Army intelligence officer seen in Iraq abuse photos says he was just watching punishment

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ An Army intelligence soldier who appears in photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse disputed claims from some accused soldiers that intelligence soldiers had ordered them to ``soften up''

Friday, June 4th 2004, 11:14 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ An Army intelligence soldier who appears in photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse disputed claims from some accused soldiers that intelligence soldiers had ordered them to ``soften up'' the detainees.

Spc. Israel Rivera told the Los Angeles Times that his superiors did not know about the abuse and that he and other intelligence soldiers seen in the widely circulated photos were just there out of curiosity after hearing that detainees were about to be punished for allegedly raping a young male prisoner.

Several of the seven MPs charged in the case have said they were encouraged or directed by interrogators to mistreat prisoners as a means of softening them up for questioning.

Rivera, 20, is one of at least four military intelligence soldiers who can be seen in photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. He is also the first intelligence soldier to say publicly that he witnessed another intelligence soldier take part in the abuse.

In the story published Friday, he told the Times that another military intelligence soldier, Spc. Armin J. Cruz, asked him if he wanted to watch the military police punish detainees suspected in a rape.

``Anyone who says this was condoned by MI _ no, absolutely not,'' Rivera told the newspaper, adding that Cruz knew about the activities in the cellblock because he was friends with Spc. Sabrina Harman, an MP who has since been charged.

Rivera said he and Cruz arrived around 9 p.m. Oct. 25 at what was known as the ``hard site,'' where high-value or troublesome detainees were held in isolation cells. Rivera said he watched, but did not participate, in the abuse and left after about 15 minutes.

Three detainees were naked in a room, and an MP was shouting obscenities at them through a megaphone, he said. Then the MPs pulled the men out of the room and ordered them to lie on their stomachs and crawl around the floor.

The soldiers then handcuffed the detainees together and shouted homosexual slurs at them, he said. They demanded that they admit to raping a young male prisoner.

``Cruz and the other people were making them act as though they were having sex _ using their feet to push on the detainees hips so they would be touching each other,'' Rivera said. ``The detainees were screaming for Allah, begging them, and begging me to make them stop.''

Cruz could not be reached for comment by the Times.

Rivera said he has not been charged. When he met with an Army Criminal Investigation Division agent in January, he refused to talk unless he was provided with an attorney.

``The big reason I'm doing this is there's a big sense of guilt that I have,'' Rivera said. ``I didn't know there was a huge conspiracy (of abuse at Abu Ghraib), but I did know about that one night.''