Saturday, May 1, 2004Soldier's
diary details wider abuse at prison Va. staff
sergeant facing court-martial implicates other
agencies in Army By Scott Shane
Sun National
Staff THE Iraq journal of Staff Sgt.
Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, penned in
careful handwriting and mailed home as he feared
becoming a scapegoat for egregious military
misdeeds, paints a nightmarish picture of
overworked, undertrained guards coping with hostile
Iraqi prisoners and using tactics that flagrantly
violated international rules for treatment of
detainees.  If
true, the 37-year-old reservist's statements are a
devastating indictment of a U.S. military that
toppled a brutal dictator only to be accused of
torturing Iraqis in a prison, Abu Ghraib, notorious
for similar and worse horrors during Saddam
Hussein's rule.
Frederick wrote his 10 pages of dated,
diary-style entries and sent them to four relatives
as the Army prepared to charge him with assault and
other crimes. His account presumably seeks to
minimize his responsibility for the abuse. But his journal is replete with dates, names and
grisly details - from the cover-up of the death of
a prisoner in custody to descriptions of detainees
left naked in chilly isolation cells for days. And
it accords with complaints lodged for months by the
human rights group Amnesty International, which
called yesterday for a "fully independent,
impartial and public investigation" of prisoners'
treatment throughout Iraq. In its most chilling lines, Frederick's journal
describes the death in November of an Iraqi
described as an "OGA prisoner" - an abbreviation
for "Other Government Agency," military jargon for
the CIA and other nonmilitary agencies. "They stressed him out so bad that the man
passed away," Frederick writes. The corpse was
packed in ice and later prepared to suggest falsely
that the prisoner had died under medical care: "The
next day the medics came in and put his body on a
stretcher, placed a fake I.V. [intravenous
drip] in his arm and took him away. This OGA
[prisoner] was never processed and
therefore never had a number." Abuse
urged, he writesA disturbing repeated assertion in Frederick's
journal is that the abuse was encouraged by U.S.
interrogators from "MI," or military intelligence,
and "CID," or the Army's Criminal Investigation
Division. Both are under intense pressure to help
stop attacks on U.S. troops. But no intelligence or CID personnel are among
the 17 people, including Frederick, whom the Army
has charged or named as under investigation. So
Frederick's journal suggests that culpability
reaches far beyond those implicated to date. Frederick writes that when he questioned guards'
conduct - "leaving inmates in their cells with no
clothes or in females' underpants, [and]
handcuffing them to the door of their cell" - he
was told not to worry. "The answer I got was this is how Military
Intelligence (MI) wants it done," he writes. "MI
didn't want any of the inmates talking to each
other. This is what happened when they were caught
talking." Later, describing how prisoners were stripped
naked and deprived of light, ventilation, water and
toilets, Frederick asserts: "MI has been present
and witnessed such activity. MI has encouraged and
told us great job [and] that they were now
getting positive results and information." Likewise, an agent from the Army's Criminal
Investigation Command told a guard "to stress one
prisoner out as much as possible [because]
he wanted him to talk the next day," according to
Frederick. Chris Grey, a
spokesman for the Criminal Investigation
Command, said he could not comment because the
investigation of prisoner abuse is not over. No
spokesman for military intelligence could be
reached, but an officer in one MI unit mentioned
by Frederick said he had no knowledge of any
abuse. In civilian life, Chip Frederick is a
$26,722-a-year senior correctional officer at
Buckingham Correctional Center, a medium-security
prison in rural central Virginia. His wife, Martha,
works in the prison's training department. The prison houses 985 inmates - roughly the same
number now held at Abu Ghraib - including some
convicted of murder. Larry Traylor, spokesman for
the Virginia Department of Correction, said
officers such as Frederick are trained at a state
academy. 'A long
bumpy road'Frederick's uncle, Bill Lawson, described
his nephew as a well-built man of 6- foot-2 who
enjoys fishing and barbecuing. Stepfather of his
wife's two teen-age daughters, Frederick worked at
a Bausch & Lomb factory until it closed down
and got the prison job about six years ago, Lawson
said. Reached by phone at Buckingham Correctional
Center, Martha Frederick said, "We realize
it's going to be a long, bumpy road." Of her
husband, she added, "He's doing OK." Frederick's journal portrays himself and his
fellow military police officers as struggling, with
little guidance or support, to cope with prisoners
who could be extremely challenging. He writes that
the guards were "working a 12 to 14 hour shift ten
straight days before getting a day off" and facing
inmates emboldened by their belief that they "would
not be treated as under Saddam." Frederick contrasts the absence of clear rules
at Abu Ghraib with the precise instructions he has
at the Virginia prison, where guards have approved
sanctions to use to control prisoners'
behavior. The only independent inspections of Abu Ghraib
and other detention facilities are carried out by
the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Spokesman Florian Westphal in Geneva said
that by policy, Red Cross inspectors never
publicize mistreatment they find to preserve access
to detainees. Instead, they complain to prison authorities. If
nothing changes, "in some instances, we've gone
right up to the head of state," Westphal said. In his journal, Frederick mentions that before a
January visit from the Red Cross, there was a
flurry of activity to "process" prisoners, or
formally document their identity and status. Early
reportsAn Amnesty International spokesman said
yesterday that as long ago as July, his group
reported that prisoners released from Abu Ghraib
were describing severe mistreatment. One detainee, arrested "after slapping his son
and nephew to stop them fighting," spent 44 days in
Abu Ghraib without being able to change clothes,
shave or cut his hair, Amnesty reported. "Detainees
were not given blankets to lie on, water was
limited and the toilet was an open trench in view
of all," the report said. "We warned that denying access to prisoners by
lawyers and family members removes an important
protection against ill treatment," said Amnesty
spokesman Alistair Hodgett. Amnesty's watchdog work has turned up similar
abuses in other facilities, he said. "Questions about the treatment of prisoners in
Iraq obviously goes far above the level of the
guards," Hodgett said. Sun staff writers Gus G.
Sentementes and Jeff Barker contributed to this
article. 
Report
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