Excerpt from interview of Janice Karpinski by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI:.....General Miller came to visit from Guantanamo Bay. He was the commander of detention operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he was sent to assist the military intelligence interrogators with enhancing their techniques. And he brought with him the techniques that were tested and in use at Guantanamo Bay. And he brought a team of about 20 people, 22 people with him to discuss all aspects of interrogation operations, and actually, he did an in-brief. I was invited to participate or to attend to listen to his in-brief, because he was working almost exclusively with the military intelligence people and the military intelligence interrogators while he was there.
But we owned the locations that he was going to visit, and he ultimately selected Abu Ghraib to be the focus of his efforts, and he told me that he was going to make it the interrogation center for Iraq. He used the term, he was going to “Gitmo-ize” the operation and use the M.P.s to assist the interrogators to enhance interrogations and to obtain more actionable intelligence. I explained to him that the M.P.s were not trained in any kind of interrogation operations, and he told me that he wanted me to give him Abu Ghraib, because that's the location he selected.
AMY GOODMAN: You're both generals?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Yes. He was a two-star....
.....General Miller said -- his first observation was that they were not -- they were being too nice to them. They were not being aggressive enough. And he used the example at Guantanamo Bay that the prisoners there, when they're brought in, that they're handled by two military policemen. They're escorted everywhere they go -- belly chains, leg irons, hand irons -- and he said, “You have to treat them like dogs.”
AMY GOODMAN: You were there when he said this?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Yes, I was there when he said that.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, Colonel Pappas ran the prison within the prison, is that right? He ran something called the “hard site”?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: He ran the interrogation operations within the prison, that's correct. And it was -- Cell Block 1A and 1B were the two maximum security wings of the hard site, and during General Miller's visit, either at his order or at his request, General Miller told -- instructed Colonel Pappas to get control of Cell Block 1A.
AMY GOODMAN: Treat the prisoners like dogs. That explains the leashes and making prisoners bark?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: It seems to be consistent with those photographs, yes, with the dog collar, the dog leash and un-muzzled dogs. And, in fact, those techniques have appeared in several memorandums that have been signed by senior people.
.....COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, there were only – interrogation operations were only taking place – at prisons under my control, interrogations were only being conducted at Abu Ghraib, and they were only being conducted in interrogation facilities built specifically for interrogations at Abu Ghraib. There was what they called “Interrogation Facility Wood” and “Interrogation Facility Steel.” The pictures, although they were – when they were released, it was widely reported that this was during interrogation operations. In fact, it was not during interrogation operations. These pictures were being staged and set up at the direction of contract interrogators, civilian contract interrogators, for the use in future interrogations.
AMY GOODMAN: Contract interrogators. What companies?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: There are several. Several of the contractors that were in some of the pictures were with Titan Corporation. There has been sworn statements saying they came from “OGA,” other government agencies, and CACI. I can only say that some of the –
AMY GOODMAN: CACI?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: That's right, and I can only say that the ones that I saw in the photographs were identified as being from Titan Corporation. Now, they were – my experience with Titan Corporation was that they were providing translators, and again, in some of the information that's been released in the ACLU documents, we know that some of the translators were given the opportunity to become interrogators without any training whatsoever in interrogation operations.
AMY GOODMAN: But General Miller had said he wants to blur the bright line between military police and military intelligence, that the military police were to take the prisoners to military intelligence.
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Your people were to be brought –
Were you in charge of military intelligence?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: No, not at all, and the Military Intelligence Brigade Commander did not work for me. He ran the Interrogation Brigade -- the Intelligence Brigade, and he ran interrogations, which was a function at Abu Ghraib.