Two Abu Ghraib charges dismissed

FORT MEADE, Md. — A military judge this morning dismissed two of the most serious charges against the only officer charged with abusing Abu Ghraib prisoners in Iraq after a general who investigated the scandal acknowledged he had not read the defendant his rights.

The action left Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, 51, of Fredericksburg, Va., still facing four counts and a possible 8½ years in prison at a trial set to begin this afternoon. Col. Jordan, who has pleaded innocent, is the last of 12 Abu Ghraib defendants to be court-martialed.

In court this morning, prosecutor Lt. Col. John P. Tracy announced that Maj. Gen. George Fay had contacted prosecutors yesterday to say that he “misspoke” during a March 12 pretrial hearing in which he testified under oath that he had advised Col. Jordan of his rights during an interview in 2004.

Col. Tracy said Maj. Gen. Fay realized his error while preparing to testify at Col. Jordan’s trial this week. Maj. Gen. Fay told government lawyers that “he indeed did not read Lt. Col. Jordan his rights,” Col. Tracy said.

The judge, Army Col. Stephen R. Henley, then ordered Col. Jordan’s statements to Maj. Gen. Fay suppressed and granted the government’s motion to dismiss two charges based on the 2004 interview. The first charge was that Col. Jordan made a false official statement, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison. The second was false swearing and obstruction of justice, punishable by up to three years.

In the 2004 statement, Col. Jordan told Maj. Gen. Fay he never saw detainees being abused and never saw nude detainees.

Col. Jordan still is charged with disobeying Maj. Gen. Fay’s order barring him from discussing the investigation with others.

The three other remaining counts involve the treatment of prisoners documented in photographs of low-ranking U.S. soldiers assaulting and humiliating naked detainees at the prison in Iraq in late 2003 and early 2004. Col. Jordan, the former director of the prison’s interrogation center, isn’t in any of the pictures but is accused of failing to obtain approval to use dogs during an interrogation on Nov. 24, 2003, and of allowing the mistreatment to escalate.

The specific charges are: failure to obey a regulation, which is punishable by up to two years in prison; cruelty and maltreatment of detainees, punishable by up to one year; and dereliction of duty, which carries a maximum prison sentence of six months.

Maj. Gen. Fay interviewed many other soldiers during his investigation. In his report, he concluded that Col. Jordan’s tacit approval of violence during a weapons search on Nov. 24, 2003, “set the stage for the abuses that followed for days afterward.”

The search, known as the “roundup,” followed an episode in which a Syrian detainee fired at Col. Jordan and other soldiers with a handgun he had obtained from Iraqi police officers, according to investigative records.

Col. Jordan told The Washington Post last month that he is a scapegoat who, because he is a reservist, is considered expendable.

Col. Jordan’s defense, led by Capt. Samuel Spitzberg, contends that although Col. Jordan was the titular head of the interrogation center, he spent most of his time trying to improve soldiers’ deplorable living conditions at Abu Ghraib.

The defense argued during an October hearing that interrogation conditions were set by two other officers: Col. Thomas Pappas, an intelligence brigade commander who was the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib, and Capt. Carolyn Wood, leader of a unit within the interrogation center called the Interrogation Command Element.

Neither Col. Pappas nor Capt. Wood has been charged with crimes. Col. Pappas was reprimanded and fined $8,000 for once approving the use of dogs during an interrogation without higher approval.

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