Abu Ghraib: Timeline

[Shadder]

Sitting up last night I discovered that I was starting to have a problem keeping things in order so I started putting together a timeline. I've thrown it up on a website at:

http://www.savinggraves.org/timeline/index.htm

Please let me know if I've missed anything. If there is an interest, I'll try to keep it updated.

[bluestateguy]

1. Question

Wasn't that the prison where Saddam Hussein emptied out the jails shortly before the war?

[Tinoire]

2. Great work / Not sure if you can incorporate this

You'll have to get the flash links, if that's even possible, from the msnbc link.

:thumbsup: Book-marked!

Fact File
Probing the military

At least seven investigations have been launched into allegations of abuse by U.S. personnel at military prisons. Click below for details:
Guantanamo Naval Base (Flash link)
Bagram, Afghanistan (Flash link)
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Criminal investigation (Flash link)
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Taguba report (Flash link)
Worldwide (Flash link)
Army reserve: Training (Flash link)
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Military intelligence (Flash link)



Guantanamo Naval Base
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asks Navy inspector general in May to investigate the prisons at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and at the Charleston, S.C., Naval Station Brig, where war-on-terror detainees are being held.
Follow-up: Ongoing


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930/

[Shadder]

3. Thanks

I'll see if I can't get that in also.

[Tinoire]

6. Here's another good story to add: Torture Sanctioned by Pentagon (Feith)

Bar Association: Torture Sanctioned by Pentagon Appointees
Salon is reporting that a report compiled by the Committee on International Law of the New York City Bar Association has found that the American military's treatment of detainees and prisoners of war in Afghanistan, Cuba and Iraq violates international law — and the compilers of the report say that the techniques employed by interrogators at prisons such as Abu Ghraib were "sanctioned by Pentagon political appointees."

Joe Conason of Salon reports that Scott Horton, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler and chair of the Committee on International Law was told by "senior" members of the Judge Advocate General Corps that high ranking political appointees were behind the abuse. Says Conason:

http://www.warblogging.com/

Lack of protection

<snip>

Indeed, Horton says that the JAG officers specifically warned him that Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith,one of the most powerful political appointees in the Pentagon, had significantly weakened the military's rules and regulations governing prisoners of war. The officers told Horton that Feith and the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, were creating "an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" that would allow mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Douglas Feith, President Bush's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy — and number three man at the Pentagon — reportedly summed up Protocol One of the Geneva Conventions of 1977 as "law in the service of terrorism".

In the past, Conason writes, all interrogations conducted by military personnel were monitored by a member of the Judge Advocate General corps from behind a two-way mirror. All interrogations were monitored, and the JAG officer was "emplowered to stop any misconduct". But senior Pentagon officials removed that requirement. :wow: Not only did JAG officers no longer monitor interrogations, but private military contractors were allowed to conduct interrogations.

<snip>

After hearing the complaints of the JAG officers, Horton and his bar colleagues wrote to Haynes and the CIA's general counsel in an effort to clarify U.S. policy on the treatment and interrogation of detainees. Those inquiries, he recalls, "were met with a firm brushoff. We then turned to senators who had raised the issue previously, and assisted their staff in pursuing the issue directly with the Pentagon. These inquiries met with a similar brushoff." The Bush administration wanted no meddling by human rights lawyers as it brought democracy and human rights to the benighted region.

<snip>

Horton says that career military officers at the Pentagon were "greatly upset" by what they regarded as the deliberate destruction of traditions and methods that have long protected soldiers as well as civilians. Those officers, and others who may have evidence to offer, are obviously reluctant to step forward and speak because they fear reprisal from the Pentagon and the White House. They have been instructed not to talk to anyone about these issues. It is to be hoped that in the investigations to come -- whether or not Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary Feith keep their jobs -- those conscientious officers will be able to tell what they know about the decisions that led to this national disaster.


<snip>

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/07/rights/index.html

They're going down. The entire house of cards is CRASHING down.

[LizW]

4. Excellent work!

Thank you for doing this. I've been having the same problem, assimilating who knew what when. You timeline is very helpful. I've bookmarked it.

:thumbsup:

[Shadder]

12. Thanks

Glad I can help

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. You can add January 16th to your timeline

I just found this little tidbit on the Sunday Herald website


http://www.sundayherald.com/41906

Bush and Blair say they are shocked by the abuse of war prisoners ... but they knew about it two years ago

<snip>

Paul Bremer, the US governor heading the coalition?s provisional authority in Iraq, was also handed a report by Amnesty International which described prisoner abuse and Geneva violations throughout US-run camps in Iraq last July.

