Consequence (14 page)

I never go back inside the hard site. I try not to remember the things I didn't like. The smell is something I try not to remember. The sound is something I try not to remember. The naked man is something I try not to remember. The dark cell is something I try not to remember. I gave Stefanowicz a copy of the deafening music. I try not to remember that, either.

5.9

The rains of January turn Abu Ghraib to mud. They quiet the mortar attacks, but only briefly. Interrogations continue. I speak to old men who have been detained because of their connections to the young men who are doing the fighting. I speak to young men who have been detained because of their connections to the old men who tell the young men whom to fight. I speak to Iraqi Army officers who trained young Iraqi soldiers how to fire rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). When I ask the Iraqi officers whether they've ever fired an RPG at an American vehicle, they say, “No, I don't know about RPGs.” I speak with Iraqi businessmen who import washing-machine timers from Iran to be used as detonators for IEDs. They say they don't know anything about IEDs. Then they say IEDs are set off with cell phones. I speak with Iraqis who have been captured with large numbers of cell phones. They tell me IEDs are set off with simple timers used in everyday appliances like washing machines. I speak with Iraqis who have been detained for housing large numbers of young men from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Iraqis say these men are on pilgrimage. It is their duty to house them. In Baghdad, young men from Jordan and Saudi Arabia drive explosives-laden vehicles into American and Iraqi checkpoints. I speak to Iraqis who have been captured with mortar tubes. The Iraqis say they stole the tubes from a military armory or found them abandoned on the side of the road or took them along when they defected or found them buried in a farm field. They were going to sell the mortar tubes for scrap. The rain stops falling. The mortars fall instead.

One evening I walk from the ICE to the dining facility with Blee and Bagdasarov. Halfway between the ICE and the dining facility, in a muddy and exposed portion of the prison, we hear the sound of incoming rounds. The incoming rounds land close. I feel heat and mud on my face. The detonation fills my clothes with a puff of air like a sudden breeze in a storm. There is a pause, then more rounds. Blee, Bagdasarov, and I have a conversation. The ground around us is damp and muddy. There is no laundry service at Abu Ghraib. We do not want to get our clothes dirty, so we decide to keep walking.

We make it to a concrete shelter and crowd in with some soldiers. Outside we see other soldiers talking about the mortars. They are still walking toward the shelter. Most mortar attacks are brief, but this one drags on. The detonations intensify. It becomes a full-scale artillery attack. Each flash of light illuminates the growing cloud of smoke produced by previous rounds. Tracer rounds engulf a nearby guard tower. Rounds sail overhead, producing a high-pitched
wisp
. A Katyusha rocket streaks and growls overhead. An IED targets American vehicles as they race to respond outside the prison. I feel the detonation in my teeth. Those still outside the bunker are either lying in the mud or running toward the shelter.

The next morning, I conduct an interrogation. The detainee is said to be a member of Ansar al-Islam, one of the many umbrella groups that incorporate former Iraqi army soldiers who want to fight Coalition forces. They are known to launch mortars into Abu Ghraib. The detainee does not hide his affiliation or his actions. He was caught with mortar rounds. He says the reason we can't catch them is they drive their mortar teams around on the back of flatbed trucks. As soon as they launch their rounds, they drive to a new location before launching more. He laughs about the incoming rounds from the previous night. He insists there will be more.

This is the first detainee I lay hands on. I grab him by his clothing and drag him out of his chair. He is lighter than I expected, and I shove him into the wall far more violently than I intended. But I am thinking of the mortar attacks, and I am thinking about how scared I am, and I am thinking he deserves this. He does, and it feels good. This is the first interrogation for which I fill out the paperwork Stefanowicz showed me. This is the first interrogation where I answer a PIR.

Later that week, three detainees are killed in another artillery strike on Abu Ghraib. Many more are wounded, as are two U.S. soldiers. In late January, I get my first day off in more than a month. I stand in line at a newly installed phone facility and call Karin for the first time since a brief phone call from Camp Victory. There is a significant delay and the conversation is difficult to follow. I focus on her voice. The sound is soothing and soft. It makes me feel guilty; I hang up. Later, I send an email and say the connection must have broken. I stay in touch with Karin through emails, but I never again call her from Abu Ghraib.

