'She Was Following Orders'

What was the purpose of your visit to Iraq?

Sunday [May 2] I spent the entire day at the prison interviewing detainees. I have hand-written, dated statements from [some prisoners] and they're all witnessed by an Army interpreter and every one of them says my client was loving and caring and respected by the prisoners.

What is the prison like?

I don't have to worry about what hell looks like when I die. To the outside, to the causal observer, you wouldn't believe that anybody [actually used the building]. It looked like it had been strafed. Inside, it's just hotter than hell. Frankly, the detainees almost have it better [than the U.S. soldiers assigned to watch them] because they can go outside during the day. Granted, outside means rock on the ground. It's not like you have a tree or anything to take care of you. At least it's outside. It's hotter than hell inside. You have no idea how hot it is.

So it was horrible for American soldiers to work there?

Oh yeah, it really is. You're in the middle of nowhere, the conditions are awful, and there's not really any incentive you can offer to the prisoners, because you don't have anything to offer them. [And] the number of prisoners just grew like topsy in a very short period of time. I don't think the powers-that-be anticipated it would grow that much. The problem was the [number of] reservists intended to [guard the prison] didn't grow at all. It made for an uncomfortable situation--suddenly, you had many more prisoners than guards, some of who were trained in correction work before, but most of them were not. The point is, it's not a situation you'd want in the civilian world, let alone when you're supervising detainees. And the people at Abu Ghraib were the worst prisoners in Iraq. They're the worst criminal offenders against the Iraqi people and the suspected terrorists.