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Janis Karpinski

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Janis L. Karpinski (born 1953?) is a US Army Brigadier General in the 800th Military Police Brigade. As the commander of US and British-led prisons in Iraq in 2003, Karpinski is being held responsible for abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Career

Before the controversy, Karpinski's military career was distinguished with a Bronze Star and a history of service in Special Forces, including time in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. She moved from the regular Army to the Reserves in 1987, while serving as an intelligence and military police officer in the Middle East and United States. She also became a consultant who ran military-styled training programs for executives. She is married to George Karpinski, a lieutenant colonel at the Oman US embassy.

In June 2003, following the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, Karpinski was put in charge of the fifteen prisons and detention facilities in southern and central Iraq run by Coalition forces. She was also put in charge of the National Guard and Army reserve units in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Karpinski gained attention as the only female US commander in Iraq, but had no experience running correctional facilities.

At first, Karpinski was held up as a spokesperson for the new Iraqi justice system. In September 2003, Karpinski led Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on a tour of the Abu Ghraib prison to demonstrate the way it was used to torture enemies of Saddam Hussein. At the time, Rumsfeld used the tour to contrast it with the way the country was being run by coalition forces.

Iraq POW Abuse Scandal

But in October 2003, allegations of abuse in the new Iraqi prisons began to surface. At the time, Karpinski insisted that prisoners under her watch were treated "humanely and fairly." In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times in December 2003, Karpinski insisted conditions in the prison were even better than many Iraqi homes, and joked that the prisoners were treated so well that she was "concerned they wouldn't want to leave" [1].

But in January 2004, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez formally suspended Karpinski and sixteen other soldiers with undisclosed reprimands. An investigation was started into the abuse, and Karpinski left Iraq for reasons that were explained at the time as part of "routine troop rotations."

In April 2004, CBS 60 Minutes II broadcast photographs of Iraqi prisoners being subjected to torture at the Abu Ghraib prison. The program provoked worldwide outrage and demands for reform. Following the broadcast, Karpinsky was suspended of her duties and replaced by Major General Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the detention camp known as Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo.

Karpinski's military career is currently in jeopardy with calls for a noncriminal administrative investigation, which could lead to disciplinary action with the possibility of being blocked from future promotions or receiving a letter of reprimand. Karpinski actively denies the charges, insisting she had no knowledge of the abuse and claims that particular wing of the prison was under control of miltary intelligence "twenty-four hours a day." She claims Army intelligence officers urged guards to abuse prisoners to aid their interrogations.

Sources

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