Spc. Joseph Darby
Truth Teller
Spc. Joseph Darby, Iraq Prison Whistle-Blower, Followed His Conscience
By Peter Jennings
ABCNEWS.com
May 7, 2004— Army Spc. Joseph Darby, 24, is the man who sounded the first alarm about the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison — by people in his own 372nd Military Police Company.
The New Yorker magazine was the first to report that after seeing the pictures we are all so familiar with now, Darby put an anonymous note under the door of his commander. He described the incidents and the photographs he had seen.
Darby is quoted by a criminal investigator as feeling very badly about something he thought was very wrong.
"It was really hard on him," said Margaret Blank, Darby's mother. "He didn't want to go against ... his troops. It cut him in half, but he said he could not stand the atrocities that he had stumbled upon. He said he kept thinking, 'What if that was my mom, my grandmother, my brother or my wife?' "
Darby later came forward and identified himself as the person who had sent the note.