This interview is of a 2LT with the 320th Military Police Battalion. He describes his unit and how they were deployed to Iraq. He then describes his job function and the process of gathering military intelligence; identifying High Value Detainees; and the detainee interview process. The interview ends when the tape recording the interview stops.
IFIT35 084 Second Lieutenant
N2L1A
Q: All right, this is Sergeant IIIIIIIIIIIW with the 377th Theatre Support Command, Command Historian's Office. Today's date is 16 May, 2003. The time now is 10:22. I'm here at Camp Fukah (sp?) in Iraq. And I'm interviewing 1st Lieutenan11111.11111111111111111 Or, how do you pronounce your last name?
Second Lieutenant111.11111111111.11
A:
Second Lieutenant And, could you please
spell your first and last name?
Q:
A: Last name is
Q:
And, could you give your unit and duty position
A:
I'm the Intelligence Officer of the S2, of the 320th
Military Police Battalion.
And, I'm going to go ahead and read off the boilerplate
language here. Do you understand that the tape and
transcript resulting from this oral history to be retained
in the United States Army Reserve Historical Collection
and/or CFLIC Military History Group will belong to the
United States Government to be used in any manner deemed in
the best interest to the United States Army as determined
by the Command Historian or representative? Do you also
understand that subject to the security classification
Q:
) -1-1336
1
restriction, you may be given an opportunity to edit the
resulting transcript to order to clarify and expand your
original thoughts? The United States may provide with a
copy of the edited transcript for your own use subject to
any classification restrictions. OK, thank you. Nodding
your head won't help me here. All right, sir, how long
have you been with the 320th MP Battalion?
A: Since October of 2001.
Q: All right, shortly after 9/11.
A: I was in a previous reserve unit that drilled approximately
20 minutes from where 320th (inaudible). And I wanted to
get an Officer's MI spot. So, I transferred to the only
place within a 200-mile radius that had one, which brought
me to the 320th MP Battalion.
Q: OK. And what did you do -- What is your branch, sir, and
if you could, if you could provide a brief military
biography.
A: I'm a Military Intelligence Officer. I enlisted in April
of 1997 as an El. I went into basic training one year
later on Fort Munergold (sp?), Missouri from May until July
of 1998. And then Chippard (sp?) Air Force Base for AIT
from July to September of 1998. I became a contracted ROTC
cadet in the fall of 1999 and commissioned as a Military
Intelligence Officer at (inaudible) State University
31.1337
2
speak English and just do a lot of what's called passive
collection where they walk around and see: who's in charge
in the compound; who are the people that are acting on
behalf ofother's Orders; who are the ones inciting the
riots; who are the ones that are making trouble; and who
are the people that seem to be the Boss? In labs (?), we
can do everything from keeping MP's safe, making things
easier [so the compounds are run (?)]. On a slightly
larger scale: coordinate with the Intel Officers of other
battalions that are on the ground; seeing what they are up
to, if we can help each other out. There's a lot of force
protection issues in a situation like this because we have
people giving up (inaudible). We're in a hospital nation -
-we're still at war officially, so there's always that
hospital traffic. And they're gonna sneak up on a
perimeter with a ward or two, you know, something like
that, until it's too late. So you have to know who's in
charge of force protection for the entire facility and then
coordinate with them, and find your sectors of fire,
(inaudible) requires coordinating with the subordinate unit
-- or protecting your living areas in addition to your
working areas. And there's always the basic stuff like:
weather in training and all. And everything is in support
of keeping the Battalion Commander (sp?) up
014340 5
to date with everything that he needs to know to keep the
supply (?) running.
Q: So, I'm curious: when you're CI Officers go out there and
they ask the MP's questions, or the prisoners, what type of
questions are they? I mean, some of it, I'm sure is --
A: I haven't been able to walk around some because if I
associate myself with the CI Agents who don't wear any
ranks on or any name insignia -- All they have is the US
flag on their shoulder and a "US Army" on their DCU top (?)
