Janis Karpinski
Janis Karpinski
Janis Leigh Karpinskiis a career officer in the US Army Reserve, now retired. She is notable for having commanded the forces that operated Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, at the time of the scandal related to torture and prisoner abuse. She commanded three prisons in Iraq, and the forces that ran them. Her education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and secondary education from Kean College, a Master of Arts degree in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSoldier
Date of Birth25 May 1953
CountryUnited States of America
arrived conversation days prisons responsibility transfer
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.
american-soldier environment fair geneva military objective police prisoners provide
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.
information intelligence saddam save stop war whatever
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.
accept among basic both brigade caused command complete disturbing either enforce establish found inherent leadership poor principles problems refusal standards testimony understand
What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers.
chain colonel discussion
There was no coordination with me or Colonel Pappas. There was no discussion about chain of command.
assigned colonel general jag officer
was told by Colonel Warren, the JAG officer for General Sanchez, that they weren't assigned to me, that they were not under my control, and I really had no right to see them.
abu american-soldier center intelligence
In November, they transferred control of Abu Ghraib to the military intelligence command completely; it was, after all, the center for interrogations for Iraq.
admit country effort few fix huge iraq largely mistakes needs people point saying willing
Iraq was a huge country, and when you have people largely saying now, 'He may have been a dictator, but we were better under Saddam,' this Administration needs to take notice. And at some point you have to say, 'Stop the train, because it's completely derailed. How do we fix it?' But in an effort to do that, you have to admit that you made a few mistakes, and this Administration is not willing to admit any mistakes whatsoever.
american-soldier attention care feed hold medical provide thousands
If you hold thousands of prisoners, you have to feed them, clothe them, care for them, provide medical attention - and there were no provisions.
direct hold
How could (the military) hold me accountable when I had no direct access? ... How come they didn't hold Rumsfeld accountable. How is that possible?
abu authority commission defense delivered full involved knowledge president secretary truth until
We're never going to know the truth until they do an independent commission or look into this independently, ... This is about instructions delivered with full authority and knowledge of the Secretary of Defense and probably Cheney. I don't know if the President was involved or not. I don't care. All I know is, those instructions were communicated from the Secretary of Defense's office, from the Pentagon, through Cambone, through Miller, to Abu Ghraib.
dealt
We haven't dealt very effectively with those photographs or what they indicated,
running military mps
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.
responsibility law interrogation-techniques
If you are charged with this responsibility of enhancing interrogations, or using soldiers to enhance interrogations to find Saddam, and you're above the law for all practical purposes, you might try some unusual techniques. Now we know that, in fact, they did.