Diary of an interrogator: After a tough day's questioning, a relaxing even

[seemslikeadream]

Diary of an interrogator: After a tough day's questioning, a relaxing evening of jail-roof golf

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
09 May 2004


Civilian interrogators relaxed after grilling prisoners by perfecting their golf swing on the roof of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to the extraordinary diary kept by one.

Among the golfers is a civilian accused by a US Army report of being "directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse" at the prison. The diary also reveals the pressure on interrogators and the extremely right-wing views of some.

Joe Ryan, a former Green Beret working in Abu Ghraib for CACI International, a defence IT contractor, had been keeping the diary for a conservative talk-show radio station in Minneapolis, KSTP 1500. The diary was posted on the station's website until, Mr Ryan said, military authorities requested its removal. On 25 April, Mr Ryan wrote: "We have foreign fighters from Morocco, Syria, Jordan, and other countries detained here. They are not sponsored by their respective countries to come here, but it is due to their individual choices, be it religious or stupidity ... I got to take the rest of the day off after our long booth time. This gave us a nice evening after dinner to head to the roof and play a round of golf.

"Scott Norman, Jeff Mouton, Steve Hattabaugh, Steve Stefanowicz, and I all took turns trying to hit balls over the back wall and on to the highway. Since the club is a left-handed 3 iron, I had an unfair advantage and missed a dump truck by only about 10 feet ... We do what we can to make it fun here."

Mr Stefanowicz, 35, a former naval reserve officer also employed by Arlington-based CACI International as an interrogator, became a reservist in the aftermath of the terror attacks of September 2001. A CACI official said last week that Mr Stefanowicz was "by all accounts doing a damn fine job". But Major General Antonio Taguba, who carried out an investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib, believed Mr Stefanowicz was one of the people "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib".
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=519434

KSTP Radio takes down Web diary from Iraq
Deborah Caulfield Rybak, Star Tribune
May 4, 2004RYAN0504

An e-mail diary by U.S. interrogator Joe Ryan, a former Green Beret and Twin Cities resident, about working at a Baghdad prison has been removed from the Web site of KSTP Radio (1500 AM) at his request, a station official said Monday.

"We got an e-mail from him last Thursday saying that the military had asked that he stop letting his diary be posted," said program director Joe O'Brien.

Ryan's request came within days of a CBS news report about abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Ryan had been sending regular e-mails to KSTP talk show hosts Ron Rosenbaum and Mark O'Connell for posting on the station's Web site.



Joe Ryan, a frequent caller and on-air personality at station KSTP, a conservative talk radio station in Minneapolis. More recently, Joe has been serving as a military interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and KSTP has been posting his diary on their web site.

The diary is a fascinating read - not least because it documents the fact that as of last Sunday, one of the private contractors identified in the Army's own internal investigation of the torture scandal was still at Abu Ghraib, and may still have been supervising or conducting interrogations.


Sy Hersh reported on the New Yorker web site yesterday:

General Taguba urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen “who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by ‘setting conditions’ which were neither authorized” nor in accordance with Army regulations. “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba wrote.


But what I find much more interesting is (a) we now have a name of a civilian contractor who is alleged to have been involved in this, and (b) we have a relatively unguarded an inside account to refer to.



21 April 2004

We have been working hard on an intelligence project for the Al Fallujah area. We would probably be a lot further along if there was some support from Captain Todl. He is the Marine captain out there that wants all of our information post haste, but will not release any information they are getting so we can put the whole picture together. The Marines here are a fantastic bunch of guys and I am sure the average Marine in 1st Marine Division in Al Fallujah is great. I am just singling out one of the intelligence guys because he is our point of contact and an inept one at that. Scott and I put together an analyst package consisting of detailed association matrixes and interrogation highlights to put these guys all together. The command was thrilled and once again the CACI folks have set a high standard for the young soldiers to follow. Specialist Spencer overheard me saying one of the names. About ten minutes later, she came over with some information from one of her interrogat
ions a week ago and we found a link. It is fun to see the excitement in the room when stuff like this happens. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without the picture, so when you get pieces to fit, it is great.

25 April 2004

I got to take the rest of the day off after our long booth time. This gave us a nice evening after dinner to head to the roof and play a round of golf. Scott Norman, Jeff Mouton, Steve Hattabaugh, Steve Stefanowicz, and I all took turns trying to hit balls over the back wall and onto the highway. Since the club is a left handed 3 iron, I had an unfair advantage and missed a dump truck by only about ten feet. Not bad since the highway is about 220 yards. We do what we can to make it fun here.

