Christopher Graveline (Potomac Books)
For Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan Christopher Graveline, the gray area many see surrounding the military interrogations at Abu Ghraib during the fall of 2003 contrasts sharply with the full-color photos depicting the soldiers he prosecuted.
Graveline recently partnered with former Army investigator Michael Clemens to author “The Secrets of Abu Ghraib Revealed: American Soldiers on Trial,” a book that delves into the events at the Baghdad prison and the prosecution of 11 soldiers for detainee abuse that occurred there.
Graveline first took his experience beyond the courtroom in a 2006 Washington Post op-ed, which argued that a lack of clarity and training led soldiers to believe they were exempt from Geneva Convention restrictions on prisoner treatment.
The book, Graveline said in an interview with Main Justice, is a reaction to the continued misrepresentation of what happened at Abu Ghraib.
“The incidents and what happened there had a strong impact on the Iraq War, on U.S. policy.” Graveline said. “What prompted Mike and I to want to put it into a book was all the misinformation out there.”
Attention focused sharply on Abu Ghraib in 2004 after accounts of physical, psychological and sexual abuse first surfaced in the media. Photos of smiling U.S. soldiers standing over naked and injured detainees drew international outrage.
As an army JAG officer, Graveline was lead prosecutor in the case against U.S. Army reservist Lynndie England — best known for posing thumbs-up and pointing at a detainee’s genitals or stoically pulling at a leash attached to a sprawling prisoner. He also helped prosecute the 10 other soldiers ultimately convicted of charges related to the prisoner abuse.
Graveline said the widespread reaction to the case and its unanswered questions about the culpability of soldiers and their superiors caused many to jump to conclusions — himself included.
“I was convinced [the photos] must be connected to interrogation,” Graveline said. “My initial notion and my initial beliefs, when presented with all the facts, had to change.”
(Potomac Books)
According to Graveline, there are two main theories about Abu Ghraib. One holds that the mistreatment resulted directly from interrogation policies set by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The other believes the soldiers acted without sanctions from higher up.
The truth, Graveline said, involves a combination of both.
“By in large, 90 percent of the infamous photos had nothing to do with interrogation … so you can’t say that any of these photos were at the prompting of anyone up the chain of command,” he said. “On the other hand, there are some photos that were connected with interrogation.”
The majority of mistreatment at Abu Ghraib furthered only the entertainment of the guards, he said. The few that did involve interrogation were the result of vague interrogation instructions and inexperienced soldiers.
The Army’s adoption of universal interrogation guidelines in 2006 did much to clarify techniques and ameliorate the potential for future problems, he said.
England has also received some sympathy after the release of her biography last year, which argues she was only following direction from her fiance and torture ringleader Charles Graner, who later married another soldier who served with them at Abu Ghraib. England has said she cannot find work because of the publicity surrounding her trial and only finds solace in raising the child she had with Graner.
Graveline, however, remains unsympathetic, saying her romantic inclinations had no bearing on the facts of what happened at Abu Ghraib.
“There are incidents that fall in that gray area, and then there are other incidents that are clear-cut criminal,” he added. “None of her actions fall into that gray area.”
As for the role policy guidelines, Graveline said he and Clemens strove to present unbiased facts and witness testimony to avoid writing an “opinion book.”
“It would be foolish to say that your role as a prosecutor doesn’t somehow color how you see something or what you believe,” he said. “But in this book, we tried to take our opinion out of it. You draw your own conclusions.”
