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First Court-Martial in Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Scandal Draws Maximum Penalty for Sivits

Aired May 19, 2004 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: From CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's check the headlines at this hour. We know the punishment for the first soldier convicted in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
A military court has ordered Specialist Jeremy Sivits to one year confinement discharge for bad conduct and demotion. Sivits had to pause and seemingly suppress tears in emotion choked testimony this morning. He described specific abuses such as one soldier punching a prisoner and others stomping on their hands and feet.

Meanwhile three other guards charged in the abuse scandal were arraigned on more serious charges but deferred their plea. Staff sergeant Ivan Frederick, sergeant Javal Davis and specialist Charles Graner will appear again on June 21. A total of seven U.S. soldiers are facing charges.

The federal panel investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks has issued a report and the conclusion may offer little comfort to the families of the nearly three thousand people who were killed at the World Trade Center.

The report cites basic flaws in New York's emergency phone system and says failures may have cost the lives of people inside the World Trade Centers after the first airliner struck.

Protesters threw a harmless purple powder at British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a session of Parliament today. It landed behind him. It filled part of the room with a dusty residue. Two men with the father's rights group were arrested.

And renewed violence in the Middle East. Palestinian sources tell CNN that an Israeli missile struck a crowd of about 200 people marching in southern Gaza this morning. At least nine people are dead. 50 others wounded. Israel says it's investigating the incident, but believes a tank shell may have hit the crowd.

It is just after 11:00 a.m. on the East Coast, and just a couple minutes past 8:00 a.m. on the West Coast. From CNN Center in Atlanta good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan.

The first court-martial in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal drew the maximum penalty today for Specialist Jeremy Sivits. Our Harris Whitbeck was at the Baghdad convention center for that military trial today and has this report. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Specialist Jeremy Sivits has been sentenced to one year confinement. He has been given a bad conduct discharge from the U.S. armed forces and he has been demoted in rank from Specialist to Private.

This after a judge at a special court-martial that took place in the Baghdad convention center, found him guilty of three charges of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison Baghdad. Sivits' testimony was at times emotional. He said he was sorry for what happened and said that he had learned that he should have stood up for, quote, "what was right." Reaction in Baghdad was swift. The country's acting human rights minister said the trial was a good thing because it was so open.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: More now on Specialist Sivits. He grew up in a small town not far from where United flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001. Our National Correspondent Susan Candiotti is there in Pennsylvania this morning with more on that -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello Daryn. Friends and neighbors of Jeremy Sivits continue to rally around him, despite the fact that he has pleaded guilty now to witnessing several cases of abuse.

His quick plea, however, seems to indicate that his is the least serious of all the cases so far. The best man at his wedding here in Hyndman, Pennsylvania, his hometown, suggests as many others do that this plea was simply brought on by him being forced to enter such a plea. That he was coerced, because after all they say he was just following orders. Supporters predict that Sivits will not be treated like a pariah when he comes back home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMEY ANGLER, SIVITS BEST MAN: I just want him to know he does not need to worry about anything when he comes back. That we're all proud of him. We know that he did what he was told to do, and did the best that he could with what he was given.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: On the eve of his court-martial, a prayer vigil here in Hyndman, attended by about 200 friends and supporters including his mother, his father and his young wife. Yellow ribbons seen throughout.

A lot of praying on his behalf. And supporters who, again, contend that he will be welcomed back home anytime. And not long ago, we saw his father who paid a visit here to the local post office. He we asked if he had any reaction to his son's sentence, as we now know, having received a year in jail, and a bad conduct discharge, and in his father's words "I have nothing to say." However, friends say he should not be worried about the kind of welcome, again, when he receives back home, after he serves his time. Back to you, Daryn.

KAGAN: Susan, thank you for that report.

Scrutiny of the U.S. military prisons systems now extend to Afghanistan. There are about 20 U.S.-run detention centers in the country. The top commander in Afghanistan Lieutenant General David Barnow has ordered a top to bottom review of every facility that will focus on how prisoners have been treated.

The review is expected to take about a month to complete.

Testimony does continue today in the 9/11 hearings. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani answered questions earlier this morning. We'll hear what he has to say. And ahead in front of the commission will be Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

He's about to speak. When he does you'll hear it live here on CNN. Right now, a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(FINANCIAL REPORT)

KAGAN: We want to go back to Washington D.C. right now. The Senate Armed Services Committee continuing their hearing. The top generals from Iraq, the military situation in Iraq, testifying before the committee. Let's listen in.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)

KAGAN: We've been listening in once again to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Joe Lieberman questioning the top generals in the Iraqi theater. They're before the committee today the topic right there, trying to figure out which techniques used at Abu Ghraib would fall under the Geneva Convention and which would not. We've been dipping in and out of the committee hearing and we'll hear a little bit more just ahead this morning.

