BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Army Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast has denied allegations by the former chief of Iraq's military prison system that she knew about and approved harsh interrogation methods at the Abu Ghraib prison.
An international human rights scandal exploded around Abu Ghraib in April 2004, when the CBS news program "60 Minutes II" aired photos showing inmates in sexually degrading poses. Subsequent investigations concluded that American guards had beaten, humiliated, threatened with attack dogs and otherwise mistreated some Iraqi inmates.
Fast, a Belleville native, was at the time the intelligence chief for the U.S. command in Baghdad. She has denied fresh claims by retired Army Reserve Col. Janis Karpinski — Iraq's ex-prison chief — that the Army ignored the role she and other top commanders played at Abu Ghraib. Karpinski was in St. Louis last week to take part in the Veterans for Peace convention.
In her first detailed interview since the scandal broke, Fast, 53, said interrogators under her command followed the Geneva Conventions, as well as protocols approved by lawyers and the U.S. command's top general.
"So we had what I think was a policy that had withstood the scrutiny of what you'd expect to be responsible review," Fast said last week. "But uses of torture were not approved, they were not encouraged, and it wasn't tolerated by the command."
As the top intelligence officer in Iraq, Fast in the late summer of 2003 played a key role in trying to find the leaders of the swiftly mounting anti-U.S. insurgency.
In that job, Fast passed orders and information between Army Col. Thomas Pappas, the prison's intelligence chief, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander for Iraq.
Desperate to obtain more and better information from Iraqi prisoners, the Pentagon in September 2003 sent Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller — the commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison — to "Gitmo-ize" Abu Ghraib, said Karpinski, a former brigadier general who commanded the Army Reserve 800th Military Police Brigade.
The first Army probe of the scandal harshly criticized Miller for urging prison guards to "soften up" inmates for interrogation.
Miller has denied misconduct. Miller later was given control of detainee operations in Iraq.
But in Karpinksi's view, the atmosphere changed at Abu Ghraib after Miller's two-week visit.
Miller "directed Gen. Fast to be more involved with Col. Pappas and the interrogation operations at Abu Ghraib," said Karpinski, who oversaw that facility and 16 other prisons. "Who knew and how far up did this go in the chain of command?"
During Saddam Hussein's bloody rule, Abu Ghraib had a gruesome reputation as the dictator's favorite torture chamber and death house.
To show that a new day had dawned at the prison and that American rule would be different, Karpinski said she changed the name to the Baghdad Central Correctional Facility.
"But when Gen. Miller got there, he ordered Fast, he ordered Pappas and all his intelligence people to refer to it as Abu Ghraib. 'Drop that Baghdad Correctional nonsense,"' Karpinski said. "You call that place what it is. Why? Because it was the first line of intimidation. ... Striking fear into their hearts and their minds just by saying the words."
Multiple investigations have determined that the abuse at Abu Ghraib did not stem from any approved policy or direction of the command, Fast said.
"The majority of the detainees in those shocking photos were not even of intelligence interest, and they were never going to be interrogated," Fast said.
The Army eventually punished more than two dozen officers and enlisted personnel, but no member of the chain of command above Karpinski was disciplined.
Nine enlisted personnel were court-martialed, with the harshest punishment meted out to Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., whom prosecutors labeled the ringleader of the prison guard abuse. Graner is serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Karpinski, 54, remains the highest-ranking officer punished because of Abu Ghraib. The Army demoted her to the rank of colonel, then sent her packing from the reserves in 2005, cutting short her 28-year career.
Karpinski called herself a "scapegoat" and said she knew something was wrong when "60 Minutes II" broadcast the abuse photos, "and the only name they were using was mine. I felt an immediate sense of betrayal."
The important lesson about Abu Ghraib was not who issued the instructions, Karpinski said. "This was about the photographs because the photographs lifted the curtain on this," she said.
Meanwhile, Fast remained on the Army's fast track. In August 2004, she was named commander of the Army intelligence center and school at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Today, she holds a top staff position at the Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va.
For Karpinski, Fast's career ascent is part of a "cover-up" aimed at allowing senior officers to evade accountability for the events at Abu Ghraib.
"Now every one of these people that were rewarded as a result of continuing the lie and the cover-up, they went to places where they could ensure the rest of the information was covered up," Karpinski said.
Fast denied her promotion to two-star general was part of any cover-up at Abu Ghraib. She said her second star already had been approved before she arrived in Iraq.
Fast also denied Karpinski's claim she was being briefed daily by Pappas, Abu Ghraib's commander, about interrogation practices there.
By late summer of 2003, communications were difficult, Fast said.
"Col. Pappas and I were lucky if we could have a conversation two or three times a week, let alone every day," Fast said.
An August 2004 investigation headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger criticized Fast for failing to advise Sanchez properly on directives and policies for the operation of Abu Ghraib's interrogation center.
Fast said she disagrees with that report's findings, and a May 2005 Army investigation exonerated her of any dereliction of duty.
The same Army probe found Karpinski's performance of duty "seriously lacking," but determined no action or lack of action on her part led to the Abu Ghraib abuses.
The Schlesinger report blamed the abuses at Abu Ghraib on "the weak and ineffectual leadership" of both Karpinski and Pappas, in addition to "serious lapses of leadership" among junior noncommissioned officers.
The Schlesinger report also noted the immensely stressful conditions that faced Karpinski's troops at Abu Ghraib: confused chains of command, squalid living conditions, equipment shortfalls, deadly mortar attacks from outside the prison, the threat of armed revolt from within and the fact that 90 poorly trained MPs had to guard 7,000 unruly detainees.
"Abu Ghraib was seriously overcrowded, under-resourced and under continual attack," the report states.
Since leaving the reserves, Karpinski moved to South Carolina to care for her husband, a career Army officer diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died two months ago.
Karpinski also has become a vehement opponent of the Iraq war. The United States should embark on an immediate troop withdrawal, she said during a press conference at the Veterans for Peace convention.
"Remember this for the rest of this conference and the rest of your lives," she told a crowd of about 100 people last week in St. Louis. "The right number of troops in Iraq is zero."
Fast acknowledged some incidents of abuse occurred at Abu Ghraib, "and none of them are acceptable." But the overwhelming majority of soldiers and interrogators "have done absolutely the right thing," she said. Fast said it was an honor to serve and try to do what's right.
"It's a tough situation over there," she said. "And I think that most folks have done about the very best they could possibly do."