Abu Ghraib General says low-ranking soldiers singled out

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who “was in charge of the military police unit that ran Abu Ghraib and other prisons when the abuses were committed,” believes that the low-ranking soldiers who have so far been held responsible for the abuses “did not devise techniques such as stacking up naked prisoners or forcing them to masturbate.” [Emphasis added]

She has previously said that “she was being made a ‘convenient scapegoat’ for abuse ordered by others.” Now she says that the soldiers being court-martialed are being unfairly singled out.

“I guarantee you that none of those soldiers knew enough about the Arab culture to be able to say this is the right thing that we should do,” she said.”

“Somebody who was very familiar with what would work told them how to do those things.”

Her statement does not obviously account for the fact that at least some of the reservists involved, most notably Specialist Charles A. Graner, Jr., were prison guards in the United States, or a suspicion that these abuses might be routine in US prisons. A military court sentenced Graner to ten years.

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