Abu Graibh - Why Female Guards?

[Mike Ellis]

I read the purloined report, and watched umpteen hours of news coverage of the Abu Graibh scandal this weekend. While I am not exactly weeping in my Cheerios for the poor humiliated Iraqis, I do find the entire sordid affair to be completely unacceptable for the USA. We're supposed to be the good guys, for cryin' out loud.

Something I have been wondering about since this popped up, that perhaps you military guys can answer. Why in the world are female guards present at the prisons over there? Arabs are pretty persnickety about women in positions of authority, and having female prison guards seems to me like a sure-fire way to put the prisoners in an uncooperative mood. Also, anywhere there are young men in close proximity to young women, the "show off" factor must be considered. Were these young people pulling these stunts with the prisoners just to "show off" to each other how big and bad they could be?

It is hard for me to believe that any career officer or government spook types would be stupid enough to have traceable orders telling the soldiers to "soften up the prisoners", seems much more likely that they had access to a digital camera and were looking for folks to impress. The old "some guy told me to do it" routine just doesn't sound convincing from what I've seen and heard so far.

What a cluster.