13 April 2004

"Wild" Bill Armstrong is one of our interrogators. He and I are both in the Force Protection section. Bill is married with five kids and a devout Christian, father, and husband
Politically, Bill makes Rush Limbaugh look like a flaming liberal by comparison. He is also leaving here after his R&R and will become the division cage site lead out in Fallujah.

[seemslikeadream]

1. Comments on Ryan

Comments
Earlier today I e-mailed Ron Rosenbaum, a radio host at AM 1500 KSTP, the radio station that used to host Joe Ryan's Iraq Diary. Ron Rosenbaum was kind enough to promptly reply to my inquiry. Ron Rosenbaum said that Joe Ryan requested that the site be removed, and while he could provide no further information, he mentioned that he suspects Joe Ryan's request had something to do with the recent revelations of abuse at the prison in Iraq where Joe Ryan works. He also mentioned that Joe Ryan says he will be back stateside shortly, and Ron hopes to have Joe Ryan on the air to answer questions.

So maybe we'll will have the opportunity to ask Joe if 'Steve Stefanowicz' is the same CACI interrogator 'Steven Stephanowicz' mentioned by Seymore Hersh's new article in The New Yorker. It would be fascinating to learn if the man that Joe Ryan knew well enough to socialize with is the Steven Stephanowicz that appears in the report. If so, Joe Ryan might be able to offer some insight into the recent allegations and the contents of General Tabugas' report.

Posted by: Richard Parker on May 2, 2004 at 9:15 PM | PERMALINK
Google has the AM 1500 page cached. Search Google with this URL (http://www.google.com/search?q=Steve%2DStefanowicz+iraq) and then click the Cached link on the sole result to see Steve's diary.

Posted by: Paul Long on May 2, 2004 at 9:22 PM | PERMALINK
Joe Ryan is likely a witness to and maybe an accomplice to multiple felonies. He should be arrested and taken into custody as soon as he enters the U.S.

Posted by: KenStarr on May 2, 2004 at 9:25 PM | PERMALINK
(Posted this under a different section, but that thread seems to have died down and I'd genuinely like to see a resonse.)

Think I'll weigh in with a non-haiku post.

First off, I support the war. I'm here (on this site) because I actively look for evidence that I'm wrong about stuff, and you're more likely to get it from the opposition.

So. I absolutely agree with all of you who find this story sickening and awful, and I whole-heartedly want to see the men and women responsible punished.

(I do think some of y'all are a bit quick to blame it on the President, on some very thin pretexts. But I've learned better than to touch that issue, since it looks to me like if Bush did every single thing most of his detractors want, plus donated his family fortune and both his kidneys to the UN, most of them--you--would still hate him. But that's neither here nor there.)

It seems like a salient fact, though, to point out that as bad as these (from what I've seen so far) mostly psychological tortures were, they pale in comparison to the stuff Hussein was doing to Iraqis for the past 20+ years. (Well documented by AI, by the way, since that's a source most posters here seem to trust.) That fact, plus the Abu Ghraib incident, leaves us with a couple of responses.

A. Oh well, as long as there are fewer torturings per capita, it's an improvement, so quit your bitching.

B. It's good that Hussein can't do those things anymore, but this is still unacceptable. My support for the war is unshaken, but this must be punished.

C. Hussein, shmoosein. The torture that took place before we invaded doesn't register on my moral outrage scale, since Americans weren't doing it.

People in column A are cynical and excessively pragmatic, I'd tend to think. I'm in column B myself. So, for all of you who strenously opposed the war, could you explain to me how you don't fit in column C? Or, if that's unfair, how about this: Did you feel anything like what you're feeling now back when the Mother of all Bloodthirsty Dictators was feeding his political opponents into plastic shredders or sending his rape squads after their female relatives?

Just a question.

Posted by: Praetorian Jellyfish on May 2, 2004 at 9:26 PM | PERMALINK
Jellyfish, it's got nothing to do with support for the war, before or after, and everything to do with the impact this has on any chance of success we may have in that war.

So the correct answer is:

D) This may well and truly have f*cked our chances of success in Iraq and has materially damaged our chances of "winning" the "war on terror."

Posted by: PaulB on May 2, 2004 at 9:30 PM | PERMALINK
"feeding his political opponents into plastic shredders"

Has this ever been documented as true?

