Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Samuel Provance "That’s when I really knew-the cover-up was in full swing"

[kpete]

Broadcast Exclusive: Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Samuel Provance Speaks Out on Torture and Cover-Up at U.S. Military Jail

In a national TV broadcast exclusive, we spend the hour with Abu Ghraib whistleblower and former Army sergeant, Samuel Provance. From September 2003 to the spring of 2004, Provance ran the top-secret computer network used by Military Intelligence at Abu Ghraib. He was the first intelligence specialist to speak openly about abuse at the prison and is the only Military Intelligence soldier listed as a witness in the Taguba report. Among the abuses he lists is the torture of a sixteen-year-old Iraqi boy in order to make his father talk. After Provance spoke out, the Army stripped him of his security clearance, demoted him and threatened him with ten years in jail.

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from rush transcript:

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AMY GOODMAN: Sam Provance, you obviously know a lot about what happened at Abu Ghraib, yet on May 14, 2004, you were ordered not to talk about it. Tell us what happened.


SAMUEL PROVANCE: It hadn’t been long after I had talked to General Fay, and of course the media had already tried to contact me, but I didn’t want to—you know, I didn’t know what was going on and I was trusting that the investigation would uncover, you know, what had happened, you know, that people under this unbearable burden of, you know, the scandal and the assumed scrutiny would begin—you know, somebody else, others, many others, would begin talking or confessing.


So, you know, one day I’m called in off-duty. I’m off duty, and I get called in from my company commander, and it’s like super emergency. And I come down to the company, and then it’s him and my first sergeant in his office. And then, he’s like—you know, he’s got this order in his hand written on a counseling form, and he’s like, “Don’t talk to me. Don’t ask me any questions. I just want you to read this and sign it,” which is highly irregular, because anytime you’re given any kind of a counseling form or an order, it’s read to you, and then, you know, you basically check in a block that you agree that what they have—you know, that what’s on that paper is what they’ve explained to you in person and that—not that you agree to it necessarily, but that you agree that that’s—you know, that you understand what is being told to you. And I could see he was under a lot of stress. I mean, he was very—because I even tried to ask him. I’m like, “Well, what if my mother needs to know that I’m not, you know, part of the abuse, you know, that I’m actually a part of trying to stop it?” And then he’s like, “I told you, don’t talk to me. Don’t ask me any questions. Just read this and sign it.” And so, you know, of course, I signed it.


And it was then that I knew, because that was after talking to General Fay—and it was then, at that moment, that I knew, you know, this was getting covered up. And then, once I found out that I was the only person that received such an order from the many other people in my unit that were there, that’s when I really knew this was—you know, the cover-up was in full swing. And from that moment on, I started thinking, OK, you know, if I don’t say anything, then nobody is going to say anything. So I had to say something. And then I actually hoped that when I spoke out that other people would start speaking out, too, but that didn’t happen. They just watched as, you know, I got into all that trouble, and then they saw what would happen to them if they spoke, too. And so, a lot of them to this day remain quiet.


more at:

(this whole interview is an amazing insight)
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/25/broadcast_exclusive_abu_ghraib