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Subscribe to RSSJessica Lynch. Tommy Franks. 'Chemical Ali.' Tony Blair. Hans Blix. Ten years ago, as the war in Iraq began, these were names on front pages everywhere. Find out what has happened to them – and 10 other headliners associated with the conflict – since.
Lynndie England (Abu Ghraib)
Exclusive to the Washington Post
A naked detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison is tethered by a leash to prison guard Army Pvt. Lynndie England in this undated photo.
THEN
If fellow West Virginian Jessica Lynch became the personification of American valor in Iraq, another private first class, Lynndie England, came to symbolize the ugly side of the United States when photos of her and other soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison surfaced in April 2004.
England, along with other members of the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company, had been stationed at Abu Ghraib, a large jail outside Baghdad that had been used by the Saddam Hussein regime, since mid-2003.
Top military officials first became aware of the Abu Ghraib abuses in January 2004. The scandal after the pictures became public tarnished the military’s image worldwide and particularly in the Arab world.
On September 26, 2005, England was convicted of one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. She was acquitted on a second conspiracy count. England was sentenced to three years for her crimes and given a dishonorable discharge. The next day, when she was sentenced, she apologized for appearing in the pictures, though not for the maltreatment and assault committed on the prisoners.
Seven other members of her company were charged with similar offences, including her then-boyfriend, Sgt, Charles Graner, who was sentenced to ten years for his role in the abuse. She gave birth to a son, Carter Allan England, in October 2004 at Womack Army Medical Center on Fort Bragg. News accounts described Graner as both the father of the child and England’s “ex-boyfriend.”
Vicki Smith/AP file
Lynndie England, former Army reservist and the face of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, is pictured in Keyser, W.Va. on June 17, 2009.
NOW
To serve her sentence, England was sent to the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar, located near San Diego, Calif. The brig is the Department of Defense’s only prison designated for women, Brewster Schenck, a spokesman for the facility, told the San Diego Union.
In December 2005, according to wire service reports, her family complained in that she was burned and given inadequate medical treatment.
England worked in the kitchen of the prison, from which she was paroled on March 1, 2007, after having served 521 days, according to a Reuters report. She remained on parole through September 2008, when her three-year sentence was complete and she received a dishonorable discharge.
In July 2007, The Associated Press reported that England had found a new role – as a member of the Keyser, W.Va., volunteer recreation board. England contributed her knowledge of computers, electronics and graphics for Keyser’s Strawberry Festival, which helped her land the unpaid position, Roy Hardy, the England family’s attorney, told the AP.
“When [council members] saw how hard she worked for the festival, they didn’t hesitate to put her on the board,” said Hardy, who is also a board member. “If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have been able to pull off [the Strawberry Festival]. She was an absolute asset.”
Hard worker or not, England has found it difficult to find a paying job. According to January, 2009, interview in London’s Guardian newspaper, many jobs are closed to her because of her felony conviction while others suddenly close after people find about her background.
The only employment England can muster, The Daily website reported in March 2012, is seasonal secretarial work for an accountant who has known her since she was a teen.
Most of her time is spent at her parents’ home in Fort Ashby, W.Va., where she lives with her son by Graner. Her former boyfriend is not in the child’s life, despite a 2009 paternity test proving he is the father. “Graner didn’t want anything to do with the baby,” England told The Daily.
In her interview with the Daily, Lynndie expressed no remorse for her actions. “Their (Iraqis’) lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” she said. “They weren’t innocent. They’re trying to kill us, and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”
England became a focal point of the scandal in part because she was a woman and partly because she was pictured in many of the more graphic photos, including one that showed her smiling and posing with nude prisoners stacked in a pyramid. In another picture, she is smiling and pointing at a naked detainee’s genitals while a cigarette dangles from the corner of her mouth.
IRAQ TEN YEARS LATER: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
- Jessica Lynch
- Hans Blix (UN arms inspector)
- Colin Powell
- Tariq Aziz (Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister)
- Ahmed Chalabi (Iraqi exile leader)
- Tony Blair
- Gen. Tommy Franks
- Josh Rushing (Marines spokesman)
- Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks (Army spokesman)
- Paul Bremer (Iraq administrator)
- Farris Hassan (teen journalist)
- Lynndie England (Abu Ghraib)
- Mohammed Al-Rehaief (aided Jessica Lynch)
- Ali Hassan Al-Majid (‘Chemical Ali’)
- Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf (‘Baghdad Bob’)
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Lynndie England is one of the most disgusting individuals that America has to offer. Given her comments, I wish they would have sentenced her to life and treated her the way she treated the prisoners she humiliated. Her job was to help show the world that even though the prisoners were our supposed enemies, they were still human beings who did not deserve to be humiliated in the way they were.
