Guard's PR man reported video

Guard's PR man reported video
The Gulf War veteran said he was concerned when he saw soldiers watching the footage.

By John Pacenti, Thomas R. Collins and Paul Lomartire
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/news/epaper/2005/03/08/m1a_ramadi_0308.html

A Gulf War veteran who handles public relations for the Florida National Guard alerted the Army to Ramadi Madness, fearing the soldier-shot video was disturbing evidence of Iraqi prisoner abuse.

Investigative files released by the Army show that the initial complaint came from Jon Myatt, a civilian public affairs officer who handles feature articles and photographs of West Palm Beach-based reservists for a monthly National Guard newsletter.

CLICK: Excerpts, descriptions from video

"I was just doing my job, just as leadership would do when something that looked out of the ordinary," Myatt said of his role in the probe, which ultimately cleared the soldiers under scrutiny. "The system worked."

Myatt, who also acts as a spokesman for the National Guard, served nine months in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm in 1991. On July 14, he was in the orderly room of the suburban West Palm Beach armory, preparing a video for a conference.

Also in the room were members of Bravo Company of the 124th Infantry Regiment who had just finished drills. They were huddled around a computer viewing a video that lasted nearly 27 minutes.

Myatt told Army investigators he was troubled by what they were watching and joking about: footage of a soldier kicking a wounded and moaning Iraqi prisoner; another soldier manipulating a corpse to wave "hi" to the camera; a group of soldiers joy-riding in an Iraqi van shouting at Iraqis on the street; and what appeared to him to be a soldier taking the butt of his rifle to a detainee.

"This video was disturbing," Myatt said in a sworn statement. "These soldiers looked unprofessional and displayed a lack of discipline."

Soon two investigators were scouring the state of Florida talking with nearly of the 120 soldiers in Bravo Company. The charges they were investigating were serious:

• Assault consummated by a battery for kicking of wounded detainee.

• Dereliction of duty for tampering with a dead body.

• Assault with a dangerous weapon and aggravated assault for hitting a detainee with a rifle.

Army investigators focused mainly on the kicking incident, documents show. Soldiers had raided a safe house for insurgents and shot a man who pulled a gun on them. The video shows the aftermath as soldiers point out the man's bullet wound and he howls in pain. A voice off camera tells someone to gag the Iraqi, who then appears to be kicked.

Investigators believed that a Bravo Company sergeant kicked the wounded man, but it was difficult to see his face. Army detectives said they couldn't find a soldier who could positively identify who was responsible.

When quizzed, the suspect sergeant said his memory had faded.

"At this point, I cannot say if this person was me because of the time that has passed. The soldier is wearing similar gear to mine, which makes me believe it could be a possibility," the sergeant said. The Army blacked out his name, and the names of all soldiers in the documents concerning the probe.

Sgt. Chad Shadle, who compiled the video shot by another soldier, said the soldier was trying to keep the wounded man from revealing the unit's location with his moans.

"We were just trying to keep him quiet," he told a Post reporter who visited his home Monday in Collier County.

Shadle said the video was meant only to be seen by the circle of soldiers in Bravo Company. He said he put together the videotape out of boredom late one night.

"People see what they want to see," Shadle said. "They see abuse and want to cry foul. There was no abuse. I'd like to see these critics attacked every night, mortared every day. I'd like to see how they'd feel, how they'd react."

Shadle destroyed his copies upon learning the video was under Army investigation, records show.

"I have nothing to look back on my time in Iraq," he said. "I have nothing to give to my son or daughter to tell them war is hell. At this point, I don't ever want to see it again."

Military police probed the scenes in Ramadi Madness for six months last year before clearing the soldiers of wrongdoing. At the same time, investigators pursued a parallel mission, military documents show: keeping Ramadi Madness from being made public.

Again and again, a task force of military police grilled soldiers on whether they possessed the video or any other horrific images of the Iraqi war — and whether they intended to distribute material to the media.

It's against military law to possess or distribute material documenting prisoner abuses.

The Army's internal investigation, which ended in December, concluded that the soldier's actions were "inappropriate," but not criminal. In response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Army on Friday released 200 pages of documents detailing its inquiry.

The video was obtained Saturday by The Palm Beach Post.

Keeping Ramadi Madness under wraps was a recurring theme in the Army's investigative files. At one point, investigators learned that the video had been loaded onto a military computer server in Iraq. "A large number of people made a copy of the pictures," a soldier said. "Everyone who could."

Damage control efforts kicked into high gear.

"In efforts to prevent the possible leakage of this video to civilian media, copies of the Ramadi Madness video have been limited to (investigative) channels only," one investigator wrote in a Sept. 13 memo.

Maj. Joseph Lyon, the Bravo Company commander, told investigators: "I am going to address this ... to minimize the risk of this and other videos that may end up in the media."

The West Palm Beach company's conduct is being examined by the ACLU as part of a lawsuit triggered by the abuses documented at the Abu Ghraib prison. The ACLU litigation, which targets Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, alleged that abuse of Iraqi prisoners of war was sanctioned and even encouraged by high-ranking officials in the Bush Administration.

"It's part of the bigger picture," ACLU spokeswoman Emily Whitfield said of the video. "Soldiers are given tacit approval for this kind of behavior."

Some 1,200 pages of newly released Army documents — including about 200 related to the Ramadi Madness affair — prompted the ACLU to call for an independent special counsel and Congressional hearings to investigate.

The documents cover numerous shootings of civilians at Iraqi checkpoints, the ACLU said in a news release.

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, said any allegations of abuse must be taken seriously, but he was satisfied the Army did a thorough investigation.

"Any allegation or complaint that is overlooked can undermine the professionalism of the entire armed forces and foster abuse," the congressman said.

Staff writer Nirvi Shah, researchers Melanie Mena and Krista Pegnetter, and Cox Newspapers' Washington Bureau contributed to this story.