Pfc. England Faces Court-Martial

Military Trial On Abuse Charges Set To Begin In January

(CBS/AP)  Pfc. Lynndie England will be court-martialed in January on charges stemming from the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, the Army announced Monday.

A motions hearing is scheduled for Dec. 1-3, with the trial scheduled for Jan. 17-28, according to Lt. Gen. John Vines, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

England, a 21-year-old reservist stationed at Fort Bragg who is seen in some of the most notorious photos taken at the prison, was arraigned Friday, and did not enter a plea.

If convicted of all 19 counts, she could receive up to 38 years in jail, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

Hearing officer Col. Denise Arn had recommended that England be court-martialed on 17 counts of abuse and indecent acts. In deciding on a court-martial, Vines reinstated two counts that Arn had recommended be dropped.

Arn's recommendations, dated Sept. 6, were based on five days of testimony from 27 witnesses in August during what is known as an Article 32 proceeding, the equivalent of a civilian grand jury.

Arn suggested in her report that England was largely led astray by older soldiers in her unit, particularly her ex-boyfriend, Spec. Charles Graner Jr.

Attorneys say Graner is the father of the child England expects to deliver in October.

England is one of seven members of her company charged in connection with abuse that took place at Abu Ghraib prison late last year. Photographs of England posing with nude men stacked in a pyramid and holding a naked detainee by a leash made England a focal point of the scandal.

Her attorneys argued in the hearing that she posed for the pictures on orders from higher-ups to "soften up" Iraqi prisoners. Her lawyers sought unsuccessfully to call such high-level witnesses as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Military prosecutors portrayed the abuse as the work of a renegade band of reservists.

Recent reports have indicated a wider web of culpability for the abuse, some of it indirect.

Maj. Gen. George Fay, who investigated military intelligence officers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, identified 27 people attached to an intelligence brigade — both soldiers and contractors — who are accused of complicity in the abuses.

The Fay report assessed the performance of commanders and senior staff officers higher up the chain of command and attributed the abuse to personal misconduct and, in some cases, confusion and inadequate supervision — rather than orders from above or Pentagon policy.

Their findings followed an independent panel's report blaming senior leaders, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, for lax oversight of military-run prisons in Iraq.

However, the panel, led by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger, found no policy of abuse and concluded that the problems were directly the fault of the soldiers who committed violence against the prisoners, and their immediate supervisors.

Critics say fault may ultimately rest with White House and Pentagon leaders for creating confusion when they decided in early 2002 that terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay did not fall under Geneva Conventions and then sought to redefine longtime rules of detention, interrogation and trials to suit the counterterrorism war.

In a February 2002 memo, Mr. Bush ordered that all prisoners in the war on terrorism be treated humanely and in line with the "principles" of the Geneva Conventions. But he reserved the right to suspend the conventions "in this or future conflicts."

In a memo written in August 2002, the Justice Department appeared to justify the use of torture in the war on terror and argued that the president's wartime powers superseded anti-torture laws and treaties. The Justice Department has disavowed that memo.

Other documents have emerged showing that Rumsfeld authorized guards to strip detainees and threaten them with dogs. Later Rumsfeld issued a scaled back list of procedures — still in effect this year — which includes isolation, sleep adjustment and "false flag," in which interrogators pretend to be from a country other than the United States.