Army Widens Abuse Probe

As the investigation of prisoner abuses in Iraq shifts to the role of military intelligence, two intelligence soldiers identified in the notorious pictures from the Abu Ghraib detention facility have been ordered to remain in Baghdad as part of the expanding probe, according to witness statements and commanders of the soldiers’ reserve units.

U.S. Army Spcs. Armin J. Cruz and Israel Rivera, both members of a reserve unit in Texas, are so far the only military intelligence soldiers known to be at the scene of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in a high-security cellblock at Abu Ghraib.

Neither Cruz nor Rivera has been charged. But their role in the burgeoning scandal may be an important link for investigators seeking to determine whether the abuses were the work of a rogue unit of military police, or were directed by intelligence officers pushing guards to “soften up” detainees for interrogation.

More broadly, the photographs from Abu Ghraib have focused attention on U.S. interrogation practices and raised questions about systemic problems in military prisons from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

Senior military officials and defense lawyers said additional charges may be pending, raising the prospect that the criminal probe is poised to expand beyond the guilty plea of one MP and the planned courts-martial of six others accused of taking part in the abuse.

Neither Cruz nor Rivera could be reached for comment. Military officials at the Pentagon declined to describe their legal status, or say whether they are represented by attorneys. Both have been ordered to remain in Baghdad, months after the rest of their unit returned home.

According to witness statements, Cruz was disciplined by commanders at the prison for violent outbursts toward detainees and his alleged involvement in an incident in which a prisoner was forced to strip.

This is the first time Rivera’s name has been connected publicly with the scandal. Cruz was first identified in The Times on May 13.

On Sunday, The Times reported that 25 members of the prison’s intelligence units were questioned but none admitted seeing any of the sadistic abuse and humiliation that was rampant at Abu Ghraib. However, apparently neither Cruz nor Rivera answered the questionnaires by Army investigators seeking leads into the prisoner abuse.

“They were involuntarily extended” to remain in Iraq, said Maj. Tom Barbeau, commander of the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion, a reserve unit based in Waterbury, Conn. It was unclear whether they were potential targets of an investigation or potential witnesses.

Barbeau said Rivera and Cruz were transferred from their home unit in Texas to help fill out the Connecticut battalion before it deployed to Iraq last year.

Barbeau said that he had not had contact with either man, beyond intervening to resolve an Army pay glitch, and that he had been given no details on the case. “The only thing I know was that they didn’t get to come home with the rest of my guys, and that it was somehow related to this investigation,” Barbeau said.

He added that he was under the impression that “they were assisting with the investigation but not implicated.” The commander of the soldiers’ home unit in Texas provided a similar account.

“They got extended in theater, and it had something to do with providing testimony,” said Lt. Col. Greg Williams, commander of the 321st Military Intelligence reserve battalion in Austin, Texas. Both commanders described Rivera and Cruz as eager young recruits who were trained as military intelligence analysts. Both men were awarded Purple Hearts after sustaining injuries in a mortar attack on Abu Ghraib last September that also claimed the lives of two intelligence soldiers, Barbeau said.

“They’re two such good kids that I can’t imagine them even being in the same room” with MPs engaged in abuse of prisoners, Barbeau said. “They were both very good soldiers.”

But in sworn testimony in a military hearing in Baghdad this spring, Tyler Pieron, one of the military investigators involved in the case, said “Specialist Cruz and Specialist Rivera were identified in one of the photographs” depicting prisoner abuse. The shot appears to show both men standing near a pile of detainees shackled together.

Pieron said Cruz “never came forward to report any misconduct” to military authorities. He did not indicate whether Rivera had done so. Testimony from other witnesses suggested that Cruz was disciplined for taking part in abusive interrogations.

Cruz “was known to bang on the table, yell, scream, and maybe assaulted detainees during interrogations in the booth,” Sgt. Samuel J. Provance III, another intelligence soldier who managed the prison’s classified computer network, said in a sworn statement.

Edward J. Rivas, a chief warrant officer at the prison, testified that Cruz “was removed [from interrogation duty] because of a situation when a detainee was stripped naked.” Rivas was referring to an incident in which Cruz and another Army specialist, Luciana Spencer, forced a prisoner to walk naked past other inmates to humiliate him and punish him for not cooperating.

Another interrogator, Sgt. Theresa A. Adams, told Army investigators that the prisoner was completely stripped and then walked to the interrogation booth “as part of the approach” for getting him to talk.

In an interview last week, Provance said that although Cruz and Rivera were both analysts, there was such a shortage of interrogators at Abu Ghraib that it was common for soldiers with no training to be sent into the booth to question prisoners. “ ‘Interrogator’ is kind of a loose term out at Abu Ghraib,” Provance said.

Military officials who worked at the prison said analysts often accompanied interrogators into the booth but were not supposed to take part in questioning prisoners.

The military police officers implicated in the abuse, and their lawyers, contend that the MPs were told by military intelligence officials to “soften up” the prisoners prior to interrogation, in the expectation that the prisoners would then be more forthcoming with information.

In an interview, Houston defense attorney Guy L. Womack, who represents Army Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr., said that he expected a wave of charges in coming weeks against military intelligence officers, who he believed were directing the abuse of prisoners on Tier 1A at Abu Ghraib.

“There is no way these low-ranking military police officers did this on their own,” he said. “It’s like pulling up a tree. There are roots going everywhere away from these guys. The MPs were not rogues. They were not criminals acting out some sort of fantasy. They were acting on orders, and they thought those orders were appropriate.”

A defense lawyer representing another guard being court-martialed said Cruz and Rivera were present on the tier during the torture because they wanted to make sure the abuse was carried out.

“These guys were actually directing them to do these things,” said Harvey Volzer, who represents Spc. Megan Ambuhl. “They wanted to make sure their orders were being followed.”

Interrogators and military intelligence officers who worked at the prison disputed that allegation, saying two Army specialists would have had little authority to direct the activities of higher-ranking MPs.

The interrogators and officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed Rivera and Cruz may have wandered into the cellblock and failed to report what they saw. One interrogator described the two men as “very young and very green.”

Although Rivera and Cruz are the only U.S. Army intelligence troops identified in the photos so far, others involved in military intelligence have been caught up in the scandal. Military sources noted that at least one picture appears to show a contract interrogator, Steven Stephanowicz, present in the cellblock while detainees were being abused.

Torin Nelson, a civilian interrogator, gave investigators a written description of how another interrogator dragged a detainee by his handcuffs as punishment for falling off a truck en route to the prison.

“The detainee told me about this and showed me bruises (yellow and brown) on his left arm, and the bump on his left forehead, which he said he got when an interrogator [threw] him into a wall head first,” Nelson wrote. “The detainee is in his early 60s and is considered by medical personnel to be in less than good health.”

Naseef Bakeer, a civilian translator, told investigators that he saw two instances in which an interrogator forced a detainee to walk naked along the cellblock and say, “Look at me.”

“This was done in an effort to humiliate the detainee prior to interrogation,” Bakeer said.

*

Times staff writer Scott Gold in Houston contributed to this report.