshit way of answering senior officers. It had a calming and refreshing sense of genuineness around it. This was rare for Abu Ghraib, where many of the officers either didn’t know what they were doing, were burned out, or simply just didn’t give a damn. Ray Frantz, on the other hand, got shit done. He would use his old storytelling, backslapping style of finding resources, turning strangers into friends, and rallying the troops around him.

“Apple versus the barrel?” Ray asked. “Sir, may I ask what in the shit are you talking about?”

“Well, Ray, America seems to be split as to what was the root cause of the problems here at Abu Ghraib,” I explained. “Some folks say it was the apple, meaning the problems were caused by bad soldiers. Others claim that there are no bad apples but rather the barrel, meaning the environment, was so damn bad that it drove these decent and good young men and women to commit atrocities.”

Frantz just about had a conniption fit. “Colonel, sir, keep in mind, sir, on this post we had twenty-two hundred soldiers and marines here. Sir, you need to know only eight of them did something stupid.
Eight of them,
sir. And they weren’t even interrogators! They were just dipshit soldiers assigned to guard the prisoners. Colonel James, when I hear that stupid shit about the barrel and all that kinda shrink crap you guys talk, it makes my damn blood boil.”