.Abu Ghraib Whistleblower Worries
(CBS) Like most soldiers serving in Iraq, Joe Darby just wanted to go home when his time was up. But blowing the whistle on his unit members for abusing Iraqi prisoners changed all that, and now the former military police specialist lives in an undisclosed city with his wife, still worried for their safety.
Darby talks to CNN's Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, this Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
"I worry about the one guy who wants to get even with me, and that one guy could hurt me and my family," says Darby. That one guy could be from his hometown of Cumberland, Md., where many in his unit lived.
What were his friends and neighbors saying about him after they learned he gave photos to authorities showing U.S. soldiers, some from Cumberland, abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison? "He was a rat. He was a traitor. He let his unit down and the U.S. military. Basically, he was no good," Colin Engelbach, commander of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter, says he heard townspeople say. It was hard on Darby. "These were people who knew me since I was born….my parents' friends, my grandparents' friends, that turned against me."
Says Engelbach, "I agree that his actions…were no good and borderline traitor." He understands Darby was reporting a crime. "But do you put the enemy above your buddies? I wouldn’t."
There was a time when Darby was frightened enough of those buddies to sleep with a gun. Right after giving military authorities the pictures, the investigation began and he was worried that some of the accused might find out he had turned in the pictures and could retaliate. "[The accused] still had their weapons…unlimited access to the facility and me the whole time," Darby tells Cooper. "[I] slept with a pistol under my pillow, loaded, with my hand on it and cocked it….Every night."
Darby relaxed a bit when the abusers were taken off base, but was shocked when, after 60 Minutes II broke the story, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mentioned his name in front of Congress. To keep him safe, the military flew him out of Iraq. But when he landed back in the states and asked to go home, officers told him he wouldn't be safe there, either. "[An officer] said, ‘Well, son, that’s not an option.’ He said the Army Reserve had done a security assessment of the area and 'it’s not safe for you there. You can’t go home.’"
Engelbach concurs with the assessment. "There were a lot of threats, a lot of phone calls to his wife…because [Darby’s actions] really did put our troops in harm’s way, more so than they already were." Instead of home, they went into the protective custody of the military for months.
Bernadette, his wife, was extremely frightened and is now frustrated. "It’s not fair that we’re being punished for [her husband] doing the right thing.”
Both lived around Cumberland their entire lives and may never be able to return, but it doesn’t change Darby’s mind about what he did. "They broke the law and they had to be punished. I have always had a moral sense of right and wrong and I knew that…friends or not, [the abuse] had to stop," he tells Cooper.
CBS
Darby talks to CNN's Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, this Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
"I worry about the one guy who wants to get even with me, and that one guy could hurt me and my family," says Darby. That one guy could be from his hometown of Cumberland, Md., where many in his unit lived.
What were his friends and neighbors saying about him after they learned he gave photos to authorities showing U.S. soldiers, some from Cumberland, abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison? "He was a rat. He was a traitor. He let his unit down and the U.S. military. Basically, he was no good," Colin Engelbach, commander of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter, says he heard townspeople say. It was hard on Darby. "These were people who knew me since I was born….my parents' friends, my grandparents' friends, that turned against me."
Says Engelbach, "I agree that his actions…were no good and borderline traitor." He understands Darby was reporting a crime. "But do you put the enemy above your buddies? I wouldn’t."
There was a time when Darby was frightened enough of those buddies to sleep with a gun. Right after giving military authorities the pictures, the investigation began and he was worried that some of the accused might find out he had turned in the pictures and could retaliate. "[The accused] still had their weapons…unlimited access to the facility and me the whole time," Darby tells Cooper. "[I] slept with a pistol under my pillow, loaded, with my hand on it and cocked it….Every night."
Darby relaxed a bit when the abusers were taken off base, but was shocked when, after 60 Minutes II broke the story, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mentioned his name in front of Congress. To keep him safe, the military flew him out of Iraq. But when he landed back in the states and asked to go home, officers told him he wouldn't be safe there, either. "[An officer] said, ‘Well, son, that’s not an option.’ He said the Army Reserve had done a security assessment of the area and 'it’s not safe for you there. You can’t go home.’"
Engelbach concurs with the assessment. "There were a lot of threats, a lot of phone calls to his wife…because [Darby’s actions] really did put our troops in harm’s way, more so than they already were." Instead of home, they went into the protective custody of the military for months.
Bernadette, his wife, was extremely frightened and is now frustrated. "It’s not fair that we’re being punished for [her husband] doing the right thing.”
Both lived around Cumberland their entire lives and may never be able to return, but it doesn’t change Darby’s mind about what he did. "They broke the law and they had to be punished. I have always had a moral sense of right and wrong and I knew that…friends or not, [the abuse] had to stop," he tells Cooper.
CBS
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