Abuse reports shock Bay Area troops

[Barrett808]

Abuse reports shock Bay Area troops
Local Military Police helped guard infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
By Sean Holstege - and John Geluardi, STAFF WRITERS

Troops returning to the Bay Area after spending the last five months guarding Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison describe a chaotic "Lord of the Flies" atmosphere, ripe for the abusedepicted in widely circulated pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners.

But at least one military police officer who guarded the infamous prison thinks the incident, now under investigation, had less to do with sadism or coercion, than some bizarre "game" that "got out of hand."

"I doubt there was any physical coercion. We just weren't that way," said Sgt. Denis Ensminger of Alameda who led a squad of the 870th Military Police in a different part of the sprawling prison than where the alleged abuses took place.

"This is what happens when you push people beyond their stress levels," he said, noting that five or six troops in his unit were asked to guard a tent compound of 600 prisoners 12 hours every day.

...

"The potential for losing your mind was huge. I was losing it after five months, and these guys had been there the whole time since things went off. They were off the deep end," Ensminger said, referring to other MP units and military intelligence teams that had been in prison near Baghdad since the start of the war. He said he watched despondent guards staring at the walls, and spoke of many who took Prozac and of one colleague who tried to take his life.

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