USA Watch: Iraq

April 13, 2006

Iraqi official claims death squads trained by the US

Iraqi Interior Minister denies running Shia death squads
By Kim Sengupta, The Independent
Published: 13 April 2006

A 150,000-strong private security force, raised and trained by the US, is linked to the murderous death squads stalking Iraq, the country's Interior Minister claimed yesterday.

Bayan Jabr denied that it was his own ministry which has been responsible for abductions, torture and murders of thousands of people.

Instead Mr Jabr, a former Shia militia member who is widely blamed by the country's Sunni community for allegedly masterminding sectarian attacks, declared that the Facility Protection Service (FPS), set up by the Americans to guard official buildings, was responsible.

He also claimed that elements among the 30,000 private security guards operating in Iraq were complicit in the killings.

"There are some forces out of order, not under our control, not under the control of the ministry", Mr Jabr said in an interview with the BBC.

"Many of them are uniformed like the police, their cars are like the police. Terrorists or someone who supports the terrorists are using the clothes of the police and the military."

The activities of the death squads have sown a particularly deep terror even amid the unremitting violence of Iraq. Every day bodies of victims are found dumped on roadsides, often with marks of prolonged torture.

Many are victims of sectarian targeting. Just last month 1,300 bodies were discovered after the golden dome of a venerated Shia shrine was blown up in the city of Samarra.

The FPS was organised by the US following the invasion to carry out security duties. Many of the recruits were former members of the Iraqi army and American officials were accused of ignoring screening procedures in an attempt to make up numbers.

Meanwhile bitter rivalry between two Shia factions continued to stall the formation of a new Iraqi government four months after national elections.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his Dawa Party are opposed by Sciri, headed by cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, with its armed wing the Badr Brigade.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article357425.ece

Posted by marga at 2:28 PM | TrackBack

April 5, 2006

CBS Cameraman Is Acquitted by Iraqi Court

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By VANESSA ARRINGTON Associated Press Writer

April 05,2006 | BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An Iraqi cameraman working for CBS News was acquitted Wednesday of insurgent activity, a year after being wounded and detained by the U.S. military after a car bombing.

A three-judge panel ruled there was insufficient evidence against Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, who was filming the bombing aftermath in the northern city of Mosul when he was apprehended.

But Hussein, 25, was returned to Abu Ghraib prison pending final U.S. military approval of his release.

"I am so happy," said Hussein's brother, Mohammed Younis Hussein, who traveled from Mosul for the trial. "I have cried a lot these months, but now I feel I can rest. It's incredible."

The defendant, who wore a yellow jumpsuit, was not permitted to speak to reporters. Between appearances on the witness stand, he had to kneel on the floor in the back of the courtroom, facing a wall. A half-dozen American soldiers in full body armor stood nearby, guarding him and other Iraqi defendants, who also faced the wall.

CBS staff in Baghdad and the U.S. military had no immediate comment on the acquittal. Hussein could have faced life in prison if convicted.

Scott Horton, one of his American lawyers, said the U.S. military claimed Hussein had prior knowledge of the car bombing and celebrated with other Iraqis in the aftermath, chanting "God is Great!"

But prosecutors acknowledged there was not enough evidence and moved to drop the case.

In testimony to the panel, Hussein said he was filming a celebration at a university in Mosul in April 2005 when he heard a car bomb explode. He said he called a colleague at a French news agency to find out more about the location, then raced to the site in a taxi.

He encountered American troops surrounding the area and waited until they cleared to go in and film, he said. After getting some footage, he said he heard people start yelling there were snipers in the area and he felt a shot.

"They shot me in the hip," he said of the American troops. "I tried to stand up, but I couldn't."

After five minutes, troops arrived and took him to the hospital.

"All the time they were cursing me, and calling me a terrorist," he said. "I kept saying, 'I'm not a terrorist. I'm a correspondent.'"

The U.S. military alleged that Hussein was standing near a man waving a gun and inciting the crowd after the bombing. Hussein denied that.

Reporters Without Borders in Paris said Hussein was the fourth journalist released by the U.S. military in Iraq this year and no other journalists are known to be held by American forces there at this time.

Posted by marga at 8:49 AM | TrackBack

March 6, 2006

Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq

Thousands of detainees being held by the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) in Iraq are trapped in a system of arbitrary detention that denies them their basic rights, Amnesty International said in a report published today. At the same time, there is increasing evidence of torture of detainees by the Iraqi security forces that the MNF underpins.

"Three years after it toppled Saddam Hussain, the US-led alliance has failed to put in place measures which respect the basic rights of detainees under its control and to safeguard them from possible torture or other abuses. The system of detention that has been established is arbitrary and a recipe for possible abuse," said Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Some detainees have now been held without charge or trial by the MNF for more than two years without being given an adequate opportunity to challenge the reasons for their imprisonment. They face the prospect of being held for years more on the basis of information to which they do not have access. The systems the US and UK use to review detainees' cases fail to meet international standards, including the requirement for court oversight. Detainees are also routinely denied access to lawyers and their families.

The report Beyond Abu Ghraib: Detention and torture in Iraq focuses on human rights violations for which the MNF is directly responsible but points also to mounting evidence of torture by Iraqi security forces operating alongside the MNF, including the so-called Wolf Brigade that reports to the Iraqi Interior Ministry. There have also been cases in which detainees have died in the custody of Iraqi forces. Amnesty International is concerned that these cases and torture allegations have not been properly investigated and those responsible held to account. US and UK investigations into abuses by their forces have also generally focused on junior military personnel and sentences have failed to reflect the gravity of the offences.

It is imperative that both the MNF and the Iraqi authorities take urgent steps to reassert the importance of fundamental human rights if there is to be any hope of halting Iraq's slide towards ever increasing violence and sectarianism. In particular, they must ensure that detainees' rights are respected in full, that all allegations of torture or other abuses are thoroughly and promptly investigated, and that those responsible for ordering or carrying out abuses, however senior, are brought to justice.

"International human rights law applicable in Iraq as well as domestic Iraqi legislation contain safeguards to protect the fundamental rights of people in detention � including the right not to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment. It is high time for all parties to the conflict to start observing the laws to which they have been and remain legally bound," said Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui.

For a copy of the report, Beyond Abu Ghraib: Detention and torture in Iraq, please see:

Iraq: Beyond Abu Ghraib: Detention and torture in Iraq - Amnesty International

Posted by marga at 10:18 AM | TrackBack

March 2, 2006

Human rights abuses in Iraq as bad now as under Saddam

Ex-Official: Iraq Abuses Growing Worse

By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: SYDNEY Australia

Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein,as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday.

John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights
office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial
executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by
both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate
deaths.

"Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of
expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK," Pace said in an
interview with The Associated Press. "But now, no. Here, you have a primitive,
chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone."

Pace, who was born in Malta but now resides in Australia, said that while the
scale of atrocity under Saddam was "daunting," now nobody is safe from abuse.

"It is certainly as bad," he said. "It extends over a much wider section of
the population than it did under Saddam."

Pace, currently a visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales in
Sydney, spoke as sectarian tensions in Iraq push the country to the brink of
civil war.

There has been a surge in religious violence in Iraq since the Feb. 22
bombing of a Shiite shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, 60 miles north
of Baghdad, and a spate of reprisal attacks against Sunnis.

The situation has been made worse by extremist Shiite militia operating
within the ranks of the Interior Ministry, said Pace, who singled out the Badr
Brigade, which makes up a large chunk of the Iraqi security services and
military.

He said militia and insurgents are responsible for threatening morgue staff
in Baghdad not to perform autopsies on bodies of apparent victims of torture and
killings.

"They are told it is not necessary, and not in their interests," he said,
adding that both militia and insurgents were "trying to minimize any chances"
that their activities could be investigated and prosecuted.

Pace, who spent much of his two years in the post in Iraq, said he visited
the morgue in Baghdad once a week when he was in the city and regarded it as a
"barometer" of the level of violence in the country. He declined to provide more
specific details about the threats, citing fears for the safety of morgue
workers.

He said that around three-quarters of the several hundred bodies brought to
the morgue each month were categorized with "gunshot wound" as the cause of
death a phrase Pace says is a euphemism. "Nearly all were executed and tortured,
" he added.

Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, is a member of Iraq's biggest Shiite
party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, which
ran the Badr Brigade. Badr claims it is no longer an armed militia.

