New York Daily News -
http://www.nydailynews.com
Out of control at
Camp Crazy!
By BRIAN KATES
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, February 5th, 2005
In front of a cheering male audience, two young women wearing only bras and panties throw themselves into a mud-filled plastic kiddie pool and roll around in a wild wrestling match.
At one point a man in the audience raises a water bottle and douses the entwined pair.
At another, a "referee" moves in to break up the scantily clad grapplers.
A young blond lifts her T-shirt to expose her breasts. A brunette turns her back to the camera and exposes her thong undies.
These scenes, taken from 30 photos leaked to the Daily News, could have been snapped at an out-of-control frat party.
But this happened a world away from any American college.
The photos were taken in Camp Bucca, the military prison at Umm Qasr in the hot sands of southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border.
The women are not coeds but military policewomen who had left their uniforms in a pile not far off.
The men are soldiers, too. Most of them wore T-shirts emblazoned with Army logos, but at least one was still wearing his uniform.
Some were sergeants, including the referee, and some allegedly were drunk.
The photos were taken last Oct. 30, in the same period when enemy detainees were being transferred to Camp Bucca from Abu Ghraib, the prison made notorious by photos of Americans torturing naked Iraqis.
The Camp Bucca pictures document no such abuses.
But they do show what experts called a disconcerting lapse in discipline at a time when Army brass was touting the camp as a model of reform.
"It was basically a goodbye party for those of us who were leaving and a welcome party for those coming in," the alleged referee, Sgt. Emil Ganim of the 160th Military Police Battalion, told The News. "It was a chance for people to blow off some steam before coming home after spending a year in a combat zone."
But one participant described less-benign behavior.
Two sergeants, she said, told her "they had been lending out their room for soldiers to have sex" - a serious infraction of military regulations.
One female soldier, a prison guard with the 160th Military Police Battalion, was photographed baring her breast and showing off her thong panties.
The picture apparently was taken in the room of one of those sergeants, an investigator reported.
The witness told investigators that two high-ranking noncommissioned officers, a first sergeant and a master sergeant, were present. She "noted that these NCOs had been drinking and were noticeably drunk," the report said.
Ganim said American civilians at the camp also participated in the party, and "if anybody had liquor, it was them."
Ganim has since returned to his civilian job as a deputy sheriff in Leon County, Fla.
"It appears that this event was allegedly coordinated by NCOs [sergeants] of the 160th," according to the initial investigation.
One of the soldiers told investigators the mud-wrestling match was underway when she arrived.
"She took off her uniform and joined the other female soldiers that were wrestling," the report says. But "once soldiers started asking for the females to expose themselves [she and two of the other wrestlers] put their uniforms back on and left the area."
But at least one woman was not deterred.
Deanna Allen, a 19-year-old prison guard with the 105th MP Battalion, smiled and lifted her T-shirt. Photos show a man standing close to her and leering at her breasts while another G.I. snaps pictures.
"From what I understand they dared her to do it," said Allen's grandmother, Luci Tomlin, in Black Mountain, N.C. "It was a loose moment. She is a strong-headed young lady. Sometimes she can be a little irrational."
Allen, who is still stationed in Iraq, did not respond to E-mailed questions from The News. She was demoted in rank to private first class.
"A sex party with alcohol that is prohibited would suggest a serious breakdown of military discipline," said Washington-based lawyer Eugene Fidell, a military-justice expert. "Just how it would be handled would be determined by the commander, who has very broad discretion in situations like this.
Fidell said punishments could range from "a good chewing out to loss of rank" for enlisted personnel and "a letter or career-killing transfer" for officers who allowed it to happen.