More mortars strike the prison. I lay my hands on more detainees. I fill out more paperwork. I answer more PIRs. I try to forget Karin's voice.

Henson and I work well together. He earns a reputation as a dependable intelligence analyst. He is given the opportunity to work in the hard site alongside Steven Stefanowicz. I tell him to be careful. I tell him what Ferdinand said. I continue my work in the plywood interrogation booths.

The MPs deliver a detainee who was captured with Iraqi propaganda videos. The videos show old footage of Iraqi army units marching in parades and navigating obstacle courses. An Iraqi man dressed in traditional Arab garments sings the praises of Saddam Hussein and the homeland of Iraq. The video encourages Iraqis to rise up and defend their country. We stand around and laugh at it.

The MPs shove the detainee as he enters the room. The detainee stumbles and falls. One of the MPs throws a plastic lawn chair at him. They wrestle the hood from his head, stand him up, and shove him into the chair. He topples over and falls back to the floor. I sit in the corner and fill out paperwork, pretending not to care.

The plywood interrogation booths offer no protection from the January winds. They also offer no protection from the sounds that come from adjacent booths. As my detainee shivers in the plastic lawn chair, we both sit and listen to the things going on next door. There is shouting and the sound of something crashing into a wall. Maybe a person. A man sobs.

I learn to leave the room during the worst of the sounds. I place a hood over my detainees, secure their feet to the iron loop in the floor, and abandon them to their own imaginations. I sit outside in the quiet. I return and remove the hood.

5.10

I'm assigned a group of four men who were captured at a checkpoint by U.S. forces. They were driving a vehicle with a corpse in the trunk. There is a photograph of the corpse. There is no information about any of the men.

I interrogate each of the men individually. The driver tells me the corpse in the trunk is his uncle. He was murdered during a business trip to Ramadi. They were taking him back to Baghdad for burial. In separate interrogations, the remaining three men offer the same story. They know the corpse's name, they know the corpse's family members, they know where the corpse worked, they know when the corpse served in the Iraqi army, they know the corpse was arrested by secret police in 1998, they know the corpse celebrated Saddam's capture, and they had dinner with the corpse before he left for the trip to Ramadi. They ate the cookies called kleicha. The corpse's wife makes a special kind of kleicha. They all want to know what happened to the corpse. Was their uncle buried properly?

I interrogate a businessman from Karbala. His neighbors suspected him of anti-Coalition activity and turned him in. He admits to being a member of the Baath party. He says everyone is a member of the Baath party. He says you can't do business unless you agree to become a member of the Baath party. He says his neighbors are members of the Baath party, too. Their business interests conflicted with his. They got him arrested so they could take over his business. He shows me the scars on his ears. He deserted the army during the war against Iran, was arrested by Saddam's intelligence services, and spent three years at Abu Ghraib. He says the prison is different now. He says it's much easier.

I interrogate an Iraqi general. He ordered his unit to surrender to U.S. forces during the invasion. He returned to Baghdad to be with his family. U.S. forces came to his house, looking for one of his sons, and detained him instead. The capture report says, “Detainee is to be released when detainee's son is located.” It was written three months ago. The general says, “You've probably killed him by now.”

I interrogate an old man. The report mentions “anti-Coalition activities.” He says he needs medicine for his kidneys. It takes the translator nearly an hour to determine the name of the medicine. The old man is in pain. He holds his side and moans.

I interrogate an even older man. The translator cannot understand his Arabic. The translator says, “Let's just send this guy home.”

I interrogate men who cry when asked about their families. I interrogate men who cry when asked about their parents. I interrogate men who cry when asked about their wives. I interrogate men who cry and ask about when they'll be going home.

