THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD DAILY NEWS

INTERNATIONAL HERALD DAILY  NEWS ON LINE   CLICK HERE

3

Family and friends describe her as direct and strong-willed, capable of enormous generosity - she paid a close friend's car insurance - but willing to buck expectations and act impetuously. At age 19, she married a longtime friend. They divorced within two years. England went to Iraq in May 2003 as part of the 372nd Military Police Company, charged with guarding Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, a prison near Baghdad known for its torture chambers during Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.

England's family says she was a "paper pusher" whose job was to process inmates, and they say she has become a scapegoat in the widening scandal. They say she didn't even work inside the prison itself but only went there to visit friends who worked in contact with inmates. But it is her presence at the prison in those shocking photos that has caused an international uproar. In one, England is smiling, a cigarette in her mouth, leaning forward and pointing to the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi man. In another, she holds a leash looped around the neck of a naked Iraqi man lying on his side on the cellblock floor, his face contorted. At a news conference Friday, her sister insisted that England was only following orders. "I don't believe my sister did what was in those photos," Jessica Klinestiver said. "Certain people told her what to do. I believe they were posed." Last week, her mother, Terrie England, told The (Baltimore) Sun that "everyone we know is being supportive because they know Lynndie and this is not Lynndie that they are showing.""Some people may think that I'm ashamed of her," she added in the interview. "I'm not ashamed of her. I'm proud of my daughter."

England now faces military charges, including assaulting the detainees and conspiring with another soldier, Spc. Charles Graner, to mistreat prisoners. Family members say England is four months pregnant with Graner's child. Potential penalties for England could range from a reprimand to imprisonment and a punitive discharge, according to military officials. England's tour was set to end this month, but she has been reassigned to Fort Bragg, N.C. Relatives say she doesn't want to leave the base, fearing she'll be recognized. As the disturbing prison photos filled newspapers and television screens, another photo quietly disappeared. At her family's request, a picture of England was removed from a Mineral County courthouse display of local men and women serving overseas in the military. England family members say despite support from friends, their relations with co-workers and classmates have come under strain in the last week. And some people in Fort Ashby say they fear that their community will be unfairly tarred as backward. In contrast, Lynch's neighbors have held candlelight prayer vigils, rebuilt her family home to accommodate her wheelchair and hosted a huge homecoming parade. England family members say Lynch's heroics were blown out of proportion and only later did the truth emerge. The same thing will happen with England, says Roy Hardy, lawyer for the family. "Jessica Lynch went from superstardom to being a normal West Virginia girl," Hardy says. "Lynndie is being portrayed as a devil. It may take six or 12 months, but she'll come back to being a normal West Virginia girl."-AP.

There is no sign that President Bush has been able to undo the damage caused by the photographs of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by the very troops sent to liberate them.

Looking at the front pages in Cairo this morning, President Bush might be forgiven for feeling he might as well not have bothered going on television to try to woo Arab opinion. The problem for the Americans is that no-one in the Arab world believes these are isolated incidents; everyone expects far worse yet to come. So al-Wafd, an opposition newspaper in Egypt, shows what are described as photographs of American soldiers shooting civilians from a helicopter in Iraq - a story with unhelpful echoes of Vietnam. Al-Ahrar, another Egyptian newspaper, leads with the slightly incredible tale that the military authorities in Baghdad are subcontracting the running of prisons to an American security company well known, the paper says, for making money off drugs and kidnapping girls for prostitution. US military intelligence needs someone to do its dirty work in Iraq, the paper says. The headline in another newspaper reads simply "Mass rape of women by Americans, disgrace for the Arabs". The newspapers here in Cairo also report that the Arab street is boiling and show a picture of an old woman praying in the street for the defeat of the Americans in Iraq.

Continues on the following pages.