Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, then-Commander of the ground forces in Iraq, wrote: “Over the course of two nights, October 18 and 19, 2003, four enlisted military policemen of the 372nd MP [Military Police] Company and three intel specialists of the 325th MI [Military Intelligence] Battalion pulled about a dozen Iraqi prisoners out of their cells at Abu Ghraib and abused them. The event was spurred by a small prison riot in which a few prisoners got into a scuffle with their guards. One of the prisoners, who had a pistol smuggled in by an Iraqi guard, tried to shoot SSG [Staff Sergeant] Ivan Frederick, an MP. Frederick and Specialist (SPC) Charles Graner (also an MP) then decided to retaliate. They, along with the other MPs and MI specialists, ordered the detainees to strip naked, tied them up in cells, piled them into pyramids, humiliated them sexually, and threatened them with unmuzzled guard dogs. As several of the offenders later admitted, they were ‘playing a game,’ ‘screwing around,’ and otherwise, just doing it ‘for the fun of it.’ There were no interrogations involved during this ‘party.’ In fact, none of those involved were ever interrogated. Unquestionably, the abuses constituted criminal behavior by soldiers in my chain of command, and clearly violated the Geneva Conventions and CJTF-7 [Combined Joint Task Force] policies prohibiting such behavior.”
– Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Pages 276-277