Abu Ghraib Prison Soldier Admits Guilt
M A N N H E I M, Germany, Aug. 26, 2004 -- Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick says he regrets his actions while serving at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison but can't offer specific details on why he made those "bad choices."
"I've just come to realize that I am going to accept my responsibilities," Frederick said on ABC News' Good Morning America. "It was the wrong thing to do. It was a bad situation, and I just made some bad choices."
Frederick is the oldest and highest-ranking of the seven Army reservists from the Cresaptown, Md.-based 372nd Military Police Company charged with abusing detainees at the prison.
The 37-year-old issued a statement Monday saying he would plead guilty to certain charges against him. He said he's realized that what he did was a violation of law.
Frederick says he hopes others will come forward and accept their responsibilities as well. He says he believes the wild setting at Abu Ghraib helped to encourage the events that occurred.
"Just basically the whole environment around … with the mortars coming in, the gunfire every night, things of that nature — the stress that was placed inside of the facility," he said.
On Tuesday, an independent panel headed by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger concluded that senior commanders and top-level Pentagon officials failed to provide the leadership and oversight that might have prevented abuses from occurring at the prison.
The panel did not recommend that any of those senior commanders be punished.
To date, Frederick, of Buckingham, Va., is the most senior soldier to acknowledge any legal culpability for the abuses.
He is charged with maltreating detainees, conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty and wrongfully committing an indecent act. He is scheduled to plead guilty to some charges at an Oct. 20 sentencing hearing in Baghdad, his lawyer, Gary Myers, said Tuesday at a pretrial hearing in Mannheim, Germany.
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