if they're wearing even that much. So, they're just trying
to look like normal Joe, not anything that would relate
them to what they're actually doing. It would make their
job a lot more difficult, if not impossible. So, I don't
know what kind of questions they're directly asking, but
they are not interrogators. They are only collection
people. So, they're just lookers and see-ers; they get a
feel for something: they'll look for patterns starting to
develop; you'll start seeing people doing the same things
over and over again; and they'll start to see people doing
behavior that kind of fits a profile. Like, if someone's
really an Iraqi Military Officer, but they're in civilian
clothes, they're going to have a lot more reverence among
everyone else that's in the compound than a normal civilian
would. If they are a person in charge, they are going to
014341 6
have people doing jobs for them. They are not going to be
the guy that's like testing the wire, trying to see if
there's a weak spot. They're not going to be the one who's
stealing extra food and bringing it back to the tent. They
are going to be the guys who are kind of just laying in the
background, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible to
hide their true identity. And it's also possible that they
could be doing -- selecting for their governments or their
agencies to provide an intelligence estimate for the people
that they're working for. So, they could actually be in
here for a specific purpose, and got captured on purpose.
Q: I hadn't thought about that. Could you name some of the
governments that it might be?
A: I'm really not at leisure. But, IIIIIIprimarily, even
though they're a government -- That was the one that they
were probably working for no longer exists to any large
degree. But, there are still a lot of people in this
country that don't want us to be there, and are willing to
go to great means to get us out as soon as possible.
Q: Now, as I understand it, you have a lot of foreign
prisoners as well. And --
A: Not a lot, but some.
7
Q: OK. You have some foreign prisoners. Do you handle them
the same way you do the Iraqis, or is there any different
procedure?
A: The only main difference with them is that they are
segregated from the Iraqi civilians and the Iraqi military
personnel. If there was enough people from a certain
country, they might get their own compound. But a lot of
that segregation is now being conducted by the 724th
Battalion, which has the same mission as is: we are running
the core holding area, and now they're holding the
(inaudible). We only have a handful of segregated EPW's
left. Organizational has the vast majority,
whichever number it is right now.
Q: And the segregated prisoners, is this because of the
nationality or violence or --
A: The segregated prisoners that we are currently detaining
are mostly because of psychological trauma or they're head
cases, people that would be a danger to themselves and
others if they were allowed to wander through a compound.
Q: How many prisoners did you have in the core holding area
when you first arrived, and how many do you have now,
approximately?
A: When I arrived, there was a little bit more than MI. The number had climbed to efore it started to taper
01_4343
8
'L1down. In the core holding area right now, we only have a
in one regular compound, if there's any
left in that at all -- I haven't been down there in a
couple of days. But, the only ones that we were
consistently looking after are the ones that are separated.
And they're not even in the compound; they're in convexes
with a sharp wire and wooden framed fence in front of it to
keep them isolated. I'd say those are the people that are
mentally instable.
Q: And you've also mentioned force protection. How do you get
information from that outside?
A: I'll talk with a lot of the forces that traverse the area a
lot. The 46th Engineers who built the vast majority of the
facility out here are the ones who are continuously running
around the outer perimeter. I've spoken with their S2
Officer, (sp?) several times. I was doing
so on a daily basis when it was much more of an issue. A
couple weeks ago, another IR Battalion, similar to us, the
530th MP Battalion, took over the entire force protection;
that is, all that they do is they set up the observation
post along the perimeter --
Q: I'm sorry, what is IR?
A: Internment Repediment (?).
Q: Thank you.
0 1 "44
9
contain what (inaudible). Also, it makes feeding a lot
easier.
Q: And why is that?
A: A normal feed is supposed to take about I
an If there
are a lot of people, and they're being rowdy or
uncooperative, it could take up to three hours or longer -because it's a very orderly process. You want to maintain
presence of who's already been fed, who's being fed. It
takes a few EPW's to help out with moving the food inside
and outside of the wire. And while the Feed Team is in
there,
MINIM
And if you keep everyone lined up and only have
the right people standing, to stand up, walk over, get
their food and sit down, then it will keep a lot safer for
everyone involved. If you have III guys in there milling
around in a crowd, someone's not going to get fed,
someone's going to get upset, someone's going to get fed
twice. (inaudible) every time.
Q: OK, thank you. Now, we were talking about the riots. And you were talkiiig about more than one compound. How many -You said about five of those occurred while you were here. How do you handle that, in your position?