But former Badr commanders hold key posts in Interior Ministry commando
units, which are regarded by Sunnis as nothing more than death squads. In
November, the U.S. Army raided an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad and
found 158 tortured and starved Sunni prisoners.

"They have caused havoc," said Pace, referring to the Badr Brigade.
"They do basically as they please. They arrest people, they torture people,
they execute people, they detain people, they negotiate ransom and they do
that with impunity."

Posted by marga at 10:58 PM | TrackBack

February 5, 2006

Documents Show Army Seized Wives As Tactic

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Fri Jan 27, 6:53 PM ET

The U.S. Army in
Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.

In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him "to come get his wife."

The issue of female detentions in Iraq has taken on a higher profile since kidnappers seized American journalist Jill Carroll on Jan. 7 and threatened to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees are freed.

The U.S. military on Thursday freed five of what it said were 11 women among the 14,000 detainees currently held in the 2 1/2-year-old insurgency. All were accused of "aiding terrorists or planting explosives," but an Iraqi government commission found that evidence was lacking.

Iraqi human rights activist Hind al-Salehi contends that U.S. anti-insurgent units, coming up empty-handed in raids on suspects' houses, have at times detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in.

Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, dismissed such claims, saying hostage-holding was a tactic used under the ousted
Saddam Hussein dictatorship, and "we are not Saddam." A U.S. command spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said only Iraqis who pose an "imperative threat" are held in long-term U.S.-run detention facilities.

But documents describing two 2004 episodes tell a different story as far as short-term detentions by local U.S. units. The documents are among hundreds the Pentagon has released periodically under U.S. court order to meet an
American Civil Liberties Union request for information on detention practices.

In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect's house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.

"During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," wrote the 14-year veteran officer.

He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway.

"The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing," the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said.

Like most names in the released documents, the officer's signature is blacked out on this for-the-record memorandum about his complaint.

Of this case, command spokesman Johnson said he could not judge, months later, the factors that led to the woman's detention.

The second episode, in June 2004, is found in sketchy detail in e-mail exchanges among six U.S. Army colonels, discussing an undisclosed number of female detainees held in northern Iraq by the Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.

The first message, from a military police colonel, advised staff officers of the U.S. northern command that the Iraqi police would not take control of the jailed women without charges being brought against them.

In a second e-mail, a command staff officer asked an officer of the unit holding the women, "What are you guys doing to try to get the husband � have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?"

Two days later, the brigade's deputy commander advised the higher command, "As each day goes by, I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in getting the husband."

He went on, "These ladies fought back extremely hard during the original detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation."

The command staff colonel wrote in reply, referring to a commanding general, "CG wants the husband."

The released e-mails stop there, and the women's eventual status could not be immediately determined.

Of this episode, Johnson said, "It is clear the unit believed the females detained had substantial knowledge of insurgent activity and warranted being held."

Posted by marga at 6:06 PM | TrackBack

July 2, 2004

U.S. Soldiers Charged in Iraqi Drowning Death

The Army charged three soldiers with manslaughter and a fourth with assault in connection with an incident last January in which they forced two Iraqi detainees to jump into the Tigris River.

U.S. Soldiers Charged in Iraqi Drowning Death (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 5:31 PM | TrackBack

June 22, 2004

U.S.: Investigate Civilian Deaths in Iraq Military Operations

The U.S. government needs to conduct independent and impartial investigations into possible unlawful killings of civilians and use of excessive force by U.S. military during operations in Iraq, Human Rights Watch said today.

The military's failure to investigate possible unlawful use of force creates a climate of impunity that ultimately undermines security. Serious violations that we've documented have been swept under the rug. It's time for the United States to account for these civilian casualties.

U.S.: Investigate Civilian Deaths in Iraq Military Operations (Human Rights Watch, 18-6-2004)

Posted by marga at 11:10 AM | TrackBack

June 9, 2004

Bush Policies Led to Abuse in Iraq

(New York, June 10, 2004) � The torture and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was the predictable result of the Bush administration's decision to circumvent international law, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 38-page report, �The Road to Abu Ghraib,� examines how the Bush administration adopted a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques � and then spent two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by U.S. troops.

�The horrors of Abu Ghraib were not simply the acts of individual soldiers,� said
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. �Abu Ghraib resulted from
decisions made by the Bush administration to cast the rules aside.�

According to Human Rights Watch, administration policies created the climate for Abu
Ghraib in three ways.

First, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration decided that
the war on terror permitted the United States to circumvent the restraints of international
law. The Geneva Conventions were sidestepped as �obsolete.� Lawyers from the
Pentagon, the Justice Department, and the White House Counsel�s office asserted that the
president was not bound by U.S. and international laws prohibiting torture.

Consequently, the United States began to create offshore, off-limits prisons such as
Guant�namo Bay, Cuba, and maintained other detainees in �undisclosed locations.� The
Bush administration also sent terrorism suspects without legal process to countries where
information was beaten out of them.

Second, the United States employed coercive methods to inflict pain and humiliation on
detainees to �soften them up� for interrogation. These methods included holding
detainees in painful stress positions; depriving them of sleep and light for prolonged
periods; exposing them to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light; hooding them; and
holding them naked.

These techniques are forbidden by prohibitions against torture and other cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment contained in international human rights law, the laws of armed
conflict, and the U.S. military's own long-standing regulations.

Third, until the publication of the Abu Ghraib photographs, Bush administration officials
took at best a �see no evil, hear no evil� approach to reports of detainee mistreatment.

>From the earliest days of the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq, the U.S.

government has covered up or failed to act on repeated, serious allegations of torture and
abuse.

The Bush administration has denied having a policy to torture or abuse detainees. Human
Rights Watch called on President Bush to provide evidence for those denials by publicly
releasing all relevant government documents.

Human Rights Watch also urged the administration to detail the steps being taken to
ensure that these abusive practices do not continue, and to prosecute vigorously all those
responsible for ordering or condoning this abuse.

�Everyone has seen the Abu Ghraib pictures,� said Roth. �It�s time President Bush
provides the full picture of U.S. policy on torture.�

To read the report, please see: http://hrw.org/reports/2004/usa0604/
-----------

Posted by marga at 10:10 AM | TrackBack

May 23, 2004

Abu Ghraib Prison Visits By General Reported In Hearing

A military lawyer for a soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib abuse case stated that a captain at the prison said the highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq was present during some "interrogations and/or allegations of the prisoner abuse," according to a recording of a military hearing obtained by The Washington Post.

Prison Visits By General Reported In Hearing (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 8:49 AM | TrackBack

May 21, 2004

Skipped autopsies in Iraq revealed

Autopsies were not performed on at least five Iraqi prisoners who died of mysterious causes at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention camps, according to Pentagon records.

And the lack of forensic investigations may conflict with international standards, including the Geneva Conventions, for the handling of war-detainee deaths.

DenverPost.com - WarFor9News

Posted by marga at 9:04 PM | TrackBack

Brutal interrogation in Iraq

Pentagon records provide the clearest view yet of the U.S. tactics used at Anu Ghraib and elsewhere to coax secrets from Iraqis.

Brutal interrogation techniques by U.S. military personnel are being investigated in connection with the deaths of at least five Iraqi prisoners in war-zone detention camps, Pentagon documents obtained by The Denver Post show.

DenverPost.com - NATION/WORLD

Posted by marga at 8:54 PM | TrackBack

U.S. admits to secret interrogation site in Baghdad

As hundreds of detainees were released from Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, a senior U.S. official Friday confirmed that a previously undisclosed U.S. military interrogation facility at or near Baghdad International Airport does indeed exist.

CNN.com - U.S. admits to secret interrogation site in Baghdad - May 21, 2004

Posted by marga at 7:24 PM | TrackBack

May 20, 2004

Iraqis Provide New Details of Abuse

Statements Describe Sexual Humiliation And Savage Beatings

Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets.

The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan, according to copies of the statements obtained by The Washington Post.

washingtonpost.com: Iraqis Provide New Details of Abuse

Posted by marga at 9:58 PM | TrackBack

'US soldiers started to shoot us, one by one'

Survivors describe wedding massacre as generals refuse to apologise

The wedding feast was finished and the women had just led the young bride and groom away to their marriage tent for the night when Haleema Shihab heard the first sounds of the fighter jets screeching through the sky above.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'US soldiers started to shoot us, one by one'

Posted by marga at 9:18 PM | TrackBack

Wardens Chosen to Establish Iraq Prison System Had Past Abuse Allegations

A number of former state prison commissioners chosen by the Bush administration to establish a prison system in Iraq left their old posts after allegations of neglect, brutality and inmate deaths, an investigation by ABCNEWS has found.

