Maj. David W. DiNenna is one of the MPs accused of abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He was given two General Officer Memorandums of Reprimand, which is far less than Spc. Jeremy Sivits (one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge), PFC Andrew J. Sting (one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge), PFC Jeremiah J. Trefney (eight months in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge).
Several others are awaiting their court martial (Sgt. Javal S. Davis – Abu Ghraib
PFC Lynndie R. England – Abu Ghraib, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II – Abu Ghraib, Spc. Charles Graner Jr. – Abu Ghraib, SPC Sabrina Harman – Abu Ghraib, Maj. Clark A. Paulus – Camp Whitehorse, Sgt. Gary P. Pittman – Camp Whitehorse).
US News & World Report today posted some of the some of the annexes that are included in the Taguba report, for it was prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba.
DiNenna, the S-3 operations officer for the 320th Military Police Battalion at Abu Ghraib during the summer and fall of 2003, wrote several chilling emails that are now seeing the light of day.
Here is is the PDF, and here are some excerpts:
November 2, 2003
Have you ever experienced about 80 prisoners standing in line at 2130hrs at night, cold, and being told that the vendors do not have any more food? Well this is becoming an nightly routine, and because I was there I can tell you it is a very unpleasant experience. Why is it so difficult to bring enough food? That is what the MP (soldiers) are asking every meal due to the fact that they, not you, or me, have to deal with it every day. So I guess my question is who in the hell can fix this so that we can at least give the soldier the basic necessary tools to guard prisoners without them having to worry about a riot, fight, or other related problems in the compounds during meal times.
November 5, 2003
At the 1600 meal for the prisoners, the caterers were short well over 100 meals. SFC Bedene, S-4, gave the caterers the morning count of 3950 meals even though there were roughly 3700 prionsers on ground. Still the caterers came up short over 100 meals. This is happening on a daily basis.
November 7, 2003
As you know we had a very serious riot last night[…] this is an unstable situation[…] I have been to many prisoner riots since March and I can tell you that last night was one that could have turned real bad real quick[…] We must reduce the population real quick […] Please forward this to whoever can expidite the process
As you can see from the below SIR, the issues are that there are many Security Detainees that have been held for long periods of time and 1)NOT interrogated yet, or 2) have been questioned months ago and are still being held.
from a different email sent a half hour later…
The situation here is now critical. Last night we had a significant riot[…] we need the dogs. We have the housing for the dogs and handlers (the engineers are building kennels).
many more acounts here, a fascinating and terrifying look at iraq’s most infamous prison as the shit was going down. via Metafilter who, in their discussions this evening, have sorta missed the point of the testimony.
randomfrost + splink‘s trip to afghanistan has been squelched + sk smith