014346
11
A: There is little that I do. That is much more operational
problems to do that. So that again, would be the S3 Major
OK, but you deal with the after-effect, kind, because you -
A: Yes. Because I will find out who started it, what was the
situation or instances that instigated that -- what was the
scenario that led up to it: was someone not fed; was
someone trying to escape; was someone being mistreated or
beaten. It is mostly identifying the people that were
starting the problem -- if we can get them out of there and
send them up to the Intelligence Detachment near the
brigade, to have them be interrogated -- just to figure out
4
If they were trying to do this for another purpose --
because many of the smaller riots where -- times when
people were trying to escape -- because you'd have all the
Military Police watching this huge mob while two or three
guys are trying to sneak out of the back in the wire.
4: Right, create a distraction, so -- All right. And, you
know, you see that on TV all the time. About how many
prisoners try to escape a day? Or, is it that frequent?
A: Well, it's never very frequent. We never had a tremendous
amount of people trying to escape. There were probably a
11111111different attempts. But very few of them were ever
04347
12
now so there's not more than a five minute wait shower at
any given time. And there's another water in the shower
facilities so you can bathe every day if you want to. When
I first got up, every four days -- No, I went four days
without a shower. So, it was the fifth day that I was here
that I had gone without a shower. They were serving food
out of a mobile kitchen trailer. And now they have a
dining facility, which there are hot mails in an air
conditioned environment. So, it cuts down on the flied
getting in your food and it's a lot more sanitary and
appetizing, in that respect. The food is much better
quality also, because before it was just heating up tins of
pre-cooked, pre-sealed food. You just pull the tops off
after it's heated, (inaudible) content. (inaudible) like a
half-step above an MRE.
Q: And I'm afraid the menu on that probably stays pretty
constant as well.
A: Yes. You had two or three options. But, it was better
than MRE, depending on the mood that you were in.
Sanitation has taken huge steps forward since I first
arrived here. They're still doing human waste burning as
diesel fuel on a lot of the things, but now, even last
week, we had port-a-johns dropped off with SST's to go
around semi-regularly to clean them out and sanitize them.
014349
14
personal sanitation is in the back of your thoughts
sometimes, unfortunately. So, once someone gets sick, it
doesn't take long for them to pass that along to everybody
else. I've had bits and pieces of it, but it's never
lasted more than a day. And as uncomfortable and
unpleasant as it is, it's much more dangerous, because when
it gets to 115-plus degrees out here, which it does daily
now, you can become a heat casualty very, very quickly.
One of the girls that I play cards with every night had
seven I.V. bags put in her before she had the urge to go to
the bathroom; that's how dehydrated she had become. And
when you become that dehydrated, you run the risk of brain
damage; that is just right on the verge of heatstroke.
Q: I was gonna say. Yeah. Did they send her home, or is she
still here?
A: No, she's still here. She recovered, fortunately for her
sake. But a lot of other people had similar or worse
situations where they actually had to spend a day or two at
the aide's station. And it sneaks up on you. You don't
realize it. I drink anywhere from six to nine liters of
water a day, which sounds outrageous. But, you sweat it
out so rapidly, you don't even notice it. You take your t-
shirt at night, and there are white lines of dried up
014351
16
(inaudible) because of the sweat that you -- dumping out of
Q: A: your body. All right, now what about the working conditions? We were talking about security, and you said that's been improved as well. Can you describe how so? There's an outer perimeter around fars (?) perimeter of Camp Bukah that has ONIONIMIIINIPM11111111111111111111•1
And it was incomplete or it was just completely missing in some spots. And the 530th went along and the whole thing. There is more , and all of them have 111.111111 at it. The entry control point out by the roads allgrallNEMINIMMIEW
Q: A: mommill• And how many are there? There's at least 111111111.1111111141111.11111of Camp Bukah. There might be even more. Plus, I'm aware of several other
MM. There's a Quick Response Force specifically for force protection, which is several with M4352. 17
(inaudible) for takingallilMillaof some type
like a which can be any place
within about There are more Burms (?).
There's more internal wire. There are force protection
plans schemed; lans that are
drawn up. If anyone happens to come inside our living
areas, we have (inaudible). It doesn't sound like
something that is quite as big, but the vast majority of
the people
JMNIEMMMM=MEMIW
11°.1.°111.11IIMIMM/Ming
Q: And what about with the prisoners? Earlier, you had
mentioned, it sounded like they were trying to reduce the
number of prisoners tq compound, that they could do that.
A: Yeah.
Q: What are some of the other steps that they're taking as
well?
