Alcohol cited as problem at prison (Abu Ghraib)

[JoFerret]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/latimests/20040613/ts_latimes/alcoholcitedasproblematprison&cid=2026&ncid=1480

WASHINGTON — Weeks before U.S. military investigators began uncovering evidence of mistreatment of detainees, commanders at the Abu Ghraib prison launched a crackdown on alcohol abuse and told intelligence troops that guards were suspected of soliciting sex from Iraqi prostitutes, according to soldiers and officers who worked at the compound.

Commanders at the prison outside Baghdad launched a series of measures to stem the illegal behavior, the soldiers said, including inspecting troops' living quarters for stashes of liquor and banishing Iraqi vendors who were suspected of helping to procure alcohol and make arrangements for soldiers to visit prostitutes.


The steps were part of an attempt by senior officers at Abu Ghraib to impose order on a facility that had spun out of control. Officers who worked at the prison said the measures were imposed in late December and early January, after the reported abuses of detainees but shortly before military investigators received a computer disc containing photos of prisoner abuse that became public in April.


Some officers believe that alcohol may have been a factor in the behavior of guards who have been charged with beating prisoners, stripping them naked, forcing them to masturbate and stacking them in pyramid-shaped piles on the prison floor. At least one prisoner has told investigators that he frequently smelled alcohol on the guards' breath in the cellblock where most of the abuses occurred.

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[Judi Lynn]

1. Wow! If they were drunk, then it didn't really happen, like completely!

That's a late hour attempt at an escape.

If there was booze around, they were probably handing it out in buckets, hoping the guards could find some way to drown their own consciences which were impairing their use of total brutality.

[Mnemosyne]

2. I am shocked!!

Who would think that alcohol would ever be a problem in the military??

[truthisfreedom]

3. more diversionary tales to throw us off the track of the real culprits...

old booze-breath w and his cohorts.

[Senior citizen]

4. It was a problem for guards at Auschwitz and Buchenwald too.

People whose job it is to commit atrocities often turn to booze.

[sazdem]

5. Can they argue

Diminished Capacity?

[darkstar]

6. Probably not

But it does lend credence to the "frat party" defense.

[maggrwaggr]

7. where they hell are they getting booze from? Halliburton?

I don't understand how they're supplied with booze.

[struggle4progress]

8. Were the lawyers who wrote the supporting memos drunk too?