Well, the name of Sgt. Samuel Provance will be
scrawled on the John O'Neill Wall of Heroes...Meanwhile, when will the network news organizations face up to the crisis of CREDIBILITY, CHARACTER and COMPETENCE that is rapidly mushrooming in D.C., Iraq and Afghanistan? The bloggers understand where it leads, why don't the propapunditgandists or the nightly news anchormen? This government has collapsed in on itself after leading us into a foolish military adventure on the heels of its pre-9/11 failure in
national security leadership and its post-9/11 coverup...
Slate's Fred Kaplan understands the implications of the Abu Graib scandal:
"Bush knew about it. Rumsfeld ordered it. His
undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Steven
Cambone, administered it. Cambone's deputy, Lt. Gen.
William Boykin, instructed Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller,
who had been executing the program involving al-Qaida
suspects at Guantanamo, to go do the same at Abu
Ghraib. Miller told Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who
was in charge of the 800th Military Brigade, that the
prison would now be dedicated to gathering
intelligence. Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of
defense for policy, also seems to have had a hand in
this sequence, as did William Haynes, the Pentagon's
general counsel. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander
of U.S. forces in Iraq, learned about the improper
interrogations from the International Committee of the
Red Cross, if not from anyone else but said or did
nothing about it for two months, until it was clear
that photographs were coming out. Meanwhile, those
involved in the interrogations included officers from
military intelligence, the CIA, and private
contractors, as well as the mysterious figures from
the Pentagon's secret operation.
That's a lot more people than the seven low-grade
soldiers and reservists currently facing
courts-martial."
Why are the network news organizations pretending that
the focus of this scandal remains at the level of those currently facing court martials?
Brian Ross and Alexandra Solomon, ABC: "There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet."
Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military
Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last
September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his
commanders not to.
"What I was surprised at was the silence," said
Provance. "The collective silence by so many people
that had to be involved, that had to have seen
something or heard something."
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http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/abu_ghraib_cover_up_040518.html
Military intelligence analyst Sgt. Samuel Provance
told ABCNEWS that the sexual humiliation of Iraqi
prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison began as a technique
ordered by military intelligence interrogators.
ABCNEWS.com
‘Definitely a Cover-Up’: Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal
By Brian Ross and Alexandra Salomon
ABCNEWS.com
May 18, 2004— Dozens of soldiers — other than the
seven military police reservists who have been charged
— were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib
prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army
to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told
ABCNEWS.
"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt.
Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling
themselves or being told to be quiet."
Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military
Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last
September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his
commanders not to.
"What I was surprised at was the silence," said
Provance. "The collective silence by so many people
that had to be involved, that had to have seen
something or heard something."
Provance, now stationed in Germany, ran the top secret
computer network used by military intelligence at the
prison.
He said that while he did not see the actual abuse
take place, the interrogators with whom he worked
freely admitted they directed the MPs' rough treatment
of prisoners.
"Anything [the MPs] were to do legally or otherwise,
they were to take those commands from the
interrogators," he said.
Top military officials have claimed the abuse seen in
the photos at Abu Ghraib was limited to a few MPs, but
Provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners
began as a technique ordered by the interrogators from
military intelligence.
"One interrogator told me about how commonly the
detainees were stripped naked, and in some occasions,
wearing women's underwear," Provance said. "If it's
your job to strip people naked, yell at them, scream
at them, humiliate them, it's not going to be too hard
to move from that to another level."
According to Provance, some of the physical abuse that
took place at Abu Ghraib included U.S. soldiers
"striking [prisoners] on the neck area somewhere and
the person being knocked out. Then [the soldier] would
go to the next detainee, who would be very fearful and
voicing their fear, and the MP would calm him down and
say, 'We're not going to do that. It's OK.
Everything's fine,' and then do the exact same thing
to him." Provance also described an incident when two
drunken interrogators took a female Iraqi prisoner
from her cell in the middle of the night and stripped
her naked to the waist. The men were later restrained
by another MP.
Pentagon Sanctions Investigation
Maj. Gen. George Fay, the Army's deputy chief of staff
for intelligence, was assigned by the Pentagon to
investigate the role of military intelligence in the
abuse at the Iraq prison.
Fay started his probe on April 23, but Provance said
when Fay interviewed him, the general seemed
interested only in the military police, not the
interrogators, and seemed to discourage him from
testifying.
Provance said Fay threatened to take action against
him for failing to report what he saw sooner, and the
sergeant fears he will be ostracized for speaking out.
"I feel like I'm being punished for being honest,"
Provance told ABCNEWS. "You know, it was almost as if
I actually felt if all my statements were shredded and
I said, like most everybody else, 'I didn't hear
anything, I didn't see anything. I don't know what
you're talking about,' then my life would be just fine
right now."
In response, Army officials said it is "routine
procedure to advise military personnel under
investigative review" not to comment.
The officials said, however, that Fay and the military
were committed to an honest, in-depth investigation of
what happened at the prison.
But Provance believes many involved may not be as
forthcoming with information.
"I would say many people are probably hiding and
wishing to God that this storm passes without them
having to be investigated [or] personally looked at."