OAKLAND, Md. -- Bill Lawson rolled like a half-track into the Frederick family's living room, ready for combat against his government.

	Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette Bill Lawson, uncle of Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, talks about his nephew's experiences in Iraq yesterday at the Frederick family home near Oakland, Md. Click photo for larger image.

"President Bush just said he wants to see all the soldiers punished," Lawson declared. "The president just broke the law. That's great."

He paused in front of the photograph of his nephew, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick. In the months after Frederick telephoned his parents and told them he was accused of mistreating prisoners at Iraq's Al Ghraib prison, the family kept a silent vigil and hoped for the best.

No more.

Yesterday, Ivan "Red" Frederick and his ex-wife, JoAnn, guided by Lawson, a man with 20 years in the military and a tour of Vietnam on his resume, told their story to all who would listen. Their son, they say, attempted to warn his Army superiors that Iraqi prisoners were being mistreated. The Army, they say, is now trying to deflect blame onto him.

"They're trying to cover up these war crimes and use my nephew as expendable. I'm not going to allow that," Lawson said.

Six service members, including Frederick, face criminal charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees.

Seven more U.S. soldiers have been reprimanded in the alleged abuse. Six of the soldiers -- all officers and noncommissioned officers -- have received the most severe level of administrative reprimand in the U.S. military, a military official said on condition of anonymity. A seventh officer was given a more lenient admonishment.

Two of the six were "released for cause," meaning they were relieved of their duties and reassigned "with prejudice," said Larry Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. He also said that the six who received letters of reprimand were from a military police unit.

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Last week, CBS' "60 Minutes II" broadcast images showing Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by their U.S. captors.

An internal U.S. Army report found that Iraqi detainees were subjected to "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses," according to The New Yorker magazine.

In Pittsburgh yesterday, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., called the situation "tragic."

"It's disgusting that our troops and their leaders would allow such things to occur, much less in some cases obviously condone it, and to not understand the basic principles that our country stands for and that we do not treat anybody in such fashion, even those who are enemy combatants," Santorum said.

"It's just appalling and it's remarkable to me that that message isn't more drummed into their heads, that we are different than the rest of the world. Yes, the rest of the world may treat prisoners that way, but that's not America."

In Maryland, Lawson said at least some of the photographs showing prisoners being abused were posed.

The accused guards wanted photos to show Iraqi prisoners to frighten them into cooperating with military intelligence officials, he said.

Frederick "bears a small portion of responsibility for what has happened here," Lawson said.

The six accused of abusing and sexually humiliating prisoners are with the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cresaptown, Md., an hour's drive east of Oakland and just outside Cumberland.

	Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick's relatives watch television near Oakland, Md., as his uncle, Bill Lawson, gives an interview yesterday. From left are Frederick's stepmother, Diane Frederick; his father, Ivan "Red" Frederick; his mother, JoAnn Frederick; and his aunt, Vanessa Lawson. Click photo for larger image.

The town's largest employer is a state prison, which also provides a supply of Army Reservists with transferable skills.

"There's quite a few people in the town who serve there," said Curt Tringler, who runs a small store selling police and security equipment.

At the 372nd, Master Sgt. Mark Vankirk declined to say much, other than that his unit is dealing with the news "with a lot of stress."

The unit's 180 members were mobilized at the outbreak of the Iraq war last year. Some 120 are still in Iraq serving as MPs.

Frederick's outspoken accounts of the abuse, including an allegation that an Iraqi prisoner died during interrogation, have strained some feelings.

"I wouldn't want to say what I think of him. It wouldn't be polite," Vankirk said.

The Fredericks say their son repeatedly tried to tell Army superiors of the mistreatment and that guards at the prison were untrained and lacked guidelines about how to handle as many as 900 captives. Frederick was sent to the prison in September as the noncommissioned officer in charge.

"He got scared. He started calling us on the phone. He said, 'Mom, you wouldn't imagine what's going on over here. It's going to blow up,'" JoAnn Frederick said.

The Frederick family released a copy of a journal they said their son began to keep on Jan. 14, the day he was questioned by Army criminal investigators and his room and computer were searched.

"I questioned some of the things I saw," Frederick wrote Jan. 19, "such things as leaving inmates in their cells or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell. I questioned this and the answer I got was this is how military intelligence wants it done."

Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick in Iraq. Click photo for larger image.

Other journal entries suggest that intelligence officers controlled the prison, ordering the MPs to mistreat detainees to intimidate them into cooperating and giving information.

"MI has encouraged and told us great job that they were now getting positive results and information," wrote Frederick, who in civilian life worked as a correctional officer in a prison in Virginia, where he resides.

But aside from the journal, begun after military investigators targeted him, none of Frederick's earlier e-mails or letters home to family detailed mistreatment of prisoners. On March 21, Frederick e-mailed his mother.

"Almost all the things that were mentioned in the charges stated I did those things. The truth is, I didn't do it, but I witnessed it and I was afraid to say anything," Frederick wrote.

"I always asked one [soldier] if he thought he could get away with that kind of behavior and he always said to me, 'Relax, show me where I violated any rules.'"