Words matter. These are the best Janis Karpinski Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I knew how many MPs I had assigned to the brigade, how many military prison operations I would be running, but we needed to evaluate how many criminal prison operations we could support.
They transfer the prison, and all of a sudden all this money cuts loose, all these people cut loose.
The war was declared over – the end of major combat operations – in May 2003. Release procedures got under way immediately; reducing the population from 8,000 to just over 300, of course, requires fewer military police soldiers.
The day after the prison was transferred to the military intelligence command, they had an entire battalion – 1,200, 1,500 soldiers – arrive at Abu Ghraib just for force protection alone.
There was a military police brigade with over 3,400 soldiers getting ready to go home because their mission – prisoner-of-war operations – was finished.
We need to fix this. It hasn’t been done yet because there’s still a reluctance to admit that there was even a problem – anywhere above seven rogue soldiers who got out of control on the night shift.
Military intelligence interrogators, however, their goal is to get information, to save lives, to stop the war, to find Saddam – whatever the information is going to be used for, at whatever cost.
In November, they transferred control of Abu Ghraib to the military intelligence command completely; it was, after all, the center for interrogations for Iraq.
Shortly after we arrived in Baghdad, we had another conversation with the ambassador. He said that he wanted us to give him the timeline, because we had 90 days to get these prisons operational and transfer responsibility back to the Iraqis.
The mission statement was ordered, and it sent the 800th MP Brigade, effective the first of July, up to Baghdad. I joined my brigade to take command at the end of June.
At that time, about July 5, we had no Iraqi corrections officers working for us. It was a responsibility of the CPA, with contractors, to set up a training program.
Military police know what to do, they know the Geneva Conventions, and their objective is to provide a safe, secure, fair environment for prisoners under their control.
I was ordered not to go out to Abu Ghraib after dark early on, because Abu Ghraib was extremely dangerous.