A: A lot of the compounds are much more cooperative, which
believe it or not, was in with
dimillo more often than not. Actually, they started
feeding themselves, where there would be no US soldiers
inside the wire when they were feeding; they would just
0 1 4 3 5 3
18
come outside the wire to grab their food from the feed
truck,take it inside the wire and distribute the food among the rest of the people. And when they were done, they would bring it out. 1111111111111111111111111101111111111111. \r)(2 -3
So, there is much less
risk involved with that.
Q: And did it work for both sides in doing that?
A: Yeah. There were some people that just had it out for --
it seemed like they could do nothing
right. And there was a lot of unnecessary yelling and
screaming, which doesn't help anyone out; it just kind of
gets everybody on edge. And I can understand, if you're
standing out there for a 12-hour shift --
Q: If I could go ahead and pause this here, it looks like we
got --
(break in tape) 19 (,U-Q: This is Sergeant I'm re suming the 6 c u.) ....
interview with Second Lieutenant All
right, good deal. And so, we were discussing some of the conditions that you found to have improved for safety within the camp, for the Militall'Police. And the last thing we talked about was allowing thel111111111111111, 19 (2)
Allialito serve their own meals. What are some other things that have been done?
0143154
19
A: A lot more wire was used to put the -- (inaudible) the
-3
individual compound. We used
-
It wasn't
strong, and far apart, to create gaps for them to go
through. They gave up on making filIMAR which ended up
just becoming highways between the compound, instead of
preventing them from going in between like it was
originally intended. They put a lot more lighting in
there, so there were no dark spots that allowed people to
sneak in and out undetected. They put more personnel out
there, more observation posts, more roving guards.
(. -Z-) -3
Q: Now, let me ask you about the They're
for force protection or external. But, do you have some
for internal, to watch the prisoners that are separate as
well?
aim
A: Yeah. Those are usually up on convexes with
3
\o(-Q- -
Win also.
::.i
Q: OK. And could you tell me how many you all have, or
approximately?
A: In the holding area, when we were running it, we had, I believe it was 1111111 b (I)
Q: OK. And they're spaced out about how far apart?
lo
A: Each one would watch about IIIII maybe dmcompounds.
20
Q: OK, yeah, that's what I'm trying to get at. Good deal.
And,
A: Usually, it was juslig1111111110
Q: And was there communication, so they could assist each
other?
A: In the first time, no. Communication was a really big
problem. We had little handheld radios that had
unreliable batteries that were just too old to be
functional anymore. But we had to use them, otherwise we
would have been completely in the dark. All of our other
radios such as which were packed in carnexes
(sp?) or on our vehicles which hadn't arrived yet. And, a
month ago, the brigade finally sprung for it and got a
bunch of brand new handheld radios, which were a lot
clearer, a lot easier to use, but didn't have quite as long
on battery life. We were given enough to vastly improve
communication, but it still a few steps away from where it
should have been, the way that we would have liked it to
be. Probably the biggest thing that helped force
protection within the compound was the arrival of the K9
Unit. For the first time, we only had And when the
dog went there in the first riot that he was involved in,
it shot guys down really quickly. You get a hyperactive
21
(?) and hauled to rest some legal rights that they had
being in our custody. And, basing or referencing some
military documents and operations (inaudible). It's a fact
of nature (inaudible) that a lot of (inaudible} to
tribunal, and who was in charge of them. And then, we did
that. (inaudible) simple question.
Q: Now, you're asking these prisoners. What's so special
about these prisoners that they get a tribunal?
A: Prisoners that were given a tribunal yesterday were foreign
nationals, people who were caught in Iraq, from another
nation.
Q: OK. But, it doesn't have to be (inaudible) to them. It
could be a person who's status is unclear -- (tape speeds
up)
(break in tape)
Q: This is Sergeant We've been booted out of
our office, temporarily. I'm here interviewing Second
svC(A) -
Lieutenant Sir, you were talking about
the good things here in Iraq.
A: The last good thing about me being over here is that it's
going to make me appreciate the small, simple, little
insignificant things back at home. A plush pillow, like a
soft bed. Carpeting, electricity, air conditioning, a
fridge full of cold beverages. My family, my friends.
014 35 9
24
DOD-017969
Internet access. It's everything and anything. I'll never
take it for granted ever gain.
Q: Now, actually, we talked about what went right.
Doctrinally --
END OF TAPE
n 4 3
25
DOD-017970