According to interviews, sworn statements from soldiers and military documents obtained by The Washington Post, Ashraf Abdullah Ahsy was at the center of a military intelligence "special project" designed to break him down, and was considered important enough that his interrogation was mentioned in a briefing to high-ranking intelligence officials at the Pentagon.

In other words, the documents suggest that the abuse was ordered by higher-ups who wanted to break him down.

Ahsy could become a central figure in Smith's trial because attorneys for the Abu Ghraib dog handlers have said that military intelligence (MI) directed the soldiers to use their animals as part of an interrogation regimen, one that top officers approved in December 2003. Unlike others implicated in the Abu Ghraib abuse, the dog handlers can point directly to approvals of the technique in question from top commanders.

Ahsy was interrogated dozens of times by military intelligence soldiers, civilian contractors, and members of other government agencies (OGA), a common euphemism for the CIA, according to the documents. The newly discovered accounts reveal that the military working dog in the photograph was being used in conjunction with a coordinated effort to get Ahsy to talk, an effort that continued for months.

The article describes other techniques used on Ashy, some requiring medical care:

A soldier who worked at the prison said Ahsy's feet swelled because he was made to stand in "stress positions" for hours. "People were always making a big deal about him, and I don't know why," said Sgt. Hydrue Joyner, who ran the day shift on Tier 1A. "Whenever we took him out of the cell, they made it seem like we had Hannibal Lecter with us. They thought he was important, and OGA [CIA] and MI were paying a lot of attention to him."

So far, the abusive soldiers have not prevailed in their "orders from higher ups" defense. Smith's case sounds like the first one that will have direct evidence of it, and may finally expose the falsity of the Administration's "few bad apples" meme.

Interrogation summaries show that Ahsy was questioned regularly -- 63 times through April 12, 2004 -- and interrogators were frustrated by his lack of cooperation. He was threatened with being sent to a Saudi or Israeli prison, and interrogators tried to scare him with the possibility of sending him to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba....Six days later, in interrogation No. 43, they wrote: "The team has moved closer to getting the detainee on the edge of breaking."

As for Ashy, he was released in October, 2004.