Washington – The Army has decided to punish the top military intelligence officer at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 with a letter of reprimand and a fine amounting to half his pay for two months for his role in the abuses there, a senior Army official disclosed Wednesday.
Col. Thomas Pappas had operational control of the Abu Ghraib prison wing where military reservists had photographed Iraqis being threatened by dogs, being paraded without clothes, being forced to simulate sex acts and being struck by their guards in October and November of that year.
A two-star Army commander in Germany, Maj Gen. Bennie Williams, made the decision to punish Pappas nonjudicially, instead of in a court-martial, for two counts of dereliction of duty, according to an Army official in Washington who did not want to be identified because the decision has not been announced.
The first count states that Pappas failed to ensure that subordinates were “adequately informed of, trained upon and supervised in the application of interrogation procedures” allowed under Army rules. The second count states that Pappas “failed to obtain the approval of superior commanders” before approving the “presence of military working dogs during interrogation of a detainee,” according to the Army official.
These charges will be listed in a letter of reprimand in Pappas’s personnel file that will have the effect of denying him any possibility of promotion, the official said. For the moment, Pappas remains in the same job he had when the abuses occurred – commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade based in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Pappas was one of the last Army officers to be investigated for wrongdoing at Abu Ghraib; only the fate of his deputy, Lt. Col. Steve Jordan, remains undecided. One officer with more senior rank has been punished for the abuses. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, head of a military police brigade, was demoted and also given a letter of reprimand.
Army commanders rejected Pappas’ claims that the abuses originated in orders and encouragement by superiors.
Pappas had alleged that the use of dogs to intimidate Iraqi prisoners was approved by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who was dispatched by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in August and September 2003 to improve intelligence-gathering at Abu Ghraib.
Miller, who once commanded the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, denied ever approving the use of dogs at either site.