ABCNEWS.com : Iraq Prison Chiefs Had Troubling Pasts

Posted by marga at 6:40 PM | TrackBack

May 19, 2004

ICRC still concerned on Iraq jail

The Red Cross says it still has concerns about the treatment of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib jail.

A senior official told BBC One's Panorama programme that not all issues in a confidential report issued in February had been dealt with.

The ICRC says it has asked for further changes to be made.

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | ICRC still concerned on Iraq jail

Posted by marga at 4:20 PM | TrackBack

Reuters journalists abused by US troops

**Updates IFEX alert of 28 January 2004; for further information on CPJ's
report about the dangers faced by Iraqi journalists, see alert of 17 May
2004**

(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is an 18 May 2004 CPJ press release:

REUTERS JOURNALISTS ABUSED BY U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ

New York, May 18, 2004-Reuters news agency revealed today that three of its
Iraqi employees were subjected to sexual abuse and humiliation in January,
when they were arrested by U.S. troops near Fallujah while covering the
aftermath of the downing of a U.S. helicopter.

According to Reuters, U.S. troops detained cameraman Salem Ureibi,
journalist Ahmad Mohammad Hussein al-Badrani, and their driver, Sattar Jabar
al-Badrani, on January 2. The men were released without charge three days
later.

A cameraman working for the U.S.-based TV network NBC, Ali Mohammed Hussein al-Badrani, was also detained with the group, according to NBC News Vice
President Bill Wheatley. Wheatley said that while U.S. troops mistreated the
NBC cameraman, putting bags over his head and kicking him, he did not suffer
sexual abuse.

According to Reuters, while their employees were detained, "[t]wo of the
three said they had been forced to insert a finger into their anus and then
lick it, and were forced to put shoes in their mouths."

Reuters also reported that, "All three said they were forced to make
demeaning gestures as soldiers laughed, taunted them and took photographs."
The employees also claimed that U.S. soldiers said they would take them to
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that the soldiers "deprived them of sleep, placed
bags over their heads, kicked and hit them and forced them to remain in
stress positions for long periods." One of the Reuters journalists said he
feared that he would be raped because soldiers told him they wanted to have
sex with him.

The employees said the abuse occurred at Forward Operating Base Volturno,
near Fallujah.

According to Reuters, the employees decided to go public with the
allegations only after the U.S. military claimed that there was no evidence
of abuse, and after the recent allegations of similar abuse of Iraqi
prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison, near Baghdad, came to light.

At the time of the journalists' arrests, U.S. military officials told
journalists that troops at the scene of the helicopter crash had come under
fire from Iraqi insurgents posing as members of the press. However, a
military official said later that there was no credible evidence that the
detained journalists were responsible for shooting at the troops. It is
unclear whether U.S. troops mistook the Reuters and NBC journalists for
armed guerrillas.

While the detentions were widely reported, many of the specific allegations
of abuse were not made public until today. On January 21, CPJ sent a letter
to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez urging him "to ensure that [the investigation
into the abuse of the Reuters journalists] is conducted in a thorough and
expeditious manner in order to address growing concerns about the conduct of
U.S. forces toward working journalists in Iraq."

In a summary of its investigation dated January 28 and sent to Reuters, the
military said it had interviewed the soldiers responsible for the detainees,
and that "none admit or report knowledge of physical abuse or torture."
However, the U.S. military did not interview any of the detainees as part of
its investigation.

Yesterday, Reuters received a letter from Lt. General Sanchez dated March 5
claiming that the initial military investigation had been "thorough and
complete."

"The U.S. military's superficial investigation is an affront to the dignity
of these journalists, whose allegations are extremely serious," said CPJ
Executive Director Ann Cooper. "Clearly, a more vigorous investigation is
called for, along with punishment for anyone found responsible for abuse."

NBC's Wheatley told CPJ that NBC has sent several letters to U.S. military
officials but has yet to see the results of the investigation.

Also yesterday, CPJ released a detailed report about the dangers faced by
Iraqi journalists, who regularly endure harassment, threats, and attacks
from both U.S. troops and Iraqi insurgents.

Read the report here:
http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2004/iraq_journ_5_04/iraq_journ_5_04.html

CPJ is investigating other incidents of alleged abuse of Iraqi journalists
by U.S. troops, including the case of Al-Jazeera cameraman Suhaib al-Baz,
who in a recent interview claimed that he had also been abused while in U.S.
custody.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is an independent, nonpartisan
organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide. For more
information about press conditions in Iraq, visit www.cpj.org.

For further information, contact Joel Campagna (x 103) or Hani Sabra (x 104)
at CPJ, 330 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10001, U.S.A., tel: +1 212 465 1004,
fax: +1 212 465 9568, e-mail: mideast@cpj.org, jcampagna@cpj.org,
hsabra@cpj.org; Internet: http://www.cpj.org/

The information contained in this press release/update is the sole
responsibility of CPJ. In citing this material for broadcast or publication,
please credit CPJ.
_________________________________________________________________
DISTRIBUTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
EXCHANGE (IFEX) CLEARING HOUSE
489 College Street, Suite 403, Toronto (ON) M6G 1A5 CANADA
tel: +1 416 515 9622 fax: +1 416 515 7879
alerts e-mail: alerts@ifex.org general e-mail: ifex@ifex.org
Internet site: http://www.ifex.org/
_________________________________________________________________

Posted by marga at 1:51 PM | TrackBack

Wedding Party Reportedly Comes Under Fire

U.S. Military Investigating Report of Attack Near Syrian Border

A U.S. helicopter fired on a wedding party early Wednesday in western Iraq, killing more than 40 people, Iraqi officials said. The U.S. military said it could not confirm the report and was investigating.

Lt. Col Ziyad al-Jbouri, deputy police chief of the city of Ramadi, said between 42 and 45 people died in the attack, which took place about 2:45 a.m. in a remote desert area near the border with Syria and Jordan. He said those killed included 15 children and 10 women.

washingtonpost.com: Wedding Party Reportedly Comes Under Fire

Posted by marga at 12:44 PM | TrackBack

May 18, 2004

Definitely a Cover-Up

Former Abu Ghraib Intel Staffer Says Army Concealed Involvement in Abuse Scandal

May 18, 2004 Dozens of soldiers - other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged - were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

ABCNEWS.com : Intel Staffer Cites Abu Ghraib Cover-Up

Posted by marga at 4:23 PM | TrackBack

Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government'

For nearly 12 years, Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. For three years he trained fellow Marines in one of the most grueling indoctrination rituals in military life - Marine boot camp.

sacbee.com -- Opinion -- Atrocities in Iraq: 'I killed innocent people for our government'

Posted by marga at 1:51 AM | TrackBack

May 17, 2004

How high does it go?

The more we find out about what happened at Abu Ghraib, the less it looks like a case of renegade soldiers.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert

May 18, 2004 | Last week, as the Bush administration struggled to contain the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, Peter Feaver, a Duke University professor and former National Security Council staff member, suggested a worst-case scenario for the White House: If "a senior civilian, or maybe even [Secretary of Defense] Rumsfeld, [had] signed a memo that indicated, yes, sexual humiliation for prisoners is OK."

Salon.com News | How high does it go?

Posted by marga at 9:12 PM | TrackBack

The Roots of Torture

It's not easy to get a member of Congress to stop talking. Much less a room full of them. But as a small group of legislators watched the images flash by in a small, darkened hearing room in the Rayburn Building last week, a sickened silence descended. There were 1,800 slides and several videos, and the show went on for three hours. The nightmarish images showed American soldiers at Abu Ghraib Prison forcing Iraqis to masturbate. American soldiers sexually assaulting Iraqis with chemical light sticks. American soldiers laughing over dead Iraqis whose bodies had been abused and mutilated. There was simply nothing to say. "It was a very subdued walk back to the House floor," said Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "People were ashen."

MSNBC - The Roots of Torture

Posted by marga at 2:14 PM | TrackBack

May 16, 2004

Iraqis, desperately seeking detainees, meet frustration

Note: Taking of hostages is considered a grave breach of the Geneva conventions. Arresting someone without charging him is akin to hostage taking under international law.

