Word: ghraib
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Several Abu Ghraib veterans told TIME that "combat stress teams" were dispatched to the prison to give psychological counseling to shell-shocked U.S. victims of the Sept. 20 attack. It remains unclear whether Pappas received any treatment. But one of his subordinates, intelligence analyst Armin Cruz, who was later accused of abuse at Abu Ghraib, specifically cited the Sept. 20 mortar attack at his plea bargain. Cruz, who struggled unsuccessfully to save the life of a fellow soldier wounded in the attack, claimed he had repeatedly sought and failed to receive treatment for shell shock in its aftermath...
...According to Zimbardo's book, which relied on interviews with a variety of Abu Ghraib personnel, "Pappas was so affected by this sudden horror [the mortar attack] that he never again took off his flak jacket. . . It was reported to me that he always wore his [flak] jacket and hard helmet, even when showering." Several Abu Ghraib veterans also told TIME that Pappas tried to avoid going outside the prison building, and even moved an exercise bicycle into his quarters to avoid having to move around unprotected areas. But another veteran of the prison, Major David Dinenna, said...
...fact, Abu Ghraib came under regular mortar fire from insurgents, sometimes three or four times a week. The decision to site the facility in a combat zone was a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, experts say, and doing so cost scores of American and Iraqi lives - far more than were killed in the abuse scandal itself...
...military doctrine stresses that those who guard prisoners of war should not be in combat, because the hostility and aggression necessary to fight must be directed at the enemy, not at prisoners. But with Abu Ghraib under threat of mortar fire, many of those stationed there have said they were in a perpetual state of tension and fear, the well-known antecedents to shell-shock, also known as post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD...
...Davis, an Abu Ghraib veteran who has since left the military said the mortar attacks, "made everyone fear the Iraqis, and people stopped telling the difference between the Iraqi enemy shelling us and the Iraqi guys in our prison ... and that's a lot of what led to the abuse." As Karpinski put it: "The mortar attacks changed everything, because they made people angry, like 'we're going to get these guys,' and the prison is filling up with Iraqis - the impetus to seek vengeance went higher...