The fact that her mother complained about her treatment while she was in San Diego amazes me. She can justify her treatment of the prisoners she humiliated, but seems to think she deserved better treatment.
Lynndie England, you are the worst that America has to offer, and not only a disgrace to this country but also to those Americans who have decided to serve this country in the military.
hey, be careful..no criticism of her, please.
She might give you some lashes.
Dachs,
Agreed. However, there is little doubt that she was a real favorite at the white house -- especially in the vice president's office -- until someone had the temerity to take and circuate the pictures.
Blaming England for Abu Gharaib is completely shortsighted. The positions of those people in the pictures are exactly like the positions for torture techniques invented in latin america. England and her colleagues were TOLD how to do that.
The directive to torture (ahem, "enhanced interrogation") came straight from the White House.
Bart,
Thank you for explaining my point.
Wowzers, what a sad, pathetic representative of our country and values. You suck, Lynndie. I see your choice in who you choose to have children with is sadly apropos. I completely understand why no one will hire you. Have a nice life living with your parents.
wow. how awful that you racists forgot shoshana johnson! what about doing a where are they now on her? she was a prison of war too after all!
What about Shoshana Johnson? Guess you racists forgot about her!
Guess you racists forgot about her! Look who's calling the kettle black. I wasn't thinking about the invention of peanut butter when I got up. Where does that leave me?
Its plain to see that none of you libs have ever been next to a friend who had been blown up by an enemy Iraqi. If you would have looked over one minute to see your laughing friend and the next minute see his head in two pieces and you yourself are deaf for the rest of your life.....Maybe then you could understand why things like this happen to soldiers on the battlefield. Was it a smart choice...NO was it dihonerable...YES but to call for her death or a life sentence is crazy and shows that you really have no idea what she and others like her may have gone through over there. bottom line is that those prisoners would have slit her throat and raped her at the drop of a hat if the table were turned, I would say taking pictures belittleing them is still far better than what they would have done.
Commonss21 - Are you saying the only people to have ever been in battle were not "libs"?
People either forgot or didn't bother to find out that Iraq didn't attack us. Saddam Hussein (and Osama bin Laden) were on the CIA payroll (our tax dollars at work) before all this happened.
You have a very good point, Commonss21. War is awful. She was in a situation where at any moment her barracks or station could have been blown to bits by mortar or suicide bomb, she probably experienced the loss of a number of personal friends and comrades, AND she was a child of the "kill all the terrorist bastards before they kill us!" movement that erupted after 9/11. That kind of gives one a bit of a bias, hmmm?
That said, what she did was still pretty awful. She was a soldier, and expected to perform as such. She represented this country every time she blew her nose. America is supposed to be the good guy, after all, so it's disgusting to see some of our men and women stooping to such levels. Yes, she deserved the discharge: she behaved in a manner unbecoming a soldier, she took place in a human rights violation in a country we invaded in part BECAUSE of human rights violations, and she showed a great lack of personal control, which is pretty bad for a military meant to act as a well-oiled machine with everyone present and dependable. She states that she was acting on orders, which can excuse her a little bit, but at the end of the day her training and her common sense should have told her that what she was doing was likely frowned upon.
But that was an extreme place and situation. She's not a danger to anyone anymore. It sucks that it's so hard for people with criminal records to find work, and I wish her luck, but it probably isn't much harder for her than most other felons. She's done her time, now let her move on with her life. Death threats are way too extreme.
You know who else got death threats over Abu Ghraib? The guy who leaked the photographs exposing the abuse, because he got his fellow soldiers in trouble. That's just disgusting. Do you really want to be on the same page as people who rabidly support the military torturing prisoners?
POS....There are plenty of her kind in the military......that get away with it ...this one just got caught......
War is ugly. That sort of absolves her from her wrongdoing. Everything is fair in love and war. A military record should not carry into the civilian life. Those are two different worlds. What? Are American corporate workers worried they'd end up naked on a leash? They were conducting Intelligence, humiliation and interrogation in Abu Ghraib. They went too far for sure, but that is war. They'll do it again in the next war just like they've done it a thousand years ago. That's human nature. Maybe GWB or Cheney can get her a job in one of his companies. After all they put her there.
War is ugly? Sure. Absolves her from wrongdoing? NOT even close.
