Former US Army Interrogator speaks out on Democracy Now!

With deep remorse, former U.S. Army interrogator Specialist Tony Lagouranis talks about his own involvement with abusing detainees in Iraq and torture carried out by the Navy Seals. He apologizes to the Iraqi people and urges U.S. soldiers to follow their conscience...

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AMY GOODMAN: You were in Fallujah?
TONY LAGOURANIS: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: What were you doing there?
TONY LAGOURANIS: My job in Fallujah was to go through the clothes and pockets of the dead bodies that we were picking up on the streets, and we would bring them back to a warehouse, and I would go through their pockets and try to identify them, and read whatever intel or anything that they had on them.
AMY GOODMAN: Because you spoke Arabic?
TONY LAGOURANIS: Right. Right. That's why I was sent there.
AMY GOODMAN: How many dead bodies, corpses did you go through?
TONY LAGOURANIS: 500.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about that experience?

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AMY GOODMAN: Who was in charge there, who was your immediate superior?
TONY LAGOURANIS: My immediate superior was an army -- my team leader, an army sergeant, the guy in charge of the detention facility or rather the intelligence operations was Chief Warrant Officer Kern. He was a marine.
AMY GOODMAN: And he was holding back your interrogation reports?
TONY LAGOURANIS: Whether it was him or somebody higher up, I don't know. But I know that he was the guy we were submitting the interrogation reports to. I was also submitting abuse reports at FOB CALSU. I really suspected that those didn't really get investigated.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean by abuse reports?
TONY LAGOURANIS: Well, any time I see abuse or prisoner tells me about abuse, I'm supposed to write a report about it. So that it can be investigated, and you know, see who abused them or whatever. I would send that up through the chain of command, but I don't think they were doing anything with these abuse reports. In the army, when you send this up, it should go to C.I.D., which is Criminal Investigations Division, I don't know what the 'D' stands for, division or department. I talked to those departments, those guys, five times in Iraq. I talked to them after I came back to Fort Gordon, Georgia. After I did an interview with Frontline, and told Frontline the same things that I told you, the C.I.D. Called me up and said we ran your name through the system, and we don't have any reports from you. Why didn't you report this stuff? So, like, I don't know what's happening to these abuse reports but I don't think they have been investigated.

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AMY GOODMAN: What when you look back now, do you wish you had done?
TONY LAGOURANIS: Well, you know, we were trained to do interrogations according to the Geneva Conventions with enemy prisoners of war. And we trained using role players using a conventional army prisoner, and also a terrorist organization, and we treated both of them as though they were enemy prisoners of war. We weren't allowed to cross any lines. So, I don't know why I allowed the army to order me to go against my training, and against my better judgment and against my own moral judgment. But I did. I should have just said no.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you feel like there's something that you can do now?
TONY LAGOURANIS: Well, I guess talking about it on television is one thing. I don't know.
AMY GOODMAN: Would you say when you see the court-martial of a few low-level soldiers, would you say that will start to stop the abuse, or how high up do you feel it goes?
TONY LAGOURANIS: Well, it obviously goes right up to the Pentagon, because they were issuing the interrogation rules of engagement, and the interrogation rules of engagement are not in accordance with the army field manual and not in accordance with the Geneva conventions. So, it's all the way up. You know, obviously, Lindsey England and Grainer, these guys -- you know, they needed to be punished, but it's not just them. It's -- it should have gone all the way up the chain.


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Much more at link here:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/15/1632233