Right now, we want to turn to the Middle East. It has been a deadly day in southern Gaza. Our Matthew Chance has the latest on that -- Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, shocking scenes coming to us from the Rafah refugee camp, or very close to it, where it seems that Israeli forces have opened fire on a crowd of angry protesters as they marched towards the Rafah refugee camp in protest of the long-running Israeli military occupation.

An intensive military action that's been going on there, for the past few days. We have updated casualty figures that have come to us from hospital sources in the Rafah hospital where the majority of these casualties have been taken. We're told now that at least 18 people have been killed as a result of this apparent helicopter attack. According to eyewitnesses, at least. An Israeli helicopter gun ship firing into an area close by to where this protest was taking place.

That's according to eyewitnesses. Eighteen people have been killed. At least 50 others injured. Some of them very seriously, indeed. Israel, for its part, has, first of all, issued an expression of sorrow, it says, for the loss of innocent lives in this incident.

It says it's investigating exactly what happened. It's talked about the possibility of how the rocket that misfired from the helicopter has gone into was fired apparently to disperse the crowd into a clear area.

But it's also talked about the possibility of a tank firing four shells into what the Israeli army believed was an abandoned building, saying that may have been one of the causes for this bloodshed.

Whatever the actual fact of the matter and that's being investigated the consequences very dire for the population of this area of the Gaza strip, which, as we've been reporting over the past few days, been under an intense state of curfew of siege, over the last few days. As Israel conducts what has become one of its most intensive and bloody operations in the Gaza strip in recent years -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And, Matthew, exactly, to go back a day or two why is Israel focusing on this part of Gaza?

CHANCE: Israel came in a few days ago, to say it was cracking down on what it calls terrorist infrastructure here. It says its prime objective of being in this Rafah refugee camp which is right up against the Egyptian border in the south of the Gaza strip, was first of all to arrest suspected militants who had been congregating there, and secondly to find and to destroy a network of tunnels which it's constantly looking for and destroying, tunnels that connects the southern Gaza strip with Egypt and which are used by Palestinian militant to smuggle in weapons from Egypt in to the Gaza strip, weapons that are then used to fire against Israeli troops and Jewish settlements here in this occupied territory.

Whatever its security concerns, though and it does have security concerns here in the Gaza strip the humanitarian price of this operation has been extremely high and has drawn lot of international condemnation.

KAGAN: Matthew Chance in Gaza, thank you for that. Appreciate that.

Testimony continuing here in the U.S. In the 9/11 hearings. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani answering questions earlier this morning. We'll hear what he had to say to the commission just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAGAN: For a second day, 9/11 commissioners are taking a hard look at New York's response to the terror attack on the city in 2001. Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve is in lower Manhattan this morning with more on today's testimony. Jeanne, good morning.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. The frustrations of some of the 9/11 families and the other audience members came bursting out during the commission's hearing this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: If that information had been given to us or more warnings been given in the summer of 2001 I can't honestly tell you we would have done anything differently. I mean, don't we were doing at the time all that we that we could think of that was consistent with the city being able to move and to protect the city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: That was mayor Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, addressing the commission this morning. He had been asked by commission members if he had known about the contents of the President' daily briefing of August 6, 2001 which mentioned New York City three different times, would he have done anything differently? Would different preparedness measures been in place? The mayor as you heard said no, he would not have done anything different.

He said in fact, that he was anticipating if anything, an attack by suicide bombers or perhaps biological or chemical agents. He was not anticipating an aerial attack. Getting back to the matter of the demonstration. There were a couple of demonstrations this morning by audience members in the commission hearing room.

I spoke to some family members afterward, asking them to clarify what it was about. The sound in the hearing room had to do with questions, soft questions being asked. And that's what people repeated to me outside. They were upset that Giuliani was being treated with, they thought, with kid gloves.

They said there were important questions that he was in a unique position to answer. They wanted to hear those questions asked. They didn't feel they were. In fact the commission got some harsh local reaction to its tough questioning yesterday of some present and former emergency officials here in New York City and their tone with Giuliani was quite different this morning.

Now, as for the mayor he did acknowledge there were mistakes and that there were problems on 9/11. But he went out of his way to praise the police, fire, and other emergency personnel who worked so very hard that day. He said anger and blame should be directed in one place, and that is toward the terrorists. Daryn back to you.

KAGAN: And then, Jeanne, later today, Tom Ridge will be before the commission. MESERVE: That's right, Tom Ridge is going to be speaking. In a short while. He's expected to talk about vertical information sharing that is from the top, to the states, to the locals. Right now, current mayor, Michael Bloomberg is on the stage before the panel.

KAGAN: Jeanne Meserve in New York City, thank you for that and when Tom Ridge does speak, you'll see portions of that testimony right here live on CNN.