As a result, Bush called defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to the White House for briefings on January 16. Rumsfeld is said to have told Bush the extent of the concern over abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. The meeting was attended by White House chief of staff Andrew H Card Jnr.

[goclark]

7. Visit of Rummy and Paul W. to Abu Ghraib

I saw a picture, I think at DU, of the two of them visiting the prison. I thought it was around January. They were talking to someone and they looked entirely relaxed and calm.

The next time I saw the picture was on TV and this time, NeoPaul was not in the photo. Did they cut him off, was it another day? Why don't we keep seeing that photo or is it off the radar now?


I later heard Rummy say that they only visited "some" of the areas of the prison. I wonder why they could not visit the entire facility.

I think they went for the visit to get their stories together. This visit should fit in your time line someplace I think.

[Shadder]

8. 30 April 2003

I found a record of him at Abu Ghraib but it sounds like an area other than the prison. I'll keep looking

[goclark]

9. I thought I saw Prison bars

in the photo and I thought it was before April.
I'll keep trying to get my mind back in gear.

[goclark]

10. Found the Photos!

Do a search for Sat. May 01-04 at DU
Photos put Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz at Abu Ghraib.

Let me know if you can't find them. I don't know how to insert bookmarked threads.

Good luck!

[Shadder]

11. Got one of the photos on the site!

Iis at the top of the page, BG Janis Karpinski, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in an undated photograph taken at Abu Ghraib prison.

I can find a refernce to Wolfie being there on 20 Jul but thats it and no mention of Rummie

[Shadder]

13. Timeline updated

I just added a lot of new information to the timeline including photos.

http://www.savinggraves.org/timeline/index.htm

[Junkdrawer]

14. Great work...

These are the types of posts that bring credit to DU. :thumbsup:

[JetJaguar]

15. Gen. Abizaid statement

You have it as 4 February.

Should be 4 March.


Federal News Service

March 4, 2004 Thursday

CAPITOL HILL HEARING
HEARING OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005
CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JOHN WARNER (R-VA)

WITNESSES: GENERAL JAMES JONES, JR., USMC, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND AND SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, EUROPE; GENERAL JOHN ABIZAID, UNITED STATES ARMY, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND



...

GEN. ABIZAID: Thank you, Senator Roberts. The single most important thing to General Sanchez in Iraq is having good intelligence. With good intelligence, you can get precise targeting. With precise targeting, you can start to unravel the enemy cells. And as you recall, back in the September-October period, where it was clear that the insurgency was spreading, it became obvious to us that we really needed to fuse the intelligence system and improve it, and ensure that the wonderful intelligence that was being developed at the tactical level made it all the way up to the operational level so that we could make the battle one of the entire force versus just platoons and squads that were out there operating in their own individual areas.

And I think largely with the help of our various intelligence agencies, with wonderful work by my J2, John Custer, and General Sanchez's J2, Barbara Fast, we managed to get an intelligence system working that has given us great insight against the insurgents, and has allowed us to unravel their organizations in a way that I think will be viewed as a model when people have a chance to look at it.

Now, this doesn't mean that the enemy does not adjust their tactics, because they do. And they are adjusting their tactics, they are adjusting the way that they conduct their own operational security. You could see from the letter by Zarqawi, for example, how concerned he was how many eyes were out there and how dangerous the operation was. But this was is a war of intelligence and perception. And it is just so important that the intelligence part of the battle be adequately organized and that we think out of the box about who was doing what and not worry about turf. And I'm happy to report to you that I think that the relationship that's developed in Baghdad with the Central Intelligence Agency and the one that we have between CENTCOM and the agency has been one that has allowed us to get up at this problem in an important way.

However, I would like to say one thing, if I may, Senator, because I know it's so important to you. We do not have enough intelligence professionals in our nation. We must increase our HUMINT capacity. We must increase our ability to have translators and interrogators in the field. And to me, as we fight this global war on terrorism, if we don't do that, we are putting the nation at risk.

...

Feb. 4 Witness list

http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=1039

Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense

General Peter Pace, USMC

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Mar. 4 Witness list

http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=1043

General James L. Jones, Jr., USMC

Commander, United States European Command and
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe

General John P. Abizaid, USA

Commander, United States Central Command