Prison soldier pleads guilty

WASHINGTON – A fourth soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has pleaded guilty, and provided authorities with fresh details on how an Iraqi inmate was dragged naked on a dog leash around the prison near Baghdad at the behest of intelligence officers who could not control him.

The photograph of the man on the leash – one of the indelible images from the Abu Ghraib scandal – shows Spc. Megan Ambuhl in the background as Pfc. Lynndie R. England holds the leash.

Ambuhl, considered the least culpable of the seven guards and one intelligence officer charged so far in the case, pleaded guilty Saturday to one count of dereliction of duty for not reporting the dog-leash incident. As part of a plea agreement reached in Baghdad and disclosed Tuesday by her Washington attorney, Harvey Volzer, Ambuhl forfeited half of one month’s pay and was reduced in rank from specialist to private. She is to cooperate as a government witness in courts-martial proceedings against others accused in the scandal.

According to transcripts of an Oct. 5 interview with Army psychologists, Ambuhl said prison guards were told by military intelligence officers to move the prisoner because they “had another detainee they wanted to put in the hole.” She said the inmate was labeled “of interest” to intelligence officers and that they personally directed how he was to be treated, either with “soft or harsh” treatment.

Ambuhl’s recollections bolster claims by other prison guards that much of the abuse was directed by the military intelligence side of the facility.

Ambuhl’s psychological report states she arrived in Baghdad with little training on how to treat detainees and no prior prison guard experience. From the outset, she told Lt. Col. Rebecca A. Dyer, the licensed clinical pyschologist, Ambuhl assumed that harsh and humiliating treatment of detainees was acceptable.

For instance, during her initial tour of the facility, “we already saw detainees wearing underwear on their heads,” she told the psychologist. “We just thought it was the standard.”

She told Dyer that the prisoner who was leashed around his neck was extremely uncooperative and appeared to have “mental problems.”

The man had been kept in a small cell they called “the hole,” Ambuhl said, an area reserved for combative prisoners. His clothes had been taken away because he was ripping them and tearing them off, she said, and finally intelligence officers instructed guards to move him from the hole to make room for another prisoner.

Ambuhl at first saw nothing wrong with guards using a leash to drag the man out.

“I just didn’t think about it being wrong at the time,” she said. “We were told to get him out. We had tried to get him to cooperate, but nothing was working.

“These detainees were so difficult, I just didn’t think about it. Then someone put the leash on and got him out.”

Because none of the intelligence officers intervened, she assumed the dragging was done at their request. Her assumption, the psychologist determined, was borne out in notations kept in a logbook at the prison.

Volzer said Ambuhl will return home to Centreville, Va., but remain an Army reservist in case she is called as a witness for the other four soldiers yet to stand trial.

“You couldn’t ask for a better result than this,” Volzer said, noting that Ambuhl will not serve any prison time.

In contrast, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. “Chip” Frederick II pleaded guilty and was given eight years in prison. Spc. Jeremy Sivits pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in prison, and Spc. Armin Cruz, an intelligence analyst, pleaded guilty and received eight months’ confinement.

England, the other soldier in the photo of the leashed prisoner, is awaiting court-martial.