Army halts soldier’s Iraq tour

Just days after shipping out for another tour in Iraq, a soldier convicted of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib was ordered back to his home base, officials said Friday.

Spc. Santos A. Cardona had departed Ft. Bragg, N.C., on Monday with the 23rd Military Police Company and made it as far as Kuwait, preparing to move into Iraq, when the Army decided that he should be stopped.

“We are extremely concerned, in light of the publicity about his situation, about his personal safety,” said an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, Paul Boyce. “So for the good of the soldier, as well as the situation, he has been stopped in Kuwait pending review by the chain of command.”

Several hours later, Ft. Bragg issued a statement saying Cardona was being sent home immediately.

It said he would be given “duties commensurate with” his military skills, but it was not more specific.

In a court-martial this summer, Cardona was convicted of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault for allowing his police dog to bark within inches of a prisoner’s face. The Army said he did 90 days of hard labor, was reduced in rank from sergeant to specialist and ordered to pay $600 per month in fines for 12 months.

His sentence did not include jail time, and after his 90 days of hard labor he chose to remain in the Army, although he is no longer assigned dog handling duties in his MP unit, Boyce said.

The Army said it believed Cardona’s personal safety, and potentially the safety of others in his unit, would be endangered if he deployed into Iraq because he might be targeted by insurgents who know of his link to the Abu Ghraib abuse.