posted on May 20, 2005 04:42:02 PM new
Army Warns Iraqi Forces On Abuse Of Detainees
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 20, 2005; Page A01
BAGHDAD, May 19 -- Before leaving Iraq in February, the 1st Cavalry Division compiled a list of more than 100 allegations of abusive treatment of detainees over the previous six months -- not by U.S. troops, but by Iraqi soldiers and police.
The 3rd Infantry Division, which has since taken over responsibility for the Baghdad region, has recorded 28 more such allegations, 15 of which have been substantiated, division lawyers say.
These previously undisclosed U.S. military records documenting Iraqi mistreatment of detainees, often accompanied by photos showing prisoners bruised or cut, """""highlight what U.S. commanders are calling a high-priority concern."""""(oh, really!)
As Iraq's military and police assume greater responsibility for fighting insurgents, senior U.S. officers say they have cautioned Iraqi authorities repeatedly -- in formal letters from commanders and in face-to-face encounters at detention centers and elsewhere -- against abusing prisoners.
This effort has led to friction between U.S. and Iraqi forces in the field, with Iraqis at times questioning demands for humane treatment of enemy fighters who themselves show no respect for the laws of war.
U.S. officers say they regularly warn the Iraqis that failure to curtail abusive behavior could tarnish the image of the new security services, risking a loss of Iraqi public support and jeopardizing U.S. and other foreign assistance.
(HEY, they LEARNED something)
Privately, U.S. commanders also express worry about their troops getting drawn into an Iraqi dirty war, particularly as several thousand military advisers embed this year with Iraqi units, putting them in a position to witness abusive action or be accused of acquiescing to it. The U.S. military has spent the past year struggling to get out from under the shadow of mistreatment by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In a letter last month to troops preparing to serve as advisers to Iraqi units, Army Gen. George Casey, the senior U.S. officer in Iraq, said one of their principal missions would be to ensure that Iraqi forces understood and complied with proper standards of detainee treatment.
"It is very important that we never turn a blind eye to abuses, thinking that what Iraqis do with their own detainees is 'Iraqi business,' " Casey wrote, according to a copy of the letter made available to The Washington Post. "Nor can we wink at suspected transgressions."
On April 29, Lt. Gen. John Vines, the senior U.S. tactical commander, issued an order requiring all U.S. forces to prevent, where possible, any abusive treatment by Iraqi forces and to report all such incidents of abuse up the chain of command. (LET'S DO THE SAME WITH U.S. TROOPS)
"We don't expect our soldiers to do a formal investigation, but we expect them to get the basic facts -- what Iraqi unit did this, what are the names of the soldiers involved, who else witnessed it -- and get statements and photos the best they can," said a senior lawyer on Vines's staff who spoke on condition of anonymity.
( maybe they can TORTURE the Iraqi's to get them to confess to torture)
The lawyer said command staff members had not focused on how to approach the issue of Iraqi treatment of detainees until they arrived in February and received the confidential records compiled by the 1st Cavalry. Those records revealed a range of methods in use. A summary page, shown to The Post, cited "assault with fists, wooden sticks, cords and weapons" and "beatings done with electrical cables." It also said "electrical shock and choking" were "consistently used to achieve confessions."
"Once we saw that, we began to think through the process of what we needed to do, and, quite frankly, we're still working through it," the lawyer said.
Iraq's treatment of detainees has drawn criticism from human rights groups. A 94-page report by Human Rights Watch in January concluded that abuse by the Iraqi police and intelligence forces had become "routine and commonplace." Based on research between July and October last year, the study found "little indication" of any serious measures "to enforce existing laws and put an end to" the mistreatment.
OK folks, THIS is the pot calling the kettle black !!!!
posted on May 20, 2005 07:27:30 PM new
The New York Times
In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths
By TIM GOLDEN
Published: May 20, 2005
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.
In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both…
"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."…
"There was nothing that prepared us for running an interrogation operation" like the one at Bagram, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Staff Sgt. Steven W. Loring, later told investigators.
Nor were the rules of engagement very clear. The platoon had the standard interrogations guide, Army Field Manual 34-52, and an order from the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to treat prisoners "humanely," and when possible, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But with President Bush's final determination in February 2002 that the Conventions did not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda and that Taliban fighters would not be accorded the rights of prisoners of war, the interrogators believed they "could deviate slightly from the rules," said one of the Utah reservists, Sgt. James A. Leahy.
"There was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners of war, but nothing for terrorists," Sergeant Leahy told Army investigators. And the detainees, senior intelligence officers said, were to be considered terrorists until proved otherwise…
By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, [military intelligence specialist Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis] said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."
[This is a very long article, but I urge you to click through and read it in its entirety. We citizens must fully comprehend the crimes our government has committed in our name.—Caro]
Below is Chris Floyd’s commentary on the article above.
Empire Burlesque
Friday, May 20, 2005
Tears of Rage, Tears of Grief: A Nation Brought Low
The unspeakable brutality detailed in this story stems directly -- absolutely directly -- from George W. Bush himself.
It is George W. Bush who lifted the protection of the Geneva Conventions from all those he has rounded up in his "war on terror," including the literally thousands of innocent people (as confirmed by the Red Cross) devoured by his gulag.
It is George W. Bush -- this sniveling, smirking, shirking little coward, this cosseted little pipsqueak trying to prove his manhood with macho bluster and aggressive war -- who is directly responsible for establishing this world-wide system of inhuman degradation and pig-ignorant bullying.
It is his direct orders, his implications, his rhetoric and his will -- passed down along the entire chain of command -- that have instigated these crimes, these bloody stains on the national honor. Yet who among the high command -- from Rumsfeld on down -- has resigned in protest over these outrages? No one. They are all complicit, they have all played "cover your ass," passing the buck, and the blame, down to the lower ranks. And these lower ranks they have perverted with a relentless drumbeat of hate-speech and propaganda, deliberately fomenting a thirst for revenge that sweeps up every single Muslim in its blind wrath.
If you are an American with even one drop of genuine love for the country in your soul, you cannot read this story without shedding "tears of rage, tears of grief," in Bob Dylan's haunting words. What have they done to us, these snarling apes in their thousand-dollar suits? What have they done to us, these sanctimonious killers, mouthing the name of God through teeth flecked with human guts?
