Reply #30: 'Well, what we're comparing is not whether they're naked'(on CNN Monday)

[underpants]

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0501/10/pzn.01.html

Joining me now from Texas is Charles Graner's attorney, Guy Womack, who we saw in Susan's report.

Welcome back, Mr. Womack.

I wanted to start tonight with this picture. It is the picture that you no doubt know quite well of the naked detainees piled on a pyramid with your client smiling and giving the thumbs up sign.

And you said, "Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year? Is that torture?"

How do you compare this to cheerleading?

WOMACK: Well, what we're comparing is not whether they're naked, whether they're wearing sand bags on their heads. I'm sure the cheerleaders don't do that. But, rather, the physical act of being piled up in a pyramid. It's a gymnastic formation. Only the body weight of the individual persons are on any other person. It doesn't hurt them.

The testimony of the witness that testified about that today was that there was no crying. They were merely piled up. And we're having an expert witness testify that that is a valid control measure. It's a tactic that you would use when you were outnumbered by possible assailants.

These were violent individuals who had just led a riot in the prison yard. They were piled up in a pyramid so that, if one tried to move, the others would fall down, and it would give the MPs at least a few seconds to react to the movement.

ZAHN: So you didn't have any problems with someone ordering the prisoners to do just that?

WOMACK: To pile up in a pyramid? Of course not.

ZAHN: Let's... WOMACK: It was much better than strapping them by the neck or other techniques that could have been used. They were merely piled up in a pyramid.

Now what is offensive to all of us is that they were naked. But they were naked because they were just being processed. They had just come from a riot outside the prison wall. They were being in process. They had to be stripped.

They were wearing sand bags on their heads because that's what you do with enemy prisoners so that they cannot see that they outnumber you, that they cannot see exactly where friendly forces are standing, they can't see what avenues of egress they could use for escape. It's very important that you isolate them visually so that they can't escape or fight.

ZAHN: The accusation is that the soldiers should have been aware of the fact that nudity is extremely an humiliating thing to Muslim men.

But I want to move on to another photo today that you also have described, and this is the one of Private Lynndie England leading a prison on a leash, and you have said, "A tether is a valid tool. You're probably been at a mall or airport and seen children on tethers. They're not being abused."

These detainees were in a prison. Why did you need a tether for them?

WOMACK: Well, again, we're going to have more testimony on that. We had testimony today about that. A tether is a device that you use when you need to extract a prisoner from a cell.

If you heard the testimony in court today, you would have learned that that particular prisoner was not dragged out of the cell. He crawled out of the cell while a female was holding the tether. It's believed that the fact that a female was holding the tether averted the violence. The fact that the man was humiliated to be naked in front of an American woman perhaps kept him from fighting.

It's well known psychologically that, in this country, prisoners who are stripped of their clothing become more complacent, they're less likely to fight or try to run because they have no clothes.

ZAHN: I need a brief answer to my final question. How damaging was it to your client today that you had two soldiers accusing your client of beating up prisoners, in one case knocking a man out cold?

WOMACK: Wasn't damaging. That private who testified to that, Frederick, told the court that he'd hit a man in the chest so hard that he said he caused cardiac arrest.

That same witness said that he set up all of the sex scenes, masturbations, the simulated fellatio. That same witness did all of those things himself. He is the one who said that he had received orders from military intelligence and civilian contract intelligence, had passed the orders to Specialist Graner and others. He had also passed along the praise for the good job they were doing and the effect it was having in helping in these interrogations.

ZAHN: So you don't think it hurts your client at all? Well, it will be interesting to...

WOMACK: No.

ZAHN: ... watch you go through this process. Guy Womack, thanks for your time tonight.

WOMACK: You're welcome. Thank you.