Abu Ghraib general describes her Iraq tour [View All]

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Friday, August 26, 2005 · Last updated 11:19 p.m. PT

Abu Ghraib general describes her Iraq tour

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Iraqi prisoners could lift their cell doors right off their hinges. One senior sergeant whiled away his evenings blasting grazing sheep with a guard-tower machine gun. U.S. commanders didn't bother telling their troops they'd be stuck in Iraq for months more than advertised.

The only woman commanding general in the war zone, Abu Ghraib prison chief Janis Karpinski, has written a memoir of her fateful year there, a candid portrait of an often dysfunctional U.S. Army - of "Sergeant Bilko meets Catch 22," as she puts it.

The book, "One Woman's Army," published by Hyperion, sheds little new light on the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, in which Karpinski, an Army Reserve brigadier general, was the highest-ranking officer punished, being relieved of her command, reprimanded and demoted to colonel.

Karpinski maintains she didn't know about the detainee torture and humiliation, that higher-ups encouraged the cruel treatment, and that male Army "Regulars" made her a scapegoat as a woman and a reservist.


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