----

She didn't want to be a troublemaker; she's a US citizen, after all. So when American soldiers came to Jeanan Moayad's house, looking for her father, she cooperated. She showed them his medical records and her own Texas birth certificate. Her father was in Jordan, she told them, undergoing surgery. So they took her husband instead.

Iraqis, desperately seeking detainees, meet frustration | csmonitor.com

Posted by marga at 11:00 PM | TrackBack

Some Iraqis Held Outside Purview of U.S. Command

About 100 high-ranking Iraqi prisoners held for months at a time in spartan conditions on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport are being detained under a special chain of command, under conditions not subject to approval by the top American commander in Iraq, according to military officials.

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Some Iraqis Held Outside Purview of U.S. Command

Posted by marga at 10:46 PM | TrackBack

May 15, 2004

Knowledge of Abuse May Go Higher Yet

Army intelligence officers suspected that a Syrian and admitted Jihadist who was detained at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad knew about the illegal flow of money, arms and foreign fighters into Iraq. But he was smug, the officers said, and refused to talk. So last November, they devised a special plan for his interrogation, going beyond what Army rules normally allowed.

Knowledge of Abuse May Go Higher Yet (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 9:59 PM | TrackBack

How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.

- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and one of
his top aides authorized the expansion of a secret program that permitted
harsh interrogations of detained members of Al Qaeda to be used against
prisoners in Iraq, including detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison,
according to an article in The New Yorker Magazine.

Read Article

Posted by marga at 5:38 PM | TrackBack

May 11, 2004

General Overseeing Prison Says She Was Overruled

The U.S. general who was in charge of running prisons in Iraq told Army investigators earlier this year that she had resisted decisions by superior officers to hand over control of the prisons to military intelligence officials and to authorize the use of lethal force as a first step in keeping order -- command decisions that have come in for heavy criticism in the Iraq prison abuse scandal.

General Overseeing Prison Says She Was Overruled (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 11:48 PM | TrackBack

Taguba, Cambone on Abu Ghraib Report

A transcript on today's U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the the treatment of Iraqi Prisoners is available at http://www.torturers.net/info/iraq/con-taguba.html

Posted by marga at 5:35 PM | TrackBack

Iraq: UNICEF "profoundly disturbed" by allegations of abuse of detained children

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is profoundly disturbed by news reports alleging that children might have been among those abused in detention centres and prisons in Iraq, a spokesman said today.

Iraq: UNICEF ‘profoundly disturbed’ by allegations of abuse of detained children

Posted by marga at 3:18 PM | TrackBack

May 10, 2004

Mistreatment Of Detainees Went Beyond Guards' Abuse

Problems in the U.S.-run detention system in Iraq extended beyond physical mistreatment in prison cellblocks, involving thousands of arrests without evidence of wrongdoing and abuse of suspects starting from the moment of detention, according to former prisoners, Iraqi lawyers, human rights advocates and the International Committee for the Red Cross.

Mistreatment Of Detainees Went Beyond Guards' Abuse (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 9:30 PM | TrackBack

CHAIN OF COMMAND

I'm posting this article by Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker because the link to it doesn't seem to be working. It's available at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040517fa_fact2 .

May 10, 2004 |

CHAIN OF COMMAND by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

How the Department of Defense
mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib.

Issue of 2004-05-17 Posted 2004-05-09

In his devastating report on conditions at Abu Ghraib prison, in
Iraq, Major General Antonio M. Taguba singled out only three
military men for praise. One of them, Master-at-Arms William J.
Kimbro, a Navy dog handler, should be commended, Taguba wrote,
because he �knew his duties and refused to participate in improper
interrogations despite significant pressure from the MI��military
intelligence��personnel at Abu Ghraib.� Elsewhere in the report it
became clear what Kimbro would not do: American soldiers, Taguba
said, used �military working dogs to frighten and intimidate
detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually
biting a detainee.�

Taguba�s report was triggered by a soldier�s decision to give Army
investigators photographs of the sexual humiliation and abuse of
prisoners. These images were first broadcast on �60 Minutes II� on
April 28th. Seven enlisted members of the 372nd Military Police
Company of the 320th Military Police Battalion, an Army reserve
unit, are now facing prosecution, and six officers have been
reprimanded. Last week, I was given another set of digital
photographs, which had been in the possession of a member of the
320th. According to a time sequence embedded in the digital files,
the photographs were taken by two different cameras over a
twelve-minute period on the evening of December 12, 2003, two
months after the military-police unit was assigned to Abu Ghraib.

An Iraqi prisoner and American military dog handlers. Other
photographs show the Iraqi on the ground, bleeding.

One of the new photographs shows a young soldier, wearing a dark
jacket over his uniform and smiling into the camera, in the
corridor of the jail. In the background are two Army dog handlers,
in full camouflage combat gear, restraining two German shepherds.
The dogs are barking at a man who is partly obscured from the
camera�s view by the smiling soldier. Another image shows that the
man, an Iraqi prisoner, is naked. His hands are clasped behind his
neck and he is leaning against the door to a cell, contorted with
terror, as the dogs bark a few feet away. Other photographs show
the dogs straining at their leashes and snarling at the prisoner.
In another, taken a few minutes later, the Iraqi is lying on the
ground, writhing in pain, with a soldier sitting on top of him,
knee pressed to his back. Blood is streaming from the inmate�s leg.
Another photograph is a closeup of the naked prisoner, from his
waist to his ankles, lying on the floor. On his right thigh is what
appears to be a bite or a deep scratch. There is another, larger
wound on his left leg, covered in blood.

There is at least one other report of violence involving American
soldiers, an Army dog, and Iraqi citizens, but it was not in Abu
Ghraib. Cliff Kindy, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a
church-supported group that has been monitoring the situation in
Iraq, told me that last November G.I.s unleashed a military dog on
a group of civilians during a sweep in Ramadi, about thirty miles
west of Fallujah. At first, Kindy told me, �the soldiers went house
to house, and arrested thirty people.� (One of them was Saad
al-Khashab, an attorney with the Organization for Human Rights in
Iraq, who told Kindy about the incident.) While the thirty
detainees were being handcuffed and laid on the ground, a firefight
broke out nearby; when it ended, the Iraqis were shoved into a
house. Khashab told Kindy that the American soldiers then �turned
the dog loose inside the house, and several people were bitten.�
(The Defense Department said that it was unable to comment about
the incident before The New Yorker went to press.)

When I asked retired Major General Charles Hines, who was
commandant of the Army�s military-police school during a
twenty-eight-year career in military law enforcement, about these
reports, he reacted with dismay. �Turning a dog loose in a room of
people? Loosing dogs on prisoners of war? I�ve never heard of it,
and it would never have been tolerated,� Hines said. He added that
trained police dogs have long been a presence in Army prisons,
where they are used for sniffing out narcotics and other contraband
among the prisoners, and, occasionally, for riot control. But, he
said, �I would never have authorized it for interrogating or
coercing prisoners. If I had, I�d have been put in jail or kicked
out of the Army.�

The International Red Cross and human-rights groups have repeatedly
complained during the past year about the American military�s
treatment of Iraqi prisoners, with little success. In one case,
disclosed last month by the Denver Post, three Army soldiers from a
military-intelligence battalion were accused of assaulting a female
Iraqi inmate at Abu Ghraib. After an administrative review, the
three were fined �at least five hundred dollars and demoted in
rank,� the newspaper said.

Army commanders had a different response when, on January 13th, a
military policeman presented Army investigators with a computer
disk containing graphic photographs. The images were being swapped
from computer to computer throughout the 320th Battalion. The
Army�s senior commanders immediately understood they had a
problem�a looming political and public-relations disaster that
would taint America and damage the war effort.

One of the first soldiers to be questioned was Ivan Frederick, the
M.P. sergeant who was in charge of a night shift at Abu Ghraib.
Frederick, who has been ordered to face a court-martial in Iraq for
his role in the abuse, kept a running diary that began with a knock
on his door by agents of the Army�s Criminal Investigations
Division (C.I.D.) at two-thirty in the morning on January 14th. �I
was escorted . . . to the front door of our building, out of sight
from my room,� Frederick wrote, �while . . . two unidentified males
stayed in my room. �Are they searching my room?�� He was told yes.
Frederick later formally agreed to permit the agents to search for
cameras, computers, and storage devices.

