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Letter to the editor

At Abu Ghraib, he tried to help

In his new book, Sgt. Michael Keller, a Tampa software executive, says he went to Iraq hoping to be a "one-man oversight committee" at a military prison infamous for torture. Did he succeed?

By THOMAS LAKE, Times Staff Writer
Published January 11, 2008

Michael Keller assigned himself the task of oversight at Abu Ghraib.
	[Kathleen Flynn | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT Torture Central: E-Mails From Abu Ghraib, by Michael Keller, paperback, 188 pages, list price $16.95, published by iUniverse, available at Amazon.com and other booksellers.

Late in 2005, a computer programmer from Tampa reported for duty at the old prison in Abu Ghraib. All around him were signs of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. Improvised gallows. Drowning pools. Floors stained with blood that would not wash away.

By then the Americans had seized the compound. By then it was common knowledge that they, like Saddam, had tortured inmates inside those walls. By then the abuse was supposed to have ceased.

The programmer was Sgt. Michael Keller of the Florida Army National Guard. He found inmates playing soccer, watching Hollywood films on DVD and making yogurt from sun-curdled milk.

But, he says in his new book, he also found prison officials giving punishments that amounted to torture.

"The detainee is then laid flat on a medical litter, and another litter is placed on top of them (producing a sandwich effect)," he wrote in Torture Central: E-Mails from Abu Ghraib. "The two litters are then tightened together with ratchet straps, creating a vice. The detainee remains crushed between the litters for one hour, with the guard checking every 15 minutes to ensure that the detainee still has a pulse."

Keller joined the National Guard at 23, inspired by the events of Sept. 11. He went to Iraq - leaving behind a wife, a baby daughter and the business he co-founded - with a self-assigned mission to keep inmates safe.

"I will be a one-man oversight committee," he wrote to family and friends on Nov. 22, 2005, in the first of a series of e-mails that became the basis for his book.

He apparently followed through. The book contains a copy of a memo to a commanding officer in which Keller protests several ongoing violations of the Geneva Convention - including the use of restraint chairs and the sandwiching of inmates between medical litters.

The complaint actually worked, he says. On Dec. 29, 2005, his battalion commander told guards to stop punishing inmates with litters or restraint chairs.

Keller is home now, with his family. He says he still believes in America and supports the war in Iraq. He says he voted for George W. Bush in 2004.

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 10, 2008, 23:53:29]