And some of the prisoners in US custody HAVE been raped and beaten to death. Sure, we're not on the scale of Saddam (yet?), but we're supposed to be better!!!

Posted by: alias on May 2, 2004 at 9:31 PM | PERMALINK
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE -

An independent prosecutor should be appointed today. Full hearings in the House and the Senate starting next week.

Posted by: KenStarr on May 2, 2004 at 9:32 PM | PERMALINK
In any case, Jellyfish, your question is a classic troll, since it's insulting, condescending, incredibly stupid, doesn't describe anyone who posts here, and has little, if anything, to do with Kevin's topic. It's classic flame bait designed to start a flame war, not a serious discussion. Care to try again?

Posted by: PaulB on May 2, 2004 at 9:33 PM | PERMALINK
Anyone we punish will just be the sacrificial sheep marched out for us to vent our righteous indignation on.

Works the same way here in America. Police and guards rough up prisoners. Someone somehow gets proof. Everyone is shocked. Someone gets the boot. That someone usually applys for a police or prison job in another state. The cycle continues.

I'm just suprised no one has connected the two. Wasn't the anniversary of the Rodney King beating just recent? How soon the jaded public forgets.

Posted by: IXLNXS on May 2, 2004 at 9:36 PM | PERMALINK
Your choices don't leave any room for the large numbers of people who loathed Saddam and opposed the war, because we expected (and it appears to be coming true, unfortunately) that the result of the war would be a worse situation than we started with, and that the result would be an abandonment of the effort to capture the far more dangerous Osama bin Laden.

Because this is a democracy, as citizens we each bear moral responsibility if we don't try to stop our government from committing crimes, while it's not possible for us to conquer every criminal in the world. We need to hold ourselves to the same high standard we claim to hold others to, or higher.


I must admit, though, that I have a selfish interest. I frequently travel internationally on business, as do people I care about. The brutal torture committed by Americans makes it more likely that I, as an American, or one of my friends or colleagues, might be physically attacked.


Posted by: Joe Buck on May 2, 2004 at 9:41 PM | PERMALINK
It seems obvious to me that private contractors
were used for abusive interrogations because
they would be beyond the reach of military
justice. The Cheney-Rummy-Pearl-Wolfowitz bunch
believes in ends over means and avoiding responsibility.
Contracting out torture is simply the epitome
of thier flim-flam.

Posted by: jimbo on May 2, 2004 at 9:50 PM | PERMALINK
PAULB: In any case, Jellyfish, your question is a classic troll, since it's insulting, condescending, incredibly stupid, doesn't describe anyone who posts here, and has little, if anything, to do with Kevin's topic. It's classic flame bait designed to start a flame war, not a serious discussion. Care to try again?
Yeah, no kidding. I especially like the part where he says he doesn't want to touch the issue of blaming the president, and then goes on to write a paragraph defending Bush. As for his laughable assertion that "most posters here seem to trust" Al, that is true insofar as we can trust him to ignore facts. With Praetorian Jellyfish's claim that he "actively look for evidence that wrong about stuff," it looks as if we can count on developing the same sort of "trust" with him.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003826.php

[seemslikeadream]

2. Joe in his own words

Anyway, here's Joe in his own words:

For those of you who do not know my military and civilian background, let me give a little bio to maybe clarify how I look at things while I am here.
I was in Air Force Junior ROTC in high school and went to University of Colorado for two years on Air Force ROTC scholarship. I decided that Aerospace Engineering was not for me and left college.

I enlisted into the Army as a PFC for an interrogator position with an airborne slot. My language wish list consisted of Russian, German, or Spanish. In the army's omnipotence, they chose to send me to the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC to learn Swahili. My first assignment was with 3rd Special Forces Group where I was in-processed a whole 13 days prior to going on my first deployment with a team to Uganda. I have spent time in 10 African countries with the teams and earned my "S" identifier after completion of selection and qualifying course for weapons specialist (18B), but was never released by MI branch since I was one of two Swahili linguists in the army, so carried the 18B as a secondary specialty. I went through the DOD Strategic Debriefer Course, Israeli Interrogation Course, and the SCAN Course. In 1994, I went into Haiti with two SF teams into La Cayes on the southern peninsula. After securing our objective, we were informed the invasion was canceled. This meant no further reinforcements for 28 days and forever resentful to the philandering president. In Haiti I performed more than 80 interrogations and conducted the force protection assessments.