I do not lay hands on any of these detainees, as I did to the men who taunted me about the mortar attacks. My questioning is direct and conversational. Some of the men provide information, others do not, but no matter how gentle the interrogation might be, I leave the booth feeling guilty and condemned. None of these men are being protected. They are detained in one of Saddam Hussein's most infamous prisons, they are given no information about their status, and they have no way of knowing when or if they will see their families again. Some of them are guilty; some of them are not. All of them are jailed under intolerable circumstances. I am their jailer. If God is on anyone's side in Iraq, it's not mine.

Bagdasarov and I talk about the sad stories from the interrogation booth. He says he still isn't answering any PIRs. He's not sure his detainees have any real information to offer. He says, “It's not like I'm going to recommend anyone for release or anything, but I'm starting to wonder.” He asks me to help him with an interrogation. The detainee is a young man. This is what we call children at Abu Ghraib. Iraqis don't track their birthdays so the vast majority of Iraqis don't know their exact age. They say they are thirty, or forty, or fifty. When they are young, they don't say their age; they say who their father is. We call them young men. They are boys.

The boy is suspected of anti-Coalition activities. He was captured with car batteries and an extensive collection of electronic devices. Car batteries are used to detonate IEDs. Bagdasarov asked the boy about the car batteries. The boy said his father uses the car batteries for fishing. Bagdasarov says, “I don't know enough about Iraq to know if that's true.” Neither of us can picture anyone fishing with car batteries. Like many interrogators, Bagdasarov is also having trouble with his translator. He says, “This was so much easier in Bosnia.” I agree to help.

I talk to the boy about car batteries and I ask about fishing. I ask about what types of fish he is catching. I ask him what he does with the fish, how he stores them, how he transports them, and where he sells them. I ask him the best way to clean a fish. I ask him about gutting a fish. The boy knows nothing about fishing. I lay hands on the boy. I scare him. I shout. I throw a chair. It ricochets off the wall. I call the MP inside and he handcuffs the boy to the iron loop in the floor. We leave him there. We return. I remove the handcuffs and give him instructions on how to sit in the electric chair position that devastated us in boot camp. He lasts only a few minutes before slumping onto the ground. I make him stand up, lift his arms in the air, place heavy folders in his hands, and tell him to keep them above his head. I tell him to wait. He suffers. He cries. I make him lie down on the floor. I roll him to the left and the right. I tell him to roll on his own. He is filthy. He is crying. His father, he says, doesn't use the batteries for fishing. He delivers them to men but he doesn't know what for. I say, “Car bombs.” He says, “Yes, yes.” I bring in a map of his neighborhood. The boy shows me where the shop is.

Later, Bagdasarov and I hear that when the shop was raided, half a dozen vehicles were discovered in different stages of preparation to become car bombs. Large amounts of explosives along with various types of detonators (including car batteries) were discovered as well. Three young men with Jordanian passports were found living in a shack in an adjacent field.

Other detainees tell this same story about using car batteries for fishing, and I do the same thing to all the men who tell me this story. They cry and ask to go home. I don't get any more results. I tell Randy Kutcher the ridiculous story about men who claim to fish with car batteries and the kid whose dad ran the car-bomb shop. I tell him how I'm not falling for that bullshit anymore and how I go after the guys who tell it. He says, “You asshole, of course they fish with car batteries. I used to do it in Georgia.” At Abu Ghraib I stop laying my hands on detainees, I stop using stress positions, and I stop shoving prisoners into walls.

Henson overhears the conversation with Kutcher. He's been working in the hard site the last few days, doing research on a detainee from Yemen who has been recruiting young men to fight in Iraq. He says he's not so sure about what Stefanowicz is doing. He's tired of hearing the detainees cry and beg for food, or light, or silence. He says, “I'd rather just come back and work with you guys.”

I've seen enough of Abu Ghraib. I begin to question CACI leadership about my stay here. I want to know when I'll be sent back to Baghdad. But CACI managers at Abu Ghraib say I'm doing well in the booth. They've heard good things. They heard about the Ansar al-Islam guy and the car batteries and the guys with the Jordanian passports. I'm making a difference. They'd be happy to let me work out my contract at Abu Ghraib.