(WEATHER REPORT)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired May 19, 2004 - 11:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: From CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's check the headlines at this hour. We know the punishment for the first soldier convicted in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
A military court has ordered Specialist Jeremy Sivits to one year confinement discharge for bad conduct and demotion. Sivits had to pause and seemingly suppress tears in emotion choked testimony this morning. He described specific abuses such as one soldier punching a prisoner and others stomping on their hands and feet.

Meanwhile three other guards charged in the abuse scandal were arraigned on more serious charges but deferred their plea. Staff sergeant Ivan Frederick, sergeant Javal Davis and specialist Charles Graner will appear again on June 21. A total of seven U.S. soldiers are facing charges.

The federal panel investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks has issued a report and the conclusion may offer little comfort to the families of the nearly three thousand people who were killed at the World Trade Center.

The report cites basic flaws in New York's emergency phone system and says failures may have cost the lives of people inside the World Trade Centers after the first airliner struck.

Protesters threw a harmless purple powder at British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a session of Parliament today. It landed behind him. It filled part of the room with a dusty residue. Two men with the father's rights group were arrested.

And renewed violence in the Middle East. Palestinian sources tell CNN that an Israeli missile struck a crowd of about 200 people marching in southern Gaza this morning. At least nine people are dead. 50 others wounded. Israel says it's investigating the incident, but believes a tank shell may have hit the crowd.

It is just after 11:00 a.m. on the East Coast, and just a couple minutes past 8:00 a.m. on the West Coast. From CNN Center in Atlanta good morning once again. I'm Daryn Kagan.

The first court-martial in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal drew the maximum penalty today for Specialist Jeremy Sivits. Our Harris Whitbeck was at the Baghdad convention center for that military trial today and has this report. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Specialist Jeremy Sivits has been sentenced to one year confinement. He has been given a bad conduct discharge from the U.S. armed forces and he has been demoted in rank from Specialist to Private.

This after a judge at a special court-martial that took place in the Baghdad convention center, found him guilty of three charges of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison Baghdad. Sivits' testimony was at times emotional. He said he was sorry for what happened and said that he had learned that he should have stood up for, quote, "what was right." Reaction in Baghdad was swift. The country's acting human rights minister said the trial was a good thing because it was so open.

Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Baghdad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: More now on Specialist Sivits. He grew up in a small town not far from where United flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001. Our National Correspondent Susan Candiotti is there in Pennsylvania this morning with more on that -- Susan.

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello Daryn. Friends and neighbors of Jeremy Sivits continue to rally around him, despite the fact that he has pleaded guilty now to witnessing several cases of abuse.

His quick plea, however, seems to indicate that his is the least serious of all the cases so far. The best man at his wedding here in Hyndman, Pennsylvania, his hometown, suggests as many others do that this plea was simply brought on by him being forced to enter such a plea. That he was coerced, because after all they say he was just following orders. Supporters predict that Sivits will not be treated like a pariah when he comes back home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMEY ANGLER, SIVITS BEST MAN: I just want him to know he does not need to worry about anything when he comes back. That we're all proud of him. We know that he did what he was told to do, and did the best that he could with what he was given.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CANDIOTTI: On the eve of his court-martial, a prayer vigil here in Hyndman, attended by about 200 friends and supporters including his mother, his father and his young wife. Yellow ribbons seen throughout.

A lot of praying on his behalf. And supporters who, again, contend that he will be welcomed back home anytime. And not long ago, we saw his father who paid a visit here to the local post office. He we asked if he had any reaction to his son's sentence, as we now know, having received a year in jail, and a bad conduct discharge, and in his father's words "I have nothing to say." However, friends say he should not be worried about the kind of welcome, again, when he receives back home, after he serves his time. Back to you, Daryn.

KAGAN: Susan, thank you for that report.

Scrutiny of the U.S. military prisons systems now extend to Afghanistan. There are about 20 U.S.-run detention centers in the country. The top commander in Afghanistan Lieutenant General David Barnow has ordered a top to bottom review of every facility that will focus on how prisoners have been treated.

The review is expected to take about a month to complete.

Testimony does continue today in the 9/11 hearings. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani answered questions earlier this morning. We'll hear what he has to say. And ahead in front of the commission will be Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

He's about to speak. When he does you'll hear it live here on CNN. Right now, a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(FINANCIAL REPORT)

KAGAN: We want to go back to Washington D.C. right now. The Senate Armed Services Committee continuing their hearing. The top generals from Iraq, the military situation in Iraq, testifying before the committee. Let's listen in.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)

KAGAN: We've been listening in once again to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Joe Lieberman questioning the top generals in the Iraqi theater. They're before the committee today the topic right there, trying to figure out which techniques used at Abu Ghraib would fall under the Geneva Convention and which would not. We've been dipping in and out of the committee hearing and we'll hear a little bit more just ahead this morning.

