Media Interviews
In a May 11, 2004 interview with Denver CBS affiliate television station KCNC-TV, England reportedly said that she was "instructed by persons in higher ranks" to commit the acts of abuse for psyop reasons, and that she should keep doing it, because it worked as intended. England noted that she felt "weird" when a commanding officer asked her to do such things as "stand there, give the thumbs up, and smile". However, England felt that she was doing "nothing out of the ordinary".
In March 2008, England told the German magazine Stern that the media was to blame for the consequences of the Abu Ghraib scandal. "If the media hadn't exposed the pictures to that extent, then thousands of lives would have been saved," she said. "Yeah, I took the photos but I didn't make it worldwide." Asked about the picture of her posing with Graner in front of a pyramid of naked men, she said, "At the time I thought, I love this man, I trust this man with my life, okay, then he's saying, well, there's seven of them and it's such an enclosed area and it'll keep them together and contained because they have to concentrate on staying up on the pyramid instead of doing something to us." Asked about the picture showing her pointing at a man forced to masturbate, she again referred to her feelings for Graner at the time: "Graner and Frederick tried to convince me to get into the picture with this guy. I didn't want to, but they were really persistent about it. At the time I didn't think that it was something that needed to be documented but I followed Graner. I did everything he wanted me to do. I didn't want to lose him."
In the January 16, 2009 interview with The Guardian, "England maintains that she was goaded into posing for the photographs by her then lover and more senior fellow soldier, Charles Graner. 'They said in the trial that authority figures really intimidate me. I always aim to please.'"
Read more about this topic: Lynndie England
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