Question:
The near-simultaneous “leak” of the Abu
Ghraib photos and the excerpts from secret military
documents to CBS’ 60 Minutes II and the
New Yorker’s investigative reporter Seymour
Hersh was a purposeful act. Which source for both 60
Minutes II and Seymour Hersh had access to 1) the lurid
time-coded pictures of prisoner abuse, 2) excerpts from
the classified report written by General Antonio Taguba,
3) excepts from the secret Article 32 Hearing of Sgt.
Ivan “Chip” Frederick, and 4) a tactical
interest in planting this material in the public domain?
Answer:
Gary Myers, the civilian
lawyer for Chip Frederick, was a source for both
CBS II and Seymour Hersh.
Myers also had access to the photographs, which had
been part of the evidence against his client, the Taguba
Report, and the transcript of his client’s Article
32 hearing (which Hersh quotes verbatim). As for
his tactical design, Hersh himself reveals: "Gary
Myers, Frederick’s civilian attorney, told me
that he would argue at the court-martial that culpability
in the case extended far beyond his client. “I’m
going to drag every involved intelligence officer and
civilian contractor I can find into court.” Since
lawyer Myers could not expand a military trial without
the permission of the presiding officers of the court-martial,
he went public on CBS and the New Yorker.
Before this stratagem had been put into play, the legal
situation that Myers confronted was as follows:
In early April, his client, a correction officer in
civilian life, went before an article 32 hearing (the
military equivalent of a Grand Jury). So had 5 other
members of the 372nd Military Police Company. Since
many of the soldiers had made full confessions, Frederick
could be charged with conspiracy to maltreat detainees,
dereliction of duty for failing to protect detainees
from abuse, maltreatment of detainees, and wrongfully
committing an indecent act by watching detainees commit
a sexual act. And then , in a month or so, he could
face a general court-martial.
The possible legal defense that Frederick was following
orders was mitigated by the fact that the time-coded
digital photographs showed that the abuses had been
photographed only between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m– a
time period when no commissioned officers were present
– and a time period when Frederick was in charge
of the Military Police in the cellblock. Even with a
lawyer as savvy and resourceful as Myers, the “following
orders” defense would be difficult to mount in
a court-martial.
With the (perhaps unwitting) assistance
of CBS and the New Yorker, Myers effectively moved the
issue of prison abuse to a larger, global universe–
a universe dazzled and infuriated by the release of
these lurid photographs.
|