A military record should not carry into the civilian life? WTF are you talking about?? You're actually saying that these despicable acts that she was convicted of should just be "forgotten" now that she's been dishonorably discharged? I don't think so. It should - and it will - follow her for the rest of her life. Her lack of remorse or recognition that she did anything wrong only serves to reinforce the fact that she's a deplorable human being and a disgraceful representative of our Armed Forces.
The DISHONORABLY discharged former MPs Charles Graner and his smirking ''girlfriend'' Lynndie England (along with many of the other male and female MPs at Abu Ghraib) rec'd their just ''rewards'' in the form of felony convictions. It was later pointed out at trial that many, if not most, of the Iraqi ''inmates'' incarcerated there were just garden-variety criminals, NOT terrorists as was widely circulated during the Bush/Cheney War. Even ''W'' and his cohorts had to ''backstroke'' when the truth came out about Abu Ghraib which must have been modeled from the Gestapo and/or Soviet NKVD playbook.
Of course little Lyndie is a disgusting human being and was quite right for the job of humiliating the prisoners to make them talk. Someone approved her behavior. If little Lyndie got 521 days in prison for serving in Iraq, Bush and Cheney need life sentences for starting the war in the first place.
Glad to see she is having a hard time finding a job, she learned that actions have consequences. I am glad her life is going badly for her and hope it gets even worse, because she deserves it.
It kind of makes you wonder what her values were to begin with. She either doesn't care that Iraq didn't attack us, or isn't interested in furthering her education (particularly history of geopolitics).
I still say that if we declare war on any other country that our politicians' children be the first ones to the front lines.
BigMowma,
Completely agree with you except for this one thing: if those politicians' children are of age to go to war, then they are old enough to be independent of their parents' follies. Don't send the innocent kids, send the politicians themselves! Age be darned! As we all learned as draft-fearing teenagers back in the '60s and '70s, all the "old white men" who mostly make the war decisions shouldn't get to sentence a generation of young people to the destruction of war!
My thoughts exactly.
PJ - Agreed. No "children" should have to go however, it might make their politician parents think harder before they agree to attack countries that don't attack us first.
Mike-1643354 - And then what. Should she get a gun and start robbing stores? Felons when they get out of prison need jobs too or they harm society again when they get needy enough. America's obsession with using one's past to define one's current character is a far too damaging trait of our country.
As will become clear sometime in the not so distant future when historians have enough information to comprehend the big picture in the Iraq War, Pfc. Lynndie England and the other members of the greatest psychological warfare team of the early-21st century will be given the credit and honor they deserve for making it abundantly obvious to the world that the Muslim cockroach terrorist members of the patently evil paramilitary Satanic cult of death, destruction, and hate called "Islam" can themselves be terrorized because they have three primal fears:
(1) being seen naked by women . . .
(2) being seen naked wearing ladies underpants on their heads by anyone . . .
(3) being treated like naughty dogs by women . . .
Prior to the Abu Ghraib psychological operation (a.k.a., "psyop"), the general view worldwide was that Muslim cockroach terrorists were fearless, which had the consequence of imbuing them with the ability to strike fear into the hearts and mind of their enemies, who in Iraq at the time were our troops . . .
But after the Abu Ghraib "psyop" everything changed, and among other things it became apparent that Muslim cockroach terrorists have an hilarious set of primarily gay neuroses which makes it easy to cause them to become hysterical and to have panic attacks, which is verified by the standard Muslim cockroach terrorist response to cartoons depicting their cult deity and prophet, a response which typically includes hysterical wailing, frantic jumping around, and the ritual slaughter of many Muslim cockroach terrorists while accomplishing absolutely nothing other than making complete and total fools of themselves . . .
Being naked in front of women; being treated by women as if they were naughty dogs; and in particular wearing a pair of ladies underpants as if it were a hat are among the favored pastimes of our troops--especially our Navy seamen and Marines after consuming a few happy beverages while on shore leave--which naturally makes the hysterical reactions of the Muslim cockroach terrorists a bit beyond silly, which is important because silly people are much easier to fight than berserks . . .
Explained another way, our troops do not lose a lot of sleep worrying about being attacked by a battalion of Pee-wee Herman clones, which is one of the most basic rules of modern warfare at the dawn of the early-21st century . . .
The fact of the matter, which is well documented in the historical records, is that the tide of the Iraq War turned almost instantly after the Abu Ghraib "psyop", and we soon prevailed against the Muslim cockroach terrorists . . .
But the truly amazing aspect of the Abu Ghraib "psyop" is that it established the foundation for what one might call our "gift" to the people of the region, where in this context a "gift" is a new and quite compelling strange behavior which becomes an ingrained part of the psyche of a people and a nation, where an example of such a "gift" is the continuing practice of taxi drivers in the Philippines and some of the neighboring Southeast Asian countries to use surplus military vehicles for taxis, which they cover with Christmas tree lights, and the people of the Philippines were not our enemies, but we liked them so much at the time that we gave them a "gift", anyway . . .
In this context, it does not matter so much whether one "wins" a war, because over the long run what really matters is leaving the best "gifts", especially when the "gifts" endure for many generations into the far distant future . . .
And even though on the one hand the Muslim cockroach terrorists are frightened by the idea of being seen naked by women; being treated like naughty dogs by women; and wearing ladies underpants as if they were hats, these very behaviors now are becoming popular pastimes in secret Muslim cockroach terrorist nightclubs where pulsating DISCO music is played and happy beverages with fruit slices and tiny pastel umbrellas are served, really . . .
Really! :-o
Funny - you could say basically the same thing about fundamentalist Christians.
@Baldenario..
I think you might be a couple bricks short of a Lego set... Back away from the keyboard and check in with your therapist immediately.
Careful Rob, he is already being vetted by the gop as a potential defense cabinet position if 2016 goes their way.
Nearly 12 years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 the front page news continues to have three to five articles on terrorist attacks committed every day over and over without end by Muslim cockroach terrorist members of the patently evil paramilitary Satanic cult of death, destruction, and hate called "Islam", and this will continue until the Muslim cockroach infestation is eradicated for the betterment and enlightenment of others . . .
The most recent incidences of Muslim cockroach terrorist attacks involve chemical weapons used against both soldiers and civilians in Syria, which the liberal pinko commie media are working diligently to keep from becoming prominent headline news, because the liberal pinko commie media know without doubt that the only possible response from our great nation and the other civilized nations of this planet is complete and total war, because there is no excuse for using chemical weapons anywhere on this planet at the dawn of the early-21st century . . .
If the use of chemical weapons in Syria is not stopped and punished in the most swift, brutal, and ruthless manner--which must include eliminating with extreme prejudice Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, his immediate family, and his inner circle of military, political, and cult advisors--then it will not be so long before there are chemical weapon attacks on civilians everywhere on this planet . . .
Based on the information provided to Baldenario and the public by a variety of reputable sources from a wide range of cultural, military, and political perspectives, Iran is within 12 or so months of having nuclear weapons, and using their existing rockets, airplanes, surface ships, underwater boats, and terrorist networks Iran will be able to make nuclear attacks anywhere on this planet, and while in some respects it might be considered "admirable" to look the other way and to hope that negotiating will eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat, there is only one guaranteed solution, which is to destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure, which must include eliminating with extreme prejudice the heads of the Muslim cockroach terrorist cult, military, and political entities in Iran, and this is the case because overwhelming force is the only thing Muslim cockroach terrorists understand . . .
Lower ranked Muslim cockroach terrorists need to be sent to military combatant isolation centers where if possible they can be deprogrammed, but if it is not possible to deprogram them then they can be encouraged to "go gay", which given the recent abandonment of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy certainly puts our military at the top of the list for being the best able and most prepared to encourage Muslim cockroach terrorists to take a "walk on the wild side" as part of the ongoing psyop designed to divert the attention and focus of the Muslim cockroach terrorists, which began with the stellar Abu Ghraib psyop and more recently has had excellent success in the so-called "Arab Spring" psyop led by now former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who as we know is a woman and consequently meets all the criteria for having a bit of FUN with Muslim cockroach terrorists--specifically, (a) looking at them naked; (b) providing ladies underpants for them to use as hats; and (c) treating them like the naughty dogs they are . . .
[NOTE: Call it whatever you desire, but I suggest that it is no "coincidence" that the Abu Ghraib and Arab Spring psyops were led by strong and powerful women who were ready, willing, and able to be surprisingly gnarly when it came to dealing with Muslim cockroach terrorists. The information is readily available in the historical records, and it is not the least bit difficult to understand when you consider it without preconceived beliefs and goofy ideas, where the most important fact to understand is that men tend to play war, but women always take care of business. And one of the most important bits of information we have discovered about our sworn enemies--the Muslim cockroach terrorists and their cult--is that they are terrified by bold, strong, and powerful women, which is obvious ipso facto by the various cult rules, edicts, and practices which are designed to make women essentially invisible and thoroughly powerless chattel, which in the cult hierarchy ranks women somewhere between a dog and a goat but always lower than camel . . . ]
The fact of the matter is that the patently evil paramilitary Satanic cult of death, destruction, and hate called "Islam" is a plague on the civilized people of this planet, and there will be no genuine, lasting peace and tranquility anywhere on the planet until the Muslim infestation is eradicated with extreme prejudice using every means allowed under the civilized rules of war, really . . .
