Abu Ghraib whistleblower's ordeal

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk The US soldier who exposed the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison found himself a marked man after his anonymity was blown in the most astonishing way by Donald Rumsfeld. When Joe Darby saw the horrific photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison he was stunned. Joe Darby was a reserve soldier with US forces at Abu Ghraib prison when he stumbled across those images which would eventually shock the world in 2004. Joe Darby knew what he saw was wrong, but it took him three weeks to decide to hand those photographs in. When he finally did, he was promised anonymity and hoped he would hear no more about it. "I was afraid for retribution not only from them, but from other soldiers," he says. And then he was sitting in a crowded Iraqi canteen with hundreds of soldiers and Donald Rumsfeld came on the television to thank Joe Darby by name for handing in the photographs. "I've never regretted for one second what I did when I was in Iraq, to turn those pictures in," he says.

His wife had no idea that Mr Darby had handed in those photos, but when he was named, she had to flee to her sister's house which was then vandalised with graffiti. Many in his home town called him a traitor.

"I knew that some people wouldn't agree with what I did," he says.

"You have some people who don't view it as right and wrong. They view it as: I put American soldiers in prison over Iraqis."

That animosity in his home town has meant that he still cannot return there.

After Donald Rumsfeld blew his cover, he was bundled out of Iraq very quickly and lived under armed protection for the first six months.

He has since left the army but did testify at the trials of some of those accused of abuse and torture. It is Charles Graner he is most afraid of.

"Seeing Graner across the courtroom was the only one that was difficult during the trial," he says. "He had a stone-cold stare of hatred the entire time - he wouldn't take his eyes off me the whole time he sat there."