Right now, we want to turn to the Middle East. It has been a deadly day in southern Gaza. Our Matthew Chance has the latest on that -- Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, shocking scenes coming to us from the Rafah refugee camp, or very close to it, where it seems that Israeli forces have opened fire on a crowd of angry protesters as they marched towards the Rafah refugee camp in protest of the long-running Israeli military occupation.

An intensive military action that's been going on there, for the past few days. We have updated casualty figures that have come to us from hospital sources in the Rafah hospital where the majority of these casualties have been taken. We're told now that at least 18 people have been killed as a result of this apparent helicopter attack. According to eyewitnesses, at least. An Israeli helicopter gun ship firing into an area close by to where this protest was taking place.

That's according to eyewitnesses. Eighteen people have been killed. At least 50 others injured. Some of them very seriously, indeed. Israel, for its part, has, first of all, issued an expression of sorrow, it says, for the loss of innocent lives in this incident.

It says it's investigating exactly what happened. It's talked about the possibility of how the rocket that misfired from the helicopter has gone into was fired apparently to disperse the crowd into a clear area.

But it's also talked about the possibility of a tank firing four shells into what the Israeli army believed was an abandoned building, saying that may have been one of the causes for this bloodshed.

Whatever the actual fact of the matter and that's being investigated the consequences very dire for the population of this area of the Gaza strip, which, as we've been reporting over the past few days, been under an intense state of curfew of siege, over the last few days. As Israel conducts what has become one of its most intensive and bloody operations in the Gaza strip in recent years -- Daryn.

KAGAN: And, Matthew, exactly, to go back a day or two why is Israel focusing on this part of Gaza?

CHANCE: Israel came in a few days ago, to say it was cracking down on what it calls terrorist infrastructure here. It says its prime objective of being in this Rafah refugee camp which is right up against the Egyptian border in the south of the Gaza strip, was first of all to arrest suspected militants who had been congregating there, and secondly to find and to destroy a network of tunnels which it's constantly looking for and destroying, tunnels that connects the southern Gaza strip with Egypt and which are used by Palestinian militant to smuggle in weapons from Egypt in to the Gaza strip, weapons that are then used to fire against Israeli troops and Jewish settlements here in this occupied territory.

Whatever its security concerns, though and it does have security concerns here in the Gaza strip the humanitarian price of this operation has been extremely high and has drawn lot of international condemnation.

KAGAN: Matthew Chance in Gaza, thank you for that. Appreciate that.

Testimony continuing here in the U.S. In the 9/11 hearings. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani answering questions earlier this morning. We'll hear what he had to say to the commission just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAGAN: For a second day, 9/11 commissioners are taking a hard look at New York's response to the terror attack on the city in 2001. Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve is in lower Manhattan this morning with more on today's testimony. Jeanne, good morning.

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn. The frustrations of some of the 9/11 families and the other audience members came bursting out during the commission's hearing this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: If that information had been given to us or more warnings been given in the summer of 2001 I can't honestly tell you we would have done anything differently. I mean, don't we were doing at the time all that we that we could think of that was consistent with the city being able to move and to protect the city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: That was mayor Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, addressing the commission this morning. He had been asked by commission members if he had known about the contents of the President' daily briefing of August 6, 2001 which mentioned New York City three different times, would he have done anything differently? Would different preparedness measures been in place? The mayor as you heard said no, he would not have done anything different.

He said in fact, that he was anticipating if anything, an attack by suicide bombers or perhaps biological or chemical agents. He was not anticipating an aerial attack. Getting back to the matter of the demonstration. There were a couple of demonstrations this morning by audience members in the commission hearing room.

I spoke to some family members afterward, asking them to clarify what it was about. The sound in the hearing room had to do with questions, soft questions being asked. And that's what people repeated to me outside. They were upset that Giuliani was being treated with, they thought, with kid gloves.

They said there were important questions that he was in a unique position to answer. They wanted to hear those questions asked. They didn't feel they were. In fact the commission got some harsh local reaction to its tough questioning yesterday of some present and former emergency officials here in New York City and their tone with Giuliani was quite different this morning.

Now, as for the mayor he did acknowledge there were mistakes and that there were problems on 9/11. But he went out of his way to praise the police, fire, and other emergency personnel who worked so very hard that day. He said anger and blame should be directed in one place, and that is toward the terrorists. Daryn back to you.

KAGAN: And then, Jeanne, later today, Tom Ridge will be before the commission. MESERVE: That's right, Tom Ridge is going to be speaking. In a short while. He's expected to talk about vertical information sharing that is from the top, to the states, to the locals. Right now, current mayor, Michael Bloomberg is on the stage before the panel.

KAGAN: Jeanne Meserve in New York City, thank you for that and when Tom Ridge does speak, you'll see portions of that testimony right here live on CNN.

(WEATHER REPORT)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com