Former Iraqi Interrogator ADMITS ABUSE OF IRAQI PRISONERS: "I Will Never Forgive Myself" (WaPo)

[kpete]

An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare

By Eric Fair
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page A19

Aman with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I'm afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.


...............

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.

While I was appalled by the conduct of my friends and colleagues, I lacked the courage to challenge the status quo. That was a failure of character and in many ways made me complicit in what went on. I'm ashamed of that failure, but as time passes, and as the memories of what I saw in Iraq continue to infect my every thought, I'm becoming more ashamed of my silence.

much more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020801680.html

[Rose Siding]

1. Wow

You're being brave now, Eric Fair. We grow.

[Tuesday_Morning]

2. He closes by saying:

The story of Abu Ghraib isn't over. In many ways, we have yet to open the book.

[Felinity]

3. Or here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x164323

[cain_7777]

4. Move along, nothing to see here

Torture and abuse in Iraq, no. What are you talking about? Hey, look over there. Is that Anna Nicole's lifeless body?

[gratefultobelib]

5. I admire him for speaking out, although to refer to his actions as "mistakes,"

is quite a euphemism. I hope this leads to more coming forward and to congressional hearings.

[shance]

6. These soldiers are not to blame. This Administration and our military are to blame.

for using these children and putting them in situations they would never have been subjected to if this Administration and its cohorts hadn't initiated it.

[Counciltucky]

21. Exactly.

For many of these soldiers, it's a damned if they dont and damned if they do type of situation.

[tblue]

24. War brings out the absolute worst in people. That's why you don't do it unless there is no other way

and there almost always is another way.

Everything, every last thing about this war and occupation is damned. It was cused from the first. A permanent scar on the history of this country, Britan, and Iraq.

[orleans]

37. but isn't it criminal or against the law to obey illegal orders?

how do you torture someone when you KNOW it's wrong.

i'm to the point where i feel it's about time for these soldiers to take some freakin responsibility for their actions. when you know something is terribly wrong it is your DUTY to not go along.

the soldiers who commit these crimes are certainly not blameless--by any means.

[Madspirit]

45. you ask...how do you torture someone when you KNOW it's wrong.

Have you ever read about the Stanford experiments or the Milgram experiments which were even worse? People will do ANYTHING if being told to by an authority figure. This young man is heroic for even "getting" that what he did was wrong. He's brave for saying it out loud.
Lee

[dave420]

51. Um no

He *knew* it was wrong, yet he still did it. He admitted that. He's guilty. It's as simple as that. There is simply no excuse.

[purduejake]

61. And I think he is paying for it now.

I think he is very brave for coming forward with his horrible mistakes. War brings out the worst in people and for that reason it should always be a last resort. The person responsible for this all is B**h and his enablers - many of them Democrats who were afraid to stand up against this war.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. sons of bitches. Gonzo has a lot to pay for.

what makes it worse is partly BECAUSE of his torture policies, his memos permitting abuse and his trashing of the Genevas, he gets promoted and controls the entire justice department. TO add fuel to the fire, we now have earned the hatred of all Iraqis, nay, of all nations in that region, but for Israel.

[Roland99]

26. Ashcroft recruited 4 people with atrocious records at running prisons in the US to setup Abu Ghraib.

The standard of low expectations was met early on.

[donkeyotay]

8. The war on terror has also been a war against decency and reason

Everything has been justified - this time it's different, this time our enemy is so horrible that the ends justify the means. The real lesson of the Holocaust? Don't dehumanize people, any people. If you allow yourself to think that someone else is an animal, you will become capable of great evil. And so we have.

[LSK]

9. and this is in the WaPost??? this will not be passed by

[Jonathan50]

10. Tom Paine said

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
--Thomas Paine

[wryter2000]

16. Welcome to DU

:hi:

Thanks for the quote. I couldn't face our Founding Fathers right now. :cry:

[BonnieJW]

11. This will haunt him forever.

This is just a first step for this man; he will have to spend the rest of his life trying to make up for these actions. His punishment is that he will never be able to erase the memories or silence the sounds.