Since MI Branch would not release me, I reclassified to 98C (Signals Intelligence Analyst) so I could advance my career. So a Swahili linguist was sent to Korea for a year upon completion of the school. The blessing is that I met my wonderful wife in 98C school and spent the year in Korea with her. I was in charge of the two Trojan Spirit systems for the 2nd Infantry Division.

Needing a desk to try on for size, I went to work for the National Security Agency for the last 17 month of my active duty. As the only military person in the department and the only one to have spent time in Eastern Africa, I had four civilians making MUCH more money than I working for me during the height of the Sudanese civil war.
more
http://billmon.org/archives/001450.html



".....In order to avoid going back to active duty, I signed on with a defense contractor and am now over here as an interrogator."

LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

In general, U.S. civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc….), third-country nationals and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During our on-site inspection, they wandered about with too much unsupervised free access in the detainee area… (emphasis added)

[anarchy1999]

10. I bet Stan Goff just might know this guy.

n/t

[the Kelly Gang]

3. but according to fat Rush they were just letting of steam with the torture

[truthisfreedom]

4. for those of you not in the know, 1500 KSTP in Minneapolis/St.Paul is an

AM radio station in decay. their afternoon programs are what all of us have referred to for so many years as "hate radio" and rush is taking their listenership down one ear at a time... oh yeah, that's right... he deafened himself with his pill-popping.

[JCMach1]

5. Here is the text from the memory hole

http://www.thesyndrome.com/archives/00000856.htm

[daleo]

8. A few revealing entries from his diary - hard to read this stuff

Here he is advocating genocide and murdering journalists:

"We watched the Al Jazeera footage of the two American soldiers that are being held hostage. CW3 Dan Adkins said to the television, "kill 1,000 for every hostage killed. No need to discriminate either." We know they were captured right down the road from our location. We also know they are still in the general area. The first thing that needs to happen is to stake every Al Jazeera reporter in the middle of the desert and let the buzzards have them. "

Here he describes a "contractor" who forgets she is not in charge of the soldiers she works with:

"Berryl Jackson is one of the three females we have here. She is a retired Chief Warrant Officer 3. To show you what a small world it is, she was my interrogation instructor when I went through the school 13 years ago. BJ is from Costa Rica originally and is a real character. She sometimes forgets that she is no longer in the military and is not in charge of the soldiers that she works with, but she is a wealth of knowledge and one heck of an interrogator."

Here he is, keeping the Iraqi Governing Council in the dark:

Today was a short day. There were six of us that had to come in early and conduct long interrogations to ensure that certain detainees were only able to be seen, but not talked to. The Iraqi Governing Council came and looked through our mirrors into the booths to see some of the foreign fighters we have detained. They wanted to talk to them and film to show the international media, but we refused, due to not being able to interrupt interrogations. They were much more patient than we thought they would be so they tried to wait us out. Five and a half hours in the booth was a long time, but we finally outlasted them. The IGC left with only the satisfaction that we have foreign fighters from Morocco, Syria, Jordan, and other countries detained here.

Here is a pretty chilling comment given what we now know:

"Christine Chaney is another of our three CACI females here. She left the army last fall and was actually in the 202nd MI BN that we are working with here. Christine is tall like my sister-in-law, so my posture always improves like when I am around my sister-in-law. She also was in Afghanistan last year with the 202nd and is a fluent Farsi and Pashto linguist in addition to being an experienced interrogator. It is impressive because the three women we have here are all former army and hard chargers. They are more professional and tougher than most of the female soldiers here."

[daleo]

6. Torture diary

I think Torquemada kept these too.

"Wild" Bill Armstrong is one of our interrogators. He and I are both in the Force Protection section. Bill is married with five kids and a devout Christian, father, and husband
Politically, Bill makes Rush Limbaugh look like a flaming liberal by comparison. He is also leaving here after his R&R and will become the division cage site lead out in Fallujah."

I wonder how Wild Bill got his name. It's probably not a pleasant story. But at least he is a devout Christian torturer.

[annagull]

7. oh holy mothera....

I am getting as sick as a drunken dog with this.

[davhill]

11. How would Jesus torture?

He probably asks himself every day.

[JCMach1]

9. It is taking up huge bandwidth..., but it needs to get out!

I will pay ANY price for that!

[T_i_B]

12. Sad Kick

:kick:

[Moderator]

13. copyright rules violation

review

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x87249