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Marie Claire Nabs Lynndie England's First Prison Interview

Marie Claire |  Tara McKelvey |  Posted Thursday October 19, 2006 at 12:05 PM

Marie Claire magazine lands an interesting coup in their November issue: The first interview with Lynndie England, the young private made famous for her role in the Abu Ghraib scandal and ever-recognizable for her thurmbs-up image next to brutalized, humiliated prisoners, since she was sentenced to three years in prison in September 2005. England had had no visitors since beginning her sentence, including from her son, Carter, fathered by Abu Ghraib ringleader Private Charles Graner to whom England was once engaged but from whom she is now estranged. Reporter Tara McKelvey sought out England's family, showing up at a trailer park in Fort Ashby, West Virginia and convincing England's mother and sister to travel with her to the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in San Diego to see Lynndie for the first time in a year.

McKelvey's interview is a sympathetic one, depicting England as a caring mother and resolute about carrying on after becoming the poster girl for one of the worst national scandals in recent memory (literally - the image of her with the thumbs up is only a hair less iconic than the shot of her holidng a leash around the neck of a prone prisoner, and she's also featured with Graner in the notorious 'pyramid' shots wherein naked prisoners were forced into a human pyramid formation at Graner's instigation). According to McKelvey's piece, England claims that:

• Abuses like forcing naked prisoners into a human pyramid was encouraged: "We were told we were supposed to do those things. They said, 'Good job. Keep it up.'"
  
• England told her lawyer, Gulf war vet Roy T. Hardy, that things "weren't right" at Abu Ghraib in December 2003. Hardy said she described "smoking" detainees — forcing them to exercise until collapse — keeping them awake, and "making them [walk] around wearing women's underwear on their heads."
  
• Hardy also said England claimed 'OGA' officers were involved — "other government agency" or, typically, the CIA, whose orders military personnel did not question.
  
• England says "she was told" that prisoners were hung in their cells with their arms tied behind their backs and that an American contractor sexually abused Iraqi boys held in the prison.
  
• Graner is presented as dominant over England, who was in love with him and looked to him as a protector in the harsh environment. He is portrayed as unstable, erratic, and obsessive about photographing all the dubious events around him, pushing England to pose with prisoners.
  
• England doesn't disclaim responsibility in the article, exactly, but she (and her lawyer) present a situation in which she was under the thumb of a much more powerful man in a world in which authority is not questioned. Yet England recognizes that her name is synonymous with Abu Ghraib: "They're never going to clear my name... Everybody knows who I am."

As mentioned, the article is generally sympathetic to England, but whatever one's opinions on her level of culpability (and how much her youth and lack of comparative power played into her personal responsibility), the article provides a disquieting picture of life in the barracks around Abu Ghraib and the type of activity that flourished under the the U.S. military watch.