Dogs at Abu Ghraib
by TChris
The military's use of dogs to "break down" detainees at Abu Ghraib prior to interrogations will be explored today in an Article 32 hearing regarding charges brought against the dog handlers.
Sgts. Santos A. Cardona and Michael J. Smith are charged with dereliction of duty and maltreatment of detainees. Both were attached to the 320th Military Police Battalion, one of the units guarding the now notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in December 2003 and January 2004.
According to an investigation led by Maj. General George Fay, Cardona and Smith had a running contest in which they used their dogs to try to frighten detainees into wetting themselves.
The handlers say they were doing what they were told to do.
Smith said he knew that dogs were supposed to be muzzled during interrogations, but "from what I was told, we weren't doing interrogations. Having the dogs bark at detainees was psychologically breaking them down for their interrogation purposes."
Cardona, who supervised the two-man dog team, told investigators he had reservations about using dogs in the "hard site," where detainees were interrogated. "The people who are in charge try to tell you how to do your job, even though they're not trained in dog handling," he said. "I told them nothing good is going to come out of dogs being in a hard site."
Predictably, there has been no comparable prosecution of the man in charge.
Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which conducted interrogations at the prison, was reprimanded and fined in May.
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