Really! :-o
Ms. Lyndie has no remorse...I quess not even time can fix stupid. The father of your child ...absent..no kidding,he knows damaged goods when see's them.News-flash....your parents are not going to live forever...Lyndie -hop....more like a Lyndie -drop...good luck!
May she''l pay you a visit Jeffery and rob your ass.
War is hell, peace will kill ya. I can only assume the biggest adventure most of you have been on is parking close to the mall entrance. She's not the brightet color in the box but I doubt any of you protested the war she shouldn't have ever been sent to. Iraq didn't attack America. There are no wmds. If you really cared you'd be standing in front of every capital in this country demanding an exit from Afghanistan......tomorrrow. So, when some angry young kid goes off the reservation remember you helped send them there and keep them there.
We probably could have protested if the dire threat of WMDs wasn't rammed down our throats. Immediately after 9/11 Bush denounced anyone who disagreed as unpatriotic. Well, who in America wants to be accused of that??? And remember he said, "If you aren't for us, then you're against us!" That sealed the deal for many, many people. Now, with the Patriot Acts I and II in place, there are "free speech zones" where you can't protest where it will actually do any good. Yes, war is Hell but illegal war and occupation is much worse. And where were you when all this was going down?
...typically, by these ridiculous posts, lefty loons have more sympathy for blood thirsty murdering Iraqi scum than one American soldier who was thrusts in a terrible situation and made a judgement error that she paid for in the brig....you are hypocrites all......
Based on her response years later, she doesn't consider it a "judgment error" and has no remorse whatsoever, so why should anyone feel sympathetic to this woman when what she did was a violation of human rights? Try again, you crazy, deluded right-winger.
chan....why should she have remorse for the enemy who want to kill her.....it's war, you dumb un- American sonavabitch.....
Who are YOU calling un-American, NYCGuy? Last time I checked, we're the good guys, which means we don't torment or torture people for fun. Have some national pride and set some standards.
Hmmm...we go over there and invade them and they fight back. Suddenly, they're blood thirsty scum and we're the good guys?
How's that working out exactly?
There has NOT been a formally declared war since WW2 so the ''Bush/Cheney ''War'' is excluded. ''W's'' 2003 ''declaration'' of war on Iraq had many of the hallmarks of Hitler's declaration of war on Poland in Sept 1939.
At a different time and place, ''W'' and his former ''gang of 4'' would have found themselves sitting in the defendants' dock at the Nuremberg tribunals for crimes against humanity.
..... what a bunch of politically correct pansies you people are......it's a war and in a war you kill the enemy before they kill you.....I'll bet you that Iraqi on the end of the leash is trying to kill Americans still today....grow a set, people....there was no torture done here....
nyc, yeah, because they're the bad guys obviously! They're the ones that planned out 9/11, changed our nation forever and posed a real threat to America for sure! We totally were correct about them having WMDs!
Sigh. Stay deluded!
cchan.....they had plenty of WMD's, buddy.....just ask the Kurds how they killed with them....how come Hilary and Biden and the rest of the Dumbocrats all signed off on the invasion....were they pulling a fast one on us too....pull your head out of your butt and enter the real world, please....
id do lynndie england
Every person in the chain of command responsible for Abu Garib should have gotten prison sentences. Lyndie England, if she doesn't yet know that what she did was immoral, and utterly reprehensible, is a disgusting moral idiot like Lady Macbeth.
In a way, I'm a bit dumbfounded that she's still not remorseful for what she did, but on the other hand, I'm not unsurprised either. Nothing can excuse what she did and I'm a bit glad that she can't find employment and that she has to face the consequences for what she did out in the real world, even if she's not in jail anymore.
I don't defend her actions, but she was scapegoated. 20 year olds from Podunk, WV, don't go over to Iraq and start abusing prisoners without orders and encouragement to do so. The real culpable parties will never be known and will never be charged with anything by anyone. That's just how it works. I hope she is able to turn her life around.
disgusting white trash pig. DISGUSTING !!!!!
Once a low life c word always alow life c word
I wonder how many posting here would know for sure how you would react over there. Maybe all of you could see fit to have a few of those poor insulted rag heads live with you. After a week, see how many of you are still alive. Let 6 of them live with Piss Ant Conrad.
She was a pawn of the Bush White House.. Who do you think gave the directive that torture was okay?
She could get a job as a prison guard! They're always hiring and she has experience.
white trash that's all.....
The next time we read about her, I hope it's about her funeral.
Disgusting, dirt-dumb human being.