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Lynndie says she was government puppet { February 2008 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=539578&in_page_id=1811http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=539578&in_page_id=1811
Abu Ghraib soldier 'sorry' for role in prison scandal - but blames media for death of thousands by publishing story
Last updated at 07:41am on 20th March 2008
One of the American soldiers who became the public face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has said she was sorry for appearing in photographs showing soldiers torturing and humiliating prisoners.
But Lynndie England also blamed the media for publishing the photographs, saying the choice to publish caused the death of thousands by sparking anti-American insurgency.
And she said that what happened was "war" not scandal, saying she felt angry and as though she had been a "puppet".
In an interview with the weekly German magazine Stern conducted in English and posted on its Web site yesterday, England seemed both remorseful and unrepentant - and conceded that the published photos surely incensed insurgents in Iraq.
"I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the Americans and the British and they attacked in return and they were just killing each other."
She said she felt angry about it. "If the media hadn't exposed the pictures to that extent then thousands of lives would have been saved," she was quoted as saying.
Asked how she could blame the media for the controversy, she said it was not she who leaked the photos.
"Yeah, I took the photos but I didn't make it worldwide. Yes, I was in five or six pictures and I took some pictures, and those pictures were shameful and degrading to the Iraqis and to our government," she said, according to the report.
"And I feel sorry and wrong about what I did. But it would not have escalated to what it did all over the world if it wouldn't have been for someone leaking it to the media."
England was in several images taken in late 2003 by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib. One showed her holding a naked prisoner on a leash, while in others she posed with a pyramid of naked detainees and pointed at the genitals of a prisoner while a cigarette hung from the corner of her mouth.
Asked by the magazine if what happened at Abu Ghraib was a scandal or something that happens during wartime, England said it was the latter.
"I'm saying that what we did happens in war. It just isn't documented," she was quoted as saying. "If it had been broken by the news without the pictures it wouldn't have been that big."
She said there are other photographs that have not been released that contain more graphic images than those that were seen on television, in newspapers and on the Internet, the magazine reported.
"You see the dogs biting the prisoners. Or you see bite marks from the dogs. You can see MPs holding down a prisoner so a medic can give him a shot," she said. "If those had been made public at the time, then the whole world would have looked at those and not at mine."
England was released in March 2007 after serving half her 36-month sentence. She was convicted of six counts involving prisoner mistreatment.
England said she is living with her parents in Fort Ashby, West Virginia, along with her son, Carter, whose father is Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of those who took the pictures. They were both members of the 372nd Military Police Company based in western Maryland.
Eleven U.S. soldiers were convicted of crimes at the prison near Baghdad. Graner received the harshest sentence, a 10-year prison term.
Asked if she felt like a victim or an offender, she said neither.
"I feel more like a puppet. First I was played by Graner. Then the media portrayed me as their puppet so they could flash my picture out over and over and over and over again," she was quoted as saying. "And then I became the government's puppet because they didn't back me up, or remotely take my side. They just agreed with what the media said."
Now, she said, she is trying to move forward with her life, trying to find work and raising her son, Stern reported. She said the pictures still remain with her.
"Hell, I'm seeing a psychiatrist and a therapist. I'm on antidepressants and meds for anxiety," she was quoted as saying.
"If it wasn't for that I'd probably lose my mind. I just get freaked out. I'm paranoid as hell at people."
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