On January 16th, three days after the Army received the pictures,
Central Command issued a blandly worded, five-sentence press
release about an investigation into the mistreatment of prisoners.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said last week that it was
then that he learned of the allegations. At some point soon
afterward, Rumsfeld informed President Bush. On January 19th,
Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the officer in charge of
American forces in Iraq, ordered a secret investigation into Abu
Ghraib. Two weeks later, General Taguba was ordered to conduct his
inquiry. He submitted his report on February 26th. By then,
according to testimony before the Senate last week by General
Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, people
�inside our building� had discussed the photographs. Myers, by his
own account, had still not read the Taguba report or seen the
photographs, yet he knew enough about the abuses to persuade �60
Minutes II� to delay its story.

At a Pentagon news conference last week, Rumsfeld and Marine
General Peter Pace, the Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
insisted that the investigation into Abu Ghraib had moved routinely
through the chain of command. If the Army had been slow, it was
because of built-in safeguards. Pace told the journalists, �It�s
important to know that as investigations are completed they come up
the chain of command in a very systematic way. So that the
individual who reports in writing [sends it] up to the next level
commander. But he or she takes time, a week or two weeks, three
weeks, whatever it takes, to read all of the documentation, get
legal advice [and] make the decisions that are appropriate at his
or her level. . . . That way everyone�s rights are protected and we
have the opportunity systematically to take a look at the entire
process.�

In interviews, however, retired and active-duty officers and
Pentagon officials said that the system had not worked. Knowledge
of the nature of the abuses�and especially the politically toxic
photographs�had been severely, and unusually, restricted.
�Everybody I�ve talked to said, �We just didn�t know��not even in
the J.C.S.,� one well-informed former intelligence official told
me, emphasizing that he was referring to senior officials with whom
such allegations would normally be shared. �I haven�t talked to
anybody on the inside who knew�nowhere. It�s got them scratching
their heads.� A senior Pentagon official said that many of the
senior generals in the Army were similarly out of the loop on the
Abu Ghraib allegations.

Within the Pentagon, there was a spate of fingerpointing last week.
One top general complained to a colleague that the commanders in
Iraq should have taken C4, a powerful explosive, and blown up Abu
Ghraib last spring, with all of its �emotional baggage��the prison
was known for its brutality under Saddam Hussein�instead of turning
it into an American facility. �This is beyond the pale in terms of
lack of command attention,� a retired major general told me,
speaking of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. �Where were the flag
officers? And I�m not just talking about a one-star,� he added,
referring to Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commander at
Abu Ghraib who was relieved of duty. �This was a huge leadership
failure.�

The Pentagon official told me that many senior generals believe
that, along with the civilians in Rumsfeld�s office, General
Sanchez and General John Abizaid, who is in charge of the Central
Command, in Tampa, Florida, had done their best to keep the issue
quiet in the first months of the year. The official chain of
command flows from General Sanchez, in Iraq, to Abizaid, and on to
Rumsfeld and President Bush. �You�ve got to match action, or
nonaction, with interests,� the Pentagon official said. �What is
the motive for not being forthcoming? They foresaw major diplomatic
problems.�

Secrecy and wishful thinking, the Pentagon official said, are
defining characteristics of Rumsfeld�s Pentagon, and shaped its
response to the reports from Abu Ghraib. �They always want to delay
the release of bad news�in the hope that something good will
break,� he said. The habit of procrastination in the face of bad
news led to disconnects between Rumsfeld and the Army staff
officers who were assigned to planning for troop requirements in
Iraq. A year ago, the Pentagon official told me, when it became
clear that the Army would have to call up more reserve units to
deal with the insurgency, �we had call-up orders that languished
for thirty or forty days in the office of the Secretary of
Defense.� Rumsfeld�s staff always seemed to be waiting for
something to turn up�for the problem to take care of itself,
without any additional troops. The official explained, �They were
hoping that they wouldn�t have to make a decision.� The delay meant
that soldiers in some units about to be deployed had only a few
days to prepare wills and deal with other family and financial
issues.

The same deliberate indifference to bad news was evident in the
past year, the Pentagon official said, when the Army conducted a
series of elaborate war games. Planners would present best-case,
moderate-case, and worst-case scenarios, in an effort to assess
where the Iraq war was headed and to estimate future troop needs.
In every case, the number of troops actually required exceeded the
worst-case analysis. Nevertheless, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
civilian officials in the Pentagon continued to insist that future
planning be based on the most optimistic scenario. �The optimistic
estimate was that at this point in time��mid-2004��the U.S. Army
would need only a handful of combat brigades in Iraq,� the Pentagon
official said. �There are nearly twenty now, with the international
coalition drying up. They were wildly off the mark.� The official
added, �From the beginning, the Army community was saying that the
projections and estimates were unrealistic.� Now, he said, �we�re
struggling to maintain a hundred and thirty-five thousand troops
while allowing soldiers enough time back home.�

In his news conference last Tuesday, Rumsfeld, when asked whether
he thought the photographs and stories from Abu Ghraib were a
setback for American policy in Iraq, still seemed to be in denial.
�Oh, I�m not one for instant history,� he responded. By Friday,
however, with some members of Congress and with editorials calling
for his resignation, Rumsfeld testified at length before House and
Senate committees and apologized for what he said was
�fundamentally un-American� wrongdoing at Abu Ghraib. He also
warned that more, and even uglier, disclosures were to come.
Rumsfeld said that he had not actually looked at any of the Abu
Ghraib photographs until some of them appeared in press accounts,
and hadn�t reviewed the Army�s copies until the day before. When he
did, they were �hard to believe,� he said. �There are other photos
that depict . . . acts that can only be described as blatantly
sadistic, cruel, and inhuman.� Later, he said, �It�s going to get
still more terrible, I�m afraid.� Rumsfeld added, �I failed to
recognize how important it was.�

NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the
unreleased photographs showed American soldiers �severely beating
an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi
prisoner, and �acting inappropriately with a dead body.� The
officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S.
personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.�

No amount of apologetic testimony or political spin last week could
mask the fact that, since the attacks of September 11th, President
Bush and his top aides have seen themselves as engaged in a war
against terrorism in which the old rules did not apply. In the
privacy of his office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the
reluctance of senior Pentagon generals and admirals to act
aggressively. By mid-2002, he and his senior aides were exchanging
secret memorandums on modifying the culture of the military leaders
and finding ways to encourage them �to take greater risks.� One
memo spoke derisively of the generals in the Pentagon, and said,
�Our prerequisite of perfection for �actionable intelligence� has
paralyzed us. We must accept that we may have to take action before
every question can be answered.� The Defense Secretary was told
that he should �break the �belt-and-suspenders� mindset within
today�s military . . . we �over-plan� for every contingency. . . .
We must be willing to accept the risks.� With operations involving
the death of foreign enemies, the memo went on, the planning should
not be carried out in the Pentagon: �The result will be decision by
committee.�

The Pentagon�s impatience with military protocol extended to
questions about the treatment of prisoners caught in the course of
its military operations. Soon after 9/11, as the war on terror got
under way, Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly made public his disdain for
the Geneva conventions. Complaints about America�s treatment of
prisoners, Rumsfeld said in early 2002, amounted to �isolated
pockets of international hyperventilation.�

The effort to determine what happened at Abu Ghraib has evolved
into a sprawling set of related investigations, some of them
hastily put together, including inquiries into twenty-five
suspicious deaths. Investigators have become increasingly concerned
with the role played not only by military and intelligence
officials but also by C.I.A. agents and private-contract employees.
In a statement, the C.I.A. acknowledged that its Inspector General
had an investigation under way into abuses at Abu Ghraib, which
extended to the death of a prisoner. A source familiar with one of
the investigations told me that the victim was the man whose
photograph, which shows his battered body packed in ice, has
circulated around the world. A Justice Department prosecutor has
been assigned to the case. The source also told me that an Army
intelligence operative and a judge advocate general were seeking,
through their lawyers, to negotiate immunity from prosecution in
return for testimony.

The relationship between military policing and intelligence forces
inside the Army prison system reached a turning point last fall in
response to the insurgency against the Coalition Provisional
Authority. �This is a fight for intelligence,� Brigadier General
Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, told a
reporter at a Baghdad press briefing in November. �Do I have enough
soldiers? The answer is absolutely yes. The larger issue is, how do
I use them and on what basis? And the answer to that is
intelligence . . . to try to figure out how to take all this human
intelligence as it comes in to us [and] turn it into something
that�s actionable.� The Army prison system would now be asked to
play its part.