[walk softly]

15. It's not too late

to do something about this. On Feb 15th, Move-On is sponsoring a protest against escalation in Iraq, however, this is one everybody can participate in together. On that date, Move-On is asking folks to offer living room screenings of The Ground Truth DVD. If you can't get together that night, rent the video for the weekend for yourself. Listening to the stories of 16 young Iraqi War vets we can learn some of the horrible truths of this war and why these stories and these soldiers will continue to come forward. Before we judge anyone, we owe it to the troops to listen to their stories.

[E-Z-B]

12. I know Eric, he really is a great guy. Don't doubt him.

He voted for Dubya in 2004 because he didn't want a dem taking responsibility of the impending disaster in iraq. He wanted it to be on Dubya's watch.

[wryter2000]

17. You know him?

Thank him for speaking out and encourage him to do more.

[E-Z-B]

25. Yes. He once told me that I could ask him about anything that happened.

I do know that what happened over there nearly 3 years ago still does affect his daily life.

[dave420]

50. jesus

Then the guy is an idiot, clearly.

[Bandit]

13. Live with it asshole

I hope you relive those memories your entire life. It is all still going on in our name and I hope every single person involved in any way suffers their entire life from it. I know I do for things that took place forty years ago. This is nothing new for Americans. Americans can be as barbaric as anything you could ever imagine and not even blink over it..

[Amonester]

14. Exactly.

What happened to the principle of Personal Responsibility?

Hidding somewhere in a closet at school, it seems.

[willing dwarf]

18. Work for peace not condemnation

Most humans put into that sort of dehumanizing situation will turn into either an abuser or a victim. It's the human condition.

We need to get a grip on why humans do these things to each other and how we can actively work to encourage people to rise above the status quo in these sorts of situations. We need to work on creating creative problem solvers who can see new solutions to the formulaic scripts they are handed for roles like "jailer" "torturer" etc..

[maxsolomon]

19. he will relive it

until he works to heal it.

confessing & asking for forgiveness is a big step for him. & the nation.

[peacetalksforall]

22. Just the facts - should this young soul someday realize that an

innocent fellow American is similarly tortured by young souls of Moslems in retaliation, I hope he is healed enough to withstand the fact.

We of such pride who believe we are superior to everyone on this planet have a lot to learn.

I hope we can handle it or that some miracle of forgiveness takes place.

I now understand why there are cloisters of nuns, monks, and hermits who continually pray. Thank you.

[wryter2000]

27. If I heard correctly

They just repeated the Milgram experiment, and people went on delivering shocks to an innocent person in the next room for no other reason than an authority figure told them to. (No one was actually hurt, of course.)

Once you find yourself in a position where someone in authority has the right to tell you to harm or kill other people (a war), it becomes difficult to know where to draw the line. I'm not going to judge the soldiers. I am going to judge the people who put them in that hell and the chain of command that ordered torture.

(That being said, Grainer may be a sadistic creep. Any large group of people will have a few.)

[Divernan]

32. Not everyone in a Milgram experiment obeys orders to electrically shock others.

I'm proud to say that my sister-in-law, who attended a Quaker high school back in the 50's, was a paid subject in one of these tests at Univ. of Wisconsin, back in the mid 60's. (Where her husband, my brother was in law school.) The first time she heard a person yelp in pain(which I believe was faked- but she didn't know that at the time), she stopped and refused to administer any more shocks.

Granted, she was not under the pressure of a military, war-time setting, but then she would never have enlisted to fight and kill to begin with.

[shance]

39. "she was not under the pressure of a military, war-time setting"

There lies the honest answer.

How in the world can any one of us have the audacity to say what we might do in the same situation?

Answer is: those of us who have not been thrust in a combat/war zone have not a clue.

In my opinion, it is arrogant, myopic and extremely naive to assume that any of us would understand the choices we would make under such forceful/do or die situations.

We cannot know what it is like and hopefully we don't have to learn. However, until we are put in such a horrific, powerless, intimidating, fear fueled, rage inducing situation we really have no idea what we would do.

We need to look at the situations these kids are being forced into. It is ruining their lives, along with the precious Iraqi people. It is horrible all the way around.

What if your superiors were going to kill you if you didn't obey orders, which is probably one of the "options" when engaged in the middle of war?

[Black Adder]

42. Correct. This is a failure of leadership..

In my youth, I was a member of the Canadian armed forces - and soldiers will do whatever is expected of them. It's their leadership which sets the boundaries of what is permissible and expected.
That so many crossed the line in the the "liberation" of Iraq is a clear indication of a failure of leadership all the way up the chain of command.
Most (if not all) on this MB would have done as this guy did.
The good news is that he now realizes what he was a part of and feels badly about it.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

20. "Oppressive prison environments have created...

some of the most determined opponents" is a powerful statement - to anyone with half a brain in his head. Which leads me to Limpballs and his inevitable response: "We're just not oppressing them hard enough!"

[alfredo]

23. Pass this story on. Here is the TinyURL link so your

friends will have no trouble with the link. http://tinyurl.com/yvl865 Go ahead and copy/paste all the text from the story and include it in the e-mail to make it easier for the recipient. Instruct recipients to forward your message.

[mzmolly]

28. I have no words left.

None.

[ptolle]

47. me too

Could not quite wrap my head around what this kid will be living with, and I'm a combat veteran of our military misadventure in southeast Asia ca. mid-60s and I've already seen freeper types on other boards dismissing this kid as some sort of "coward" sissy, nancy-boy unsuited for modern war.I'm afraid of what my reaction might be if I ever heard anyone do that in my presence.
As to words I have only these:"If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America--even those designated as 'unlawful enemy combatants.' If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It's a transformative issue." - former general counsel of the U.S. Navy Alberto J. Mora, in "The Memo":http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060227fa_fact
And Nietzche's admonition about those who fight monsters.

[mzmolly]

60. Thanks for your service.

And for your words. My dad served in Vietnam as well as did his brother. My father was in the Army and his brother, the navy.

He has lingering PTSD and is finally being treated for it, after years of drinking away the pain.

[lonestarnot]

29. Damn, just damn.

[yellowcanine]

30. Shit, meet fan.

[progressivebydesign]

31. I applaud his courage to tell the story. Though many won't agree..

they train you to forget your own morality and compassion, for the good of the nation or whatever mission they've deemed to be more important than anyone's humanity.

I'm amazed how many people are attacking him on DU. I would love to see how those who are calling him an asshole would do anything different had they been brough through the military to do exactly what he did to stop the abuse.. nothing.

Hey, he's speaking out. Better than 99% of the people involved have done. And for that, he will get threatened and villified by both sides of the war argument.

[Toots]

44. From the post I would guess the person that called him an asshole has indeed been there

At least experienced the brutality of war. For those of you defending him with "at least he spoke up" well the key word there is least....Every damn one of those bastards could have done better including this "interrogator" Fuck him if he thinks by "speaking up" it will clear his conscience. The fact that he has a conscience about it shows he knew damn well it was wrong and did it anyway. Some courage, some great America fighter, right????? Fuck him.. He fucking tortured people and now because he says he is sorry all is forgiven, fuck that. He fucking tortured people.. A human does not get any lower than that...

[usregimechange]

33. I want Rumsfield under oath yesterday!

[KayLaw]

34. God!

How can you fight evil? It's just pure evil and makes me ashamed of my fellow man. God damn anyone who would treat another this way.

[CoffeeCat]

35. I applaud this man for coming forward...

It would have been easier to stay silent. However, Eric came
forward and he's telling the truth. This is significant and
it could change the world.

It's obvious that these abusive tactics are encouraged from the
top down. I'm certainly not advocating these tactics, but the
higher ups in this administration know DAMN WELL what they are
doing. Their liberal torture policies trickle down through
the ranks, and the soldiers are supposed to follow the orders.
So, they do.

The incidents, about which Eric speaks, happened after Abu Ghraib.
Our government should have been scared about these abusive tactics
continuing. However, they weren't. They thrive on psychopathic
behavior and the suffering of others--and they use our young
soldiers to carry out their crimes and to serve as scapegoats when
needed.

I can't imagine being in Eric's position. You're young, overseas,
surrounded by higher-ups who expect you to behave horribly. It
would be traumatizing. I know that in a BushCo world--I would be
afraid to speak out against this administration while I was in Iraq.
You'd be dead.

I forgive this soldier. We can't even begin to understand the hell
these soldiers endure, as they are used and abused by our government.
We owe Eric forgiveness and understanding--as he attempts to heal
and help our nation stop these crimes.

[Senator]

36. BushCheney Must Be Sent to The Hague

Americans simply can't bring the level of objectivity necessary to deal with this level of depravity.

It's way above our pay grade.

It's also the price of re-admission to the world community.

--

[Roland99]

38. And Gonzales, Miers, Chertoff, Yoo, and Ashcroft!!

Every one of them were instrumental in committing treason.

[DearAbby]

40. ...

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.


My soul is tormented reading this, I will never forgive myself. How could this happen? How is it in my name?

[dave420]

55. It's in your name because

You, and millions of other Americans, sat on their hands when their ridiculously vicious foreign policy helped America more than it hurt. Now it's beginning to bite the US in the ass in a very visible way, people are all up in arms about it.

[The_Casual_Observer]

41. I suppose because of this mea culpa this war criminal ought to be

let off the hook?

[Madspirit]

46. You would do better under the circumstances?

Go read about the Milgram experiments or the Stanford experiments and then tell me you would have the psychological clarity and fortitude to do better.

Of course he should be forgiven and let off the hook. I consider the CHILDREN we send to fight wars are Innocents also. The old men who send them, that's another story.

For a species that claims we adore our children, isn't it funny how we send them...people not old enough to buy a beer...off to kill and die.
Lee

[dave420]

52. He admitted he knew it was wrong.

He knew what he was doing. He knew it was fucked up. He kept on doing it. Making some wild-ass guess about other people's behaviours in similar situations does NOTHING to show this guy's innocence.

[Madspirit]

54. Bullshit

The people in those experiments knew they were doing wrong also. They still didn't stop when an authority figure was telling them what to do.

Of course, you haven't read about those experiments have you?
Lee

[dave420]

56. I know about the experiment

I saw a documentary on the series of experiments involved, and Derren Brown conducting the same experiment in the last year or so. That experiment merely existing does not exonerate him, clearly. How you think it does is beyond me, as it's reasoning clearly not based in logic.

[Madspirit]

59. Which?

The Milgram experiments or the Stanford prison experiments? Both are clearly excellent examples.
Lee

[sendero]

43. I can forgive...

.. almost anyone for almost anything if they realize they have done wrong and are truly remorseful.

Including this guy. Too bad that out of the thousands involved, only a handful will ever reach that level of self-inspection.

He really ought to forgive himself IMHO.

[dave420]

49. Of course he can be forgiven

But the fucker still needs time in prison - for his own good if anything else. He's done some FUCKED UP shit, and he's suffering because of it. Keep his ass in prison until he's come to terms with it, so at least if the fucker feels like a handgun and a bottle of vodka is going to fix his problems, he can't act on it.

[dave420]

48. "mistakes" and "failures"

Euphemisms for disgusting war crimes towards a human being. This guy can go fuck right off. Going along for the ride, THEN repenting about it later in the washington post is going to stop this bullshit from happening. People like this need to go to prison for a long, long time. And when he's in there, he should get some free psychological care to deal with his nightmares.

[Madspirit]

53. Stanford and Milgram

None of you/us can say we would have the psychological fortitude and clarity to do "the right thing" under these circumstances. Go read about the Stanford experiments or the Milgram experiments and come back and tell me otherwise.

I am not big on imprisoning people just for that pound of flesh.

The entire point of prison, SHOULD be, to rehabilitate and this guy already gets it. Pound of flesh is the same mentality that gets us into wars and causes us to commit atrocities against our "enemy".

I don't want this boy in prison. I want him in therapy and then speaking out, every chance he gets.
Lee

[dave420]

57. He needs to be admitted somewhere

For the safety of others, and himself. He's clearly fucked in the head now. Consciously selling one's self down the river does that to a person. And again, just because Milgram's experiment was carried out does not exonerate anyone consciously doing something fucked up to someone else. If that was the case, everyone who broke a law can just say someone told them to do it, and hey presto, freedom.

[Madspirit]

58. Yeah Right

That's really a good example and comparison...holding up a 7-11 and being in a military unit, basically a slave. Uh huh. Glad you have indepth psychological insight.

I won't argue this anymore with you. IMO a pound of flesher=Bush. No difference, just on a different side.
Lee