Soldier gets one year for role in Abu Ghraib inmate abuse

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A 24-year-old Army mechanic pleaded guilty Wednesday to abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison. It was a plea bargain that points ahead to a summer of ugly trials of fellow soldiers who say higher command urged them to strip and humiliate captured Iraqis to make them talk.

“I’ve let everybody down,” said Spc. Jeremy Sivits, of Mann’s Choice, Pa., who said he owed apologies to Iraq, the Army and his family. “Sir, I’m truly sorry,” he told Judge James Pohl, the Army colonel presiding at the court-martial.

Pohl sentenced Sivits to a year in prison, reduction in rank to private and a bad conduct discharge. He could have cut Sivits’ pay but didn’t — perhaps because of Sivits’ teary remorse and otherwise untarnished record.

It was the first trial in a scandal that has shot up the chain of command to President Bush, whose administration is struggling to explain why these troops were violating the Geneva Conventions.

Under military regulations, Sivits was required to explain his actions, even though he made a plea deal. His emotional yet matter-of-fact descriptions of the abuse he witnessed and photographed, but failed to report, is expected to be reprised this summer as he testifies against fellow members of the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Maryland.

Three soldiers from the 372nd were arraigned on Wednesday.

Sgt. Javal Davis, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick and Spc. Charles Graner were charged with inmate abuse and related felonies including conspiracy. Graner also was charged with adultery. All declined to enter pleas and said they have hired civilian attorneys to augment their military-provided counselors.

Pohl set hearings in their cases for June 21.

Sivits said he took a photo of Graner atop a pile of inmates, threatening to punch one that he held in a headlock. He said he saw Frederick punch an inmate so hard that he thought he would die. And he saw a naked inmate forced to masturbate while another, on his knees, held his mouth open.

“Did you try to stop them?” Pohl asked.

“No, your honor,” Sivits replied.

Sivits said one of the male soldiers told him that military intelligence wanted them to “keep doing what they were doing to the inmates because it was working, they were talking.”