Where are Lyndie England and Charles Graner now?

After being released from prison after serving just three years, Lynndie England is currently living with her parents in West Virgina. She is a mother now, and has a child from Charles Graner. Currently Lynndie is having a difficult find a job. When she goes in for administrative jobs, she makes it to the second interview, but doesn’t go any further. Fast food restaurants aren’t even taken a chance on her. So as you can see being a convicted felon is really taken its toll on her.

 

Charles Grander was released from Fort Leavenworth after serving 6 ½ years out of a 10 year sentence. His whereabouts have not been release, and hasn’t responded to any interview requests. Though he has a kid with Lynndie England, he is currently married to Megan Ambuhl who also served with him in Iraq. Graner will remain on probation until December, 2014.

 

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

In December of 2008, both Senators Carl Levin, and John McCain reported their findings on the classless conduct that had been going on at Abu Ghraib. They concluded that the upper echelons of the Bush administration, as well as Donald Rumsfeld, had a major responsibility for the abuse and various torture methods that went on. Their report also rejected the denial that Donald Rumsfeld and others had anything to do with the mistreatment of the prisoners. Another focus of both Senators Levin, and McCain was the Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) methods. SERE was meant to be for U.S. troops only in the event that they were to be caught and tortured. However SERE was never meant to be tried on detainees in the custody of the U.S. At the conclusion of what both Senators found Levin stated that “The abuses at Abu Ghraib GTMO and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples,” and that everyone had to be held accountable for what was ordered. Passing the buck to lower ranking soldiers wouldn’t be tolerated, and could be seen as pure negligence.

 

Antonio Taguba and his report, May 2004

General Antonio Taguba was tasked with conducting an investigation to as what was going on inside Abu Ghraib. Some of the things that he found were photographs of torture saying that what he saw was “unbelievable”, and even he saw e-mails to solidify that there indeed was torture going on, and not abuse as some might have seen it. Taguba was able to dig up what had been going on such as sexual humiliation, women baring their breast, and other various types of lunacy acts. Taguba did mention that though some techniques of interrogation were approved, that many others weren’t, and it was due to no training, and no one knowing what was going on, or who was in charge. After conducting this investigation harsh words and looks were given toward Antonio Taguba, because he felt that people were viewing him as a snitch, but as Taguba said “If I lie, I lose. And if I tell the truth I lose.”

 

How did the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal become known and what was the immediate result?

The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal became know because MP Joseph Darby was collecting pictures, and wanted to have this collection because it was a part of history, and was something that you would read about in the bible or in the history books. So Joseph asked Graner if he had any pictures, and he replied with a yes answer. Graner gave him two discs, and when viewing the disc Joseph saw one disc to be of Graner and the pictures of himself he’d taken, but disc number 2 had all the pictures of the abuse that was going on. After viewing the abuse pictures, Joseph Darby would turn the discs over to Army investigators. Darby was told that what he did by turning in the disc would be in confidence and that no one would know, but that other MPs would be brought in for questioning. When the investigation started, there would be an amnesty box, and essentially the guards there were told if you have anything such as contraband, or paraphernalia to turn it in, and you won’t be face with any penalties or legal consequences. In other words everything would be forgotten. However when 60 minutes came on, two pictures were broadcasted about the abuse that was going on, and this made people in all parts of the world very angry at the situation. In my opinion suggesting that “Animal House” was going on, was not a proper term for what was really happening. We have to remember that these MPs had no previous training, and didn’t know of any stress positions, would or could occur due to being in one. In the end eleven soldiers were court-martialed and sentenced for the roles they took part in during the abuse.