csua.org/u/779 -> dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1258&storyid=1302907
Home Story Good ol' girl who enjoyed cruelty By SHARON CHURCHER in Fort Ashby May 7, 2004 POINTING crudely at the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi, the petite brunette with a cigarette hanging from her lips epitomised America's shame over revelations US soldiers routinely tortured inmates at Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad. Lynndie England, 21, a rail worker's daughter, comes from a trailer park in Fort Ashby, West Virginia, which locals proudly call "a backwoods world". She faces a court martial, but at home she is toasted as a hero. At the dingy Corner Club Saloon they think she has done nothing wrong. There is little understanding of the issues in Iraq and less of why photographs showing soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company, mostly from around Fort Ashby, abusing prisoners has caused a furore. Like many, England signed up to make money and see the world. After her tour of duty, she planned to settle down and marry her first love, Charles Graner. Down a dirt track at the edge of town, in the trailer where England grew up, her mother Terrie dismissed the allegations against her daughter as unfair. She said she didn't know where her daughter was being held, but had spoken to her on the phone. The commander of the prison service in Iraq, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, 50, has been suspended from duty and is expected to be charged. Colleagues of the tough, super-fit officer last night described her as a woman with one mission - to raise her own profile. Sources also said soldiers at Abu Ghraib, where Saddam Hussein was held after his capture, were often drunk - including when the shocking pictures were taken. One colleague said: "Janis sees herself as making way for women to get to the top in the US Army. But many of her soldiers said she had been promoted beyond her ability because she was a woman. His father, Ivan Frederick, 76, said his son, an ex-prison guard, sent him a journal outlining the barbaric treatment of Iraqi PoWs. There is no way Chip would do these things unless he was ordered to do," Mr Frederick said. Pentagon officials have confirmed that other alleged incidents of torture under Brig-General Karpinski's regime were being investigated. A military source said: "The word is that she was told it would be beneficial if the prisoners were willing to talk.
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