Shell-Shocked at Abu-Ghraib?

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Did the senior U.S. officer at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison suffer a breakdown after a deadly mortar attack, setting the stage for the worst Army abuse scandal in a generation? And did the Army then knowingly use the testimony of a commanding officer who may have been mentally unfit to prosecute subordinates for their roles at Abu Ghraib?

Those troubling questions about Col. Thomas Pappas are being raised in the walkup to one of the final trials stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib, which has resulted in a handful of enlisted men going to prison — while top officers, including Pappas, have suffered few if any legal consequences. Under a grant of immunity, Pappas, who has already testified at the courts martial of other subordinates, is scheduled to give evidence in the August trial of his former deputy, Lt. Col. Steven Jordan. Jordan faces six counts and up to 16 1/2 years in prison for alleged cruelty and maltreatment of prisoners, dereliction of duty and other charges. His defense team has already raised questions in court of the mental competence of unnamed prosecution witnesses, one of whom is believed to be Pappas.

Pappas's mental state in Iraq was first publicly questioned in The Lucifer Effect, a bestselling book by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford University psychologist and expert on detention who conducted the well-known "Stanford Prison Experiment" — a 1971 simulation in which students were asked to play the role of guards — and who also testified as an expert witness in one of the Abu Ghraib trials. The book claims that Pappas, who ran intelligence at Abu Ghraib, was declared "not combat fit" after he survived a devastating mortar attack on September 20, 2003 — just weeks before the notorious abuses began to unfold. The attack — which killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded others but left Pappas physically unharmed — caused the Colonel to repeatedly exhibit bizarre behavior, the book says, while alleging that his "deteriorating mental condition did not permit him to provide the vitally necessary supervision of his soldiers working in the prison."

Zimbardo told TIME that he was not at liberty to name his source for the allegations concerning Pappas's mental condition. But he said the individual was "a senior U.S. military officer who had been present at Abu Ghraib and was in a position to know what happened." Zimbardo added that he had no doubt about the authenticity of the report. A military lawyer representing Pappas had no comment on the allegations concerning her client's mental condition.

more:http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1622881,00.html?xid=rss-topstories