BYU doctor says abuse of Iraqis not systemic

PROVO — Iraqi prisoner abuse is anything but systemic, according to a former 800th Military Police Brigade surgeon.

Retired Lt. Col. Bill Dunaway, who now works as a BYU clinician, served with the brigade from April to July 2003 at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, the largest POW camp in Iraq at the time.

"To me, there just wasn't abuse going on," said Dunaway. "A lot of prisoners would come in already beat up from being captured, but as for being tortured or anything, I didn't see it."

Six members of his brigade faced court martial last month for allegedly abusing prisoners last year at another prison, Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad.

Dunaway oversaw medical services at Camp Bucca and said prisoners had the option of seeing medical personnel daily, if they requested it.

"If prisoners were beaten up or whatever, I would have known," he said. "There was a small group of high Ba'ath Party and special interest people, not very many of them, who were isolated. Military intelligence and the CIA were interviewing them, as well as the British. I kind of took that group on, and they were never mistreated."

Dunaway did not know how the prisoners were treated before they reached the camp but said he occasionally saw prisoners who had been handcuffed for several days and had sores as a result. He did witness one incident involving mistreatment of prisoners but said those involved were closely investigated.

"This night I was walking back, and I heard some yelling in the processing area, and I walked over and saw these (military police) really roughhousing these prisoners," he said. "The prisoners were handcuffed and moaning in pain, and I asked them what was going on, and an MP said that the Iraqis had been fighting on the bus and kicking the guards. They were investigated — they interviewed me 1,000 times — but I don't know whether they went to jail or not."

Dunaway thinks the U.S. Army's reputation is being attacked because of the actions of a few.

"My point is that, on the whole, I just don't feel that it was widespread, and I do feel that it's become a political issue," he said. "I think it's been blown out of proportion, and will continue to be. I do not think it was systemic. I do think you had individual cases of it, like the MPs in our camp."