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It Happened Here First: Exporting America's Most Notorious
Prison Officials to Abu Ghraib
It Happened Here First: Exporting America's Most
Notorious Prison Officials to Abu Ghraib
One man ran a prison system in Utah where a 29-year-old
schizophrenic died after he was stripped naked and strapped
to a restraining chair for 16 hours.
Another man ran the system in Arizona where 14 women were
raped, sodomized or assaulted by prison guards.
Another ran Connecticut's prison system where at least two
people died after being severely beaten.
All of the men who ran these prison systems were forced out
by lawsuits or political controversy. But rather than being
sent to prison themselves, these men were sent to Iraq by
the US government to set up the prisons there. Actually, one
prison - Abu Ghraib.
In the weeks since the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib grabbed
national headlines here in the US and around the world, the
Bush administration and the Pentagon have attempted to put
forth a consistent story: that the abuses were the work of
individual soldiers, acting on their own and that there was
no systematic program of abuse at the prison.
But over the past few weeks, this version of events has been
shot down by veteran correspondent Seymour Hersh of The New
Yorker. Contrary to the Administration's claims, Hersh revealed
that the torture at Abu Ghraib was part of a Pentagon-approved
Black Ops program authorized by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Today, on Democracy Now!, we are going to look extensively
at the four-man team of correctional advisers dispatched by
the US government to Iraq shortly after the occupation began.
Their job was to get the notorious Abu Ghraib prison up and
running for the US occupation forces.
For people or governments concerned with human rights, their
resumes and records read like warning labels for who not to
have running a prison--especially in a country where the US
claims to be building democracy.
The four men are:
Lane McCotter: A former warden of the U.S. military prison
at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, former cabinet secretary for the
New Mexico Corrections Department and the former director
for the Texas Department of Corrections. He now runs the private
prison-company: Management and Training Corporation.
- Read 36-page Justice Department report documenting inhumane
conditions at Santa Fe County Adult Detention Center in New
Mexico under McCotter: [Download
pdf]
John Armstrong: the former director of the Connecticut Department
of Corrections. Terrry Stewart, former director of the Arizona
Department of Corrections and his top deputy Chuck Ryan.
- Dan Frosch, is an independent journalist based in New
York City. His most recent articles, published in The Nation
magazine and on Alternet, look at the role of a number of
former officials at US prisons who were sent to Iraq to
set-up Abu Ghraib prison once the US occupation began. His
piece in The Nation this month is called "Exporting
America's Prison Problems."
- Mayor Rocky Anderson,
mayor of Salt Lake City. He was the lead counsel in a 1997
lawsuit brought by Angie Armstrong who successfully sued
the State of Utah after her son, Michael Valent, died while
in custody.
- Mark Donatelli, Santa Fe, New Mexico-based attorney who
specializes in criminal justice issues. Following one of
the worst prison riots in US history in New Mexico in 1980,
he was appointed by a federal judge to the prison oversight
board. He is involved with a number of lawsuits involving
New Mexico's prisons during the tenure of Lane McCotter.
- Antonio Ponvert, Connecticut-based attorney who represents
a number of families suing Connecticut's Department of Corrections
and dozens of female correction officers who claim they
worked in a persistent atmosphere of sexual harassment under
the tenure of former Commissioner John Armstrong.
- Donna Brorby, lead counsel from 1991-2002 in a class
action suit brought by prisoners in Texas raising a broad
range of constitutional issues related to prison conditions.
Lane McCotter was the director of the prison system in Texas
from 1985-1987.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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