Two months earlier, Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of
the task force in charge of the prison at Guant�namo, had brought a
team of experts to Iraq to review the Army program. His
recommendation was radical: that Army prisons be geared, first and
foremost, to interrogations and the gathering of information needed
for the war effort. �Detention operations must act as an enabler
for interrogation . . . to provide a safe, secure and humane
environment that supports the expeditious collection of
intelligence,� Miller wrote. The military police on guard duty at
the prisons should make support of military intelligence a
priority.

General Sanchez agreed, and on November 19th his headquarters
issued an order formally giving the 205th Military Intelligence
Brigade tactical control over the prison. General Taguba fearlessly
took issue with the Sanchez orders, which, he wrote in his report,
�effectively made an MI Officer, rather than an MP officer,
responsible for the MP units conducting detainee operations at that
facility. This is not doctrinally sound due to the different
missions and agenda assigned to each of these respective
specialties.�

Taguba also criticized Miller�s report, noting that �the
intelligence value of detainees held at . . . Guant�namo is
different than that of the detainees/internees held at Abu Ghraib
and other detention facilities in Iraq. . . . There are a large
number of Iraqi criminals held at Abu Ghraib. These are not
believed to be international terrorists or members of Al Qaeda.�
Taguba noted that Miller�s recommendations �appear to be in
conflict� with other studies and with Army regulations that call
for military-police units to have control of the prison system. By
placing military-intelligence operatives in control instead,
Miller�s recommendations and Sanchez�s change in policy undoubtedly
played a role in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. General Taguba concluded
that certain military-intelligence officers and civilian
contractors at Abu Ghraib were �either directly or indirectly
responsible� for the abuses, and urged that they be subjected to
disciplinary action.

In late March, before the Abu Ghraib scandal became publicly known,
Geoffrey Miller was transferred from Guant�namo and named head of
prison operations in Iraq. �We have changed this�trust us,� Miller
told reporters in early May. �There were errors made. We have
corrected those. We will make sure that they do not happen again.�

Military-intelligence personnel assigned to Abu Ghraib repeatedly
wore �sterile,� or unmarked, uniforms or civilian clothes while on
duty. �You couldn�t tell them apart,� the source familiar with the
investigation said. The blurring of identities and organizations
meant that it was impossible for the prisoners, or, significantly,
the military policemen on duty, to know who was doing what to whom,
and who had the authority to give orders. Civilian employees at the
prison were not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but
they were bound by civilian law�though it is unclear whether
American or Iraqi law would apply.

One of the employees involved in the interrogations at Abu Ghraib,
according to the Taguba report, was Steven Stefanowicz, a civilian
working for CACI International, a Virginia-based company. Private
companies like CACI and Titan Corp. could pay salaries of well over
a hundred thousand dollars for the dangerous work in Iraq, far more
than the Army pays, and were permitted, as never before in U.S.
military history, to handle sensitive jobs. (In a briefing last
week, General Miller confirmed that Stefanowicz had been reassigned
to administrative duties. A CACI spokeswoman declined to comment on
any employee in Iraq, citing safety concerns, but said that the
company still had not heard anything directly from the government
about Stefanowicz.)

Stefanowicz and his colleagues conducted most, if not all, of their
interrogations in the Abu Ghraib facilities known to the soldiers
as the Wood Building and the Steel Building. The interrogation
centers were rarely visited by the M.P.s, a source familiar with
the investigation said. The most important prisoners�the suspected
insurgency members deemed to be High Value Detainees�were housed at
Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, but the pressure on
soldiers to accede to requests from military intelligence was felt
throughout the system.

Not everybody went along. A company captain in a military-police
unit in Baghdad told me last week that he was approached by a
junior intelligence officer who requested that his M.P.s keep a
group of detainees awake around the clock until they began talking.
�I said, �No, we will not do that,�� the captain said. �The M.I.
commander comes to me and says, �What is the problem? We�re
stressed, and all we are asking you to do is to keep them awake.� I
ask, �How? You�ve received training on that, but my soldiers don�t
know how to do it. And when you ask an eighteen-year-old kid to
keep someone awake, and he doesn�t know how to do it, he�s going to
get creative.�� The M.I. officer took the request to the captain�s
commander, but, the captain said, �he backed me up.

�It�s all about people. The M.P.s at Abu Ghraib were failed by
their commanders�both low-ranking and high,� the captain said. �The
system is broken�no doubt about it. But the Army is made up of
people, and we�ve got to depend on them to do the right thing.�

In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link
between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at
Abu Ghraib. A few months after General Miller�s report, Taguba
wrote, General Sanchez, apparently troubled by reports of
wrongdoing in Army jails in Iraq, asked Army Provost Marshal Donald
Ryder, a major general, to carry out a study of military prisons.
In the resulting study, which is still classified, Ryder identified
a conflict between military policing and military intelligence
dating back to the Afghan war. He wrote, �Recent intelligence
collection in support of Operation Enduring Freedom posited a
template whereby military police actively set favorable conditions
for subsequent interviews.�

One of the most prominent prisoners of the Afghan war was John
Walker Lindh, the twenty-one-year-old Californian who was captured
in December, 2001. Lindh was accused of training with Al Qaeda
terrorists and conspiring to kill Americans. A few days after his
arrest, according to a federal-court affidavit filed by his
attorney, James Brosnahan, a group of armed American soldiers
�blindfolded Mr. Lindh, and took several pictures of Mr. Lindh and
themselves with Mr. Lindh. In one, the soldiers scrawled �shithead�
across Mr. Lindh�s blindfold and posed with him. . . . Another told
Mr. Lindh that he was �going to hang� for his actions and that
after he was dead, the soldiers would sell the photographs and give
the money to a Christian organization.� Some of the photographs
later made their way to the American media. Lindh was later
stripped naked, bound to a stretcher with duct tape, and placed in
a windowless shipping container. Once again, the affidavit said,
�military personnel photographed Mr. Lindh as he lay on the
stretcher.� On July 15, 2002, Lindh agreed to plead guilty to
carrying a gun while serving in the Taliban and received a
twenty-year jail term. During that process, Brosnahan told me, �the
Department of Defense insisted that we state that there was �no
deliberate� mistreatment of John.� His client agreed to do so, but,
the attorney noted, �Against that, you have that photograph of a
naked John on that stretcher.�

The photographing of prisoners, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq,
seems to have been not random but, rather, part of the dehumanizing
interrogation process. The Times published an interview last week
with Hayder Sabbar Abd, who claimed, convincingly, to be one of the
mistreated Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib photographs. Abd told
Ian Fisher, the Times reporter, that his ordeal had been recorded,
almost constantly, by cameras, which added to his humiliation. He
remembered how the camera flashed repeatedly as soldiers told to
him to masturbate and beat him when he refused.

One lingering mystery is how Ryder could have conducted his review
last fall, in the midst of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib,
without managing to catch it. (Ryder told a Pentagon press briefing
last week that his trip to Iraq �was not an inspection or an
investigation. . . . It was an assessment.�) In his report to
Sanchez, Ryder flatly declared that �there were no military police
units purposely applying inappropriate confinement practices.�
Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as an agent of
the C.I.D., told me that Ryder was in a bureaucratic bind. The Army
had revised its command structure last fall, and Ryder, as provost
marshal, was now the commanding general of all military-police
units as well as of the C.I.D. He was, in essence, being asked to
investigate himself. �What Ryder should have done was set up a
C.I.D. task force headed by an 0-6��full colonel��with fifteen
agents, and begin interviewing everybody and taking sworn
statements,� Rowell said. �He had to answer questions about the
prisons in September, when Sanchez asked for an assessment.� At the
time, Rowell added, the Army prison system was unprepared for the
demands the insurgency placed on it. �Ryder was a man in a no-win
situation,� Rowell said. �As provost marshal, if he�d turned a
C.I.D. task force loose, he could be in harm�s way�because he�s
also boss of the military police. He was being eaten alive.�

Ryder may have protected himself, but Taguba did not. �He�s not
regarded as a hero in some circles in the Pentagon,� a retired Army
major general said of Taguba. �He�s the guy who blew the whistle,
and the Army will pay the price for his integrity. The leadership
does not like to have people make bad news public.�

Posted by marga at 1:52 AM | TrackBack

Full Text of ICRC February Report

The full text of the February 2004 ICRC report entitled Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation is available here.

Some names have been obscured, but otherwise, the report shows that the ICRC complained about treatment of Iraqi prisoners even before the war was over.

Posted by mike at 12:01 AM

May 9, 2004

As Insurgency Grew, So Did Prison Abuse

In the fall of 2003, U.S. officials watched anxiously as a potent guerrilla resistance rose across broad swaths of northern and central Iraq. Insurgents assassinated diplomats, detonated car bombs and mounted daily hit-and-run strikes on U.S. soldiers. Fearful of reprisals, Iraqis shrank from collaborating with an occupation authority that appeared powerless to reverse the tide of violence and lawlessness.

As Insurgency Grew, So Did Prison Abuse (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 11:34 PM | TrackBack

May 7, 2004

Reservist Charged With Abuse Speaks Out

There were no rules, by her account, and little training. But the mission was clear. Spec. Sabrina Harman, a military police officer charged with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said she was assigned to break down prisoners for interrogation.

"They would bring in one to several prisoners at a time already hooded and cuffed," Harman said in interviews by e-mail this week from Baghdad. "The job of the MP was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk."

Reservist Charged With Abuse Speaks Out (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 6:38 PM | TrackBack

Excerpts From Red Cross Report

Excerpts from the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY of "Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation" as published in the WSJ, 5/7/ 04

February 2004

The ICRC draws the attention of the Coalition Forces (hereafter called "the CF") to a number of serious violations of International Humanitarian Law. These violations have been documented and sometimes observed while visiting prisoners of war, civilian internees and other protected persons by the Geneva Conventions�in Iraq between March and November 2003. During its visits to places of internment of the CF, the ICRC collected allegations during private interviews with persons deprived of their liberty�.

The main violations, which are described in the ICRC report and presented confidentially to the CF, include:
� Brutality against protected persons upon capture and initial custody, sometimes causing death or serious injury

� Absence of notification of arrest of persons�to their families�.

� Physical or psychological coercion during interrogation to secure information

� Prolonged solitary confinement in cells devoid of daylight

� Excessive and disproportionate use of force against persons deprived of their liberty resulting in death or injury during their period of internment

Serious problems of conduct by the CF that affected persons deprived of their liberty are also presented in the report
� Seizure and confiscation of private belongings�

� Exposure of persons deprived of their liberty to dangerous tasks

� Holding persons deprived of their liberty in dangerous places where they are not protected from shelling

According to allegations collected by ICRC delegates during private interviews with persons deprived of their liberty, ill-treatment during capture was frequent. While certain circumstances might require defensive precautions and the use of force on the part of ballet group units, the ICRC collected allegations of ill-treatment following capture which took place in Baghdad, Basrah, Ramadi and Tikrit, indicating a consistent pattern with respect to times and places of brutal behavior during arrest. The repetition of such behavior by CF appeared to go beyond the reasonable, legitimate and proportional use of force required to apprehend suspects or restrain persons resisting arrest or capture, and seemed to reflect a usual modus operandi by certain CF battle groups.

According to the allegations collected by the ICRC, ill-treatment during interrogation was not systematic, except with regard to persons arrested in connection with suspected security offences or deemed to have an "intelligence" value. In these cases, persons deprived of their liberty under supervision of Military Intelligence were at high risk of being subjected to a variety of harsh treatments ranging from insults, threats and humiliations to both physical and psychological coercion, which in some cases was tantamount to torture, in order to force cooperation with their interrogators.

The ICRC also started to document what appeared to be widespread abuse of power and ill-treatment by the Iraqi police, which is under the supervision of the Occupying Power, including threats to hand over persons in their custody to the CF so as to extort money from them�.

In the case of "High Value Detainees" held in Baghdad International Airport, the continued internment, several months after their arrest, in strict solitary confinement in cells devoid of sunlight for nearly 23 hours a day constituted a serious violation of the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.

The ICRC was also concerned about the excessive and disproportionate use of force by some detaining authorities � during periods of unrest or escape attempts that caused death and serious injuries. The use of firearms against persons deprived of their liberty in circumstances where methods without using firearms could have yielded the same result could amount to a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law. The ICRC reviewed a number of incidents of shootings of persons deprived of their liberty with live bullets, which have resulted in deaths or injuries during periods of unrest related to conditions of internment or escape attempts. Investigations initiated by the CF into these incidents concluded that the use of firearms against persons deprived of their liberty was legitimate. However, non-lethal measures could have been used to obtain the same results�.

Since the beginning of the conflict, the ICRC has regularly brought its concerns to the attention of the CF. The observations in the present report are consistent with those made earlier on several occasions orally and in writing to the CF throughout 2003. In spite of some improvements in the material conditions of internment, allegations of ill-treatment perpetuated by members of the CF against persons deprived of their liberty continued to be collected by the ICRC and thus suggested that the use of ill-treatment against persons deprived of their liberty went beyond exceptional causes and might be considered as a practice tolerated by the CF.
* * *

The following is from the body of the report:

The main places of internment where mistreatment allegedly took place included battle group unit stations; the military intelligence sections of Camp Cropper and Abu Ghraib Correctional Facility; Al-Baghdadi, Heat Base and Hubbania Camp in Ramadi governorate; Tikrit holding area (former Saddam Hussein Islamic School); a former train station Al-Khaim, near the Syrian border, turned into a military base; the Ministry of Defense and Presidential Palace in Baghdad, the former mukhabarat office in Basrah, as well as several Iraqi police stations in Baghdad.

TREATMENT DURING INTERROGATION

Methods of Ill-Treatment
� Hooding, used to prevent people from seeing and to disorient them, and also to prevent them from breathing freely. One or sometimes two bags, sometimes with an elastic blindfold over the eyes which, when slipped down, further impeded proper breathing. Hooding was sometimes used in conjunction with beatings thus increasing anxiety as to when blows would come. The practice of hooding also allowed the interrogators to remain anonymous and thus to act with impunity. Hooding could last for periods from a few hours to up to two to four consecutive days, during which hoods were lifted only for drinking, eating or going to the toilets

� Handcuffing with flexi-cuffs, which were sometimes made so tight and used for such extended periods that they caused skin lesions and long-term aftereffects on the hands (nerve damage), as observed by the ICRC

� Beating with hard objects (including pistols and rifles), slapping, punching, kicking with knees or feet on various parts of the body (legs, sides, lower back, groin)

� Pressing the face into the ground with boots

� Threats (of ill-treatment, reprisals against family members, imminent executive or transfer to Guantanamo)

� Being stripped naked for several days while held in solitary confinement in an empty and completely dark cell that included a latrine

� Being paraded naked outside cells in front of other persons deprived of their liberty and guards, sometimes hooded or with women's underwear over the head

� Acts of humiliation such as being made to stand naked against the wall of the cell with arms raised or with women's underwear over the head for prolonged periods, while being laughed at by guards, including female guards, and sometimes photographed in this position

� Being attached repeatedly over several days, for several hours each time, with handcuffs to the bars of their cell door in humiliating (i.e. naked or in underwear) and/or uncomfortable position causing physical pain

� Exposure while hooded to loud noise or music, prolonged exposure while hooded to the sun over several hours, including during the hottest time of the day when temperatures could reach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher

� Being forced to remain for prolonged periods in stress positions such as squatting or standing with or without the arms lifted

These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information or other forms of cooperation from persons who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offences or deemed to have an "intelligence value."

Posted by marga at 12:39 PM | TrackBack

ICRC Documented Iraq Prison Abuse from March to November 2003

In a report to the United States in February 2004 entitled, "Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation," the ICRC documented abuses by the US in Iraq prisons from March to November 2003.

The followinging is an excerpt from the 24-page report:

TREATMENT DURING INTERROGATION

Methods of Ill-Treatment

? Hooding, used to prevent people from seeing and to disorient them, and also to prevent them from breathing freely. One or sometimes two bags, sometimes with an elastic blindfold over the eyes which, when slipped down, further impeded proper breathing. Hooding was sometimes used in conjunction with beatings thus increasing anxiety as to when blows would come. The practice of hooding also allowed the interrogators to remain anonymous and thus to act with impunity. Hooding could last for periods from a few hours to up to two to four consecutive days, during which hoods were lifted only for drinking, eating or going to the toilets

? Handcuffing with flexi-cuffs, which were sometimes made so tight and used for such extended periods that they caused skin lesions and long-term aftereffects on the hands (nerve damage), as observed by the ICRC

? Beating with hard objects (including pistols and rifles), slapping, punching, kicking with knees or feet on various parts of the body (legs, sides, lower back, groin)

? Pressing the face into the ground with boots

? Threats (of ill-treatment, reprisals against family members, imminent executive or transfer to Guantanamo)

? Being stripped naked for several days while held in solitary confinement in an empty and completely dark cell that included a latrine

? Being paraded naked outside cells in front of other persons deprived of their liberty and guards, sometimes hooded or with women's underwear over the head

? Acts of humiliation such as being made to stand naked against the wall of the cell with arms raised or with women's underwear over the head for prolonged periods, while being laughed at by guards, including female guards, and sometimes photographed in this position

? Being attached repeatedly over several days, for several hours each time, with handcuffs to the bars of their cell door in humiliating (i.e. naked or in underwear) and/or uncomfortable position causing physical pain

? Exposure while hooded to loud noise or music, prolonged exposure while hooded to the sun over several hours, including during the hottest time of the day when temperatures could reach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher

? Being forced to remain for prolonged periods in stress positions such as squatting or standing with or without the arms lifted

Posted by mike at 9:42 AM

May 5, 2004

Jailed Iraqis hidden from Red Cross, says US army

US military policemen moved unregistered Iraqi prisoners, known as "ghost detainees", around an army-run jail at Abu Ghraib, in order to hide them from the Red Cross, according to a confidential military report.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Jailed Iraqis hidden from Red Cross, says US army

Posted by marga at 2:15 PM | TrackBack

Military's Report on Prisoner Treatment at Abu Ghraib

The full text of Major General Antonio M. Taguba's report on the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison is now available.

Some of the report's findings:

6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by
military police personnel included the following acts:

a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees;
jumping on their naked feet;
b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and
female detainees;
c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various
sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and
keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's
underwear;
f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate
themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and
then jumping on them;
h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box,
with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his
fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. (S) Writing "I am a Rapest" (sic) on the leg of a
detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old
fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked
detainee's neck and having a female Soldier pose for a
picture;
k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female
detainee;
l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles)
to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least
one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
(ANNEXES 25 and 26)

Posted by mike at 11:08 AM | Comments (2)

May 4, 2004

U.S. Sent Specialists To Train Prison Units

Presented with reports of abusive behavior by U.S. military guards at Baghdad's main prison, the Army two months ago quietly dispatched to Iraq a team of about 25 military police experienced in running detention facilities to shore up training and supervision, Army officials said yesterday

It was the first group of such specialists sent to Iraq since the invasion last year, the officials said. The move followed an internal Army investigation that found military police at the Abu Ghraib prison largely unprepared for their role as guards and accused them of grossly mistreating Iraqi detainees, the officials said.
U.S. Sent Specialists To Train Prison Units (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 5:26 PM | TrackBack

U.S. to Stop Certain Interrogation Practices

Marga's Note: The UN Committee Against Torture, the United Nations organ charged with overseeing compliance with the Convention Against Torture, has previously opined that sleep deprivation and hooding of prisoners constitute torture. Apparently, until this change US policy has been to torture prisoners.

===

The new U.S. commander overseeing Army-run prisons in Iraq has ordered military intelligence operatives to stop using sleep deprivation as an interrogation tactic and placing hoods over the heads of detainees.

As part of a broad reassessment of the military's detention programs in Iraq, the commander also promised Tuesday to cut the population at the Abu Ghraib prison by more than half.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who previously commanded the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, disclosed the policy changes during an interview with a small group of reporters. Miller, 54, was transferred to Iraq last month to take over the 14 military-run prisons here, weeks before images of detainees being physically and sexually degraded at Abu Ghraib were leaked and broadcast around the world.

washingtonpost.com: U.S. to Stop Certain Interrogation Practices

Posted by marga at 5:18 PM | TrackBack

Civilians ID'd in abuse may face no charges

Marga's Note: As previously posted, US district courts have jurisdiction over war crimes and torture crimes committed by American citizens outside of the United States. There are no legal reasons why the US Justice Department could not investigate and prosecute civilian contractors for participating in the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib or anywhere else. The Convention against torture defines torture as:

" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. "

and the acts depicted in the pictures would likely qualify.

---
A legal loophole could allow four American civilian contractors allegedly involved in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners to escape punishment, US military officials and specialists said yesterday.

US commanders in Iraq announced that seven military supervisors have received administrative reprimands over the alleged abuse of the detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US forces in Iraq, said the investigation into the supervisors -- officers and non-commissioned officers -- was complete and they would not face further proceedings.

Boston.com / News / Nation / Civilians ID'd in abuse may face no charges

Posted by marga at 4:52 PM | TrackBack

Against the law of war

The alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US military police violates the rules governing armed conflict, says Anthony Dworkin

From President Bush down, American officials have proclaimed their determination to punish everyone involved in the apparent humiliation and torture of Iraqi detainees. In Britain, a high-level investigation is also under way into stories of abuse by British troops. There is no doubt that the allegations involved, if proven, would represent serious violations of the laws of war, punishable by court martial. But under international law, responsibility for these actions may go further than coalition leaders would like to admit.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Against the law of war

Posted by marga at 4:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

US military's bad-guy dragnet - a terrible way to win a war

Prompted by leaked photos, US military leaders confess they learned several months ago of atrocities perpetrated by American soldiers guarding Iraqis held at Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. The generals now say they are outraged and will punish the guilty few.

US military's bad-guy dragnet - a terrible way to win a war | csmonitor.com

Posted by marga at 4:13 PM | TrackBack

25 prisoners have died while held by U.S.

Twenty-five prisoners have died while being held by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, two of them murdered in Iraq by Americans, U.S. Army officials said Tuesday.

MSNBC - 25 prisoners have died while held by U.S.

Posted by marga at 4:11 PM | TrackBack

US torture pictures

We have published some of the pictures American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners here. Under the pictures you can find descriptions of the photographs. Private Lynndie England and Specialist Charles A. Graner are identified.

Posted by marga at 2:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 2, 2004

CACI to Open Probe Of Workers in Iraq

Defense contractor CACI International Inc. said yesterday it launched an independent investigation of its employees in connection with allegations that Iraqi detainees were abused by U.S. soldiers at an Army-run prison in Iraq. CACI to Open Probe Of Workers in Iraq (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by marga at 11:47 PM | TrackBack

Relevant US code sections

There have been concerns about whether the US has jurisdiction over the private contractors which allegedly took place in the torture of Iraqui prisoners of war.

The following are some of the relevant sections from the US Code that would apply to those contractors (as well as to members of the military). As you can see, US courts have jurisdiction over private contractors who are American citizens by virtue of (at least) 18 USC Sec. 2340A and Sec. 2441. They may also have jurisdiction under 18 USC Sec. 3261 - if so, this would cover both American and non-American contractors.

18 USC Sec. 2340A

(a) Offense. - Whoever outside the United States commits or
attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or
imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to
any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be
punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) Jurisdiction. - There is jurisdiction over the activity
prohibited in subsection (a) if -
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States,
irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged
offender.
(c) Conspiracy. - A person who conspires to commit an offense
under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other
than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the
offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

----

18 USC Sec. 2441

(a) Offense. - Whoever, whether inside or outside the United
States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described
in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the
victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
(b) Circumstances. - The circumstances referred to in subsection
(a) are that the person committing such war crime or the victim of
such war crime is a member of the Armed Forces of the United States
or a national of the United States (as defined in section 101 of
the Immigration and Nationality Act).
(c) Definition. - As used in this section the term ''war crime''
means any conduct -
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international
conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to
such convention to which the United States is a party;
(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the
Hague Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on
Land, signed 18 October 1907;
(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the
international conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or
any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a
party and which deals with non-international armed conflict; or
(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and
contrary to the provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or
Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices
as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996 (Protocol II as amended on 3
May 1996), when the United States is a party to such Protocol,
willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.

----

18 USC Sec. 3261

(a) Whoever engages in conduct outside the United States that
would constitute an offense punishable by imprisonment for more
than 1 year if the conduct had been engaged in within the special
maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States -
(1) while employed by or accompanying the Armed Forces outside
the United States; or
(2) while a member of the Armed Forces subject to chapter 47 of
title 10 (the Uniform Code of Military Justice),
shall be punished as provided for that offense.

Posted by marga at 11:47 PM | TrackBack

To Arabs, photos confirm brutal US

Nour Dