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"I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there, hold this leash... ýand they took the picture," England saidý
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WASHINGTON,
May 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A U.S. soldier making her
presence in most of the Iraqi abuse photos said she was
"instructed" by her commanders to pose for photographs with
naked Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison.
"I
was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there, hold this
leash... and they took the picture. That's all I know," Private
Lynndie England told Denver's KCNC station on Wednesday, May 12,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"I
was told to stand here, point thumbs up, look at the camera and take the
picture".
The
Washington Post splashed on Thursday, May 6, a photo
of England holding a leash ties around the neck of a naked Iraqi
detainee grimacing and lying on the floor at the notorious Abu Ghraib
prison outside Baghdad.
She
was also photographed smiling with a cigarette hanging from her lips,
pointing a mock gun at the genitals of a naked Iraqi detainee.
"Doing
Great"
Asked
who ordered her to pose that way, England replied: "Persons in my
chain of command".
She
recalled "thinking it was kind of weird" at the time.
However,
the reservist said her superiors praised the photographs and told her
and her colleagues that it was a "good tactic".
"To
us, we were doing our job, which meant we were doing what we were told
and the outcome was what they wanted," she said.
"They
just told us, 'Hey, you're doing great. Keep it up,'" England
asserted.
The
army reservist recently returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina from Iraq
because she is pregnant.
She
was charged on May 7 with mistreating a detainee, bringing to seven the
number of U.S. military police reservists charged in the prison abuse
case.
The
interview was conducted at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where the army
reservist is in custody.
Worse
Things
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"I was told to stand here, point thumbs up, look at the camera and take the ýpicture," England saidý
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England
said worse things than those seen in the photographs occurred in Abu
Ghraib prison, but did not give details, following her lawyer's advice,
the BBC News Online said.
U.S.
Congressmen expressed their appall and disgust after privately seeing
"hellish "
Wednesday, May 12, the unreleased photos and videos.
U.S.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had told a stormy hearing of the
House and Senate Armed Services Committees last week he saw more
"blatantly sadistic" photos and videos of Iraqi detainees than
those already published.
The
images "include an American soldier having sex with a female Iraqi
detainee and American soldiers watching Iraqis have sex with
juveniles," reported
the Newsweek in its May 10-17 issue.
In
a damning report presented to the administration in February, U.S. Major
General Antonio Taguba found numerous "sadistic, blatant and wanton
criminal abuses" at a U.S.-run prison complex near Baghdad.
The
Iraqi abuse scandal exploded onto the world stage on April 29 after the
CBS news network published several graphic photos
of Iraqi detainees tortured and sexually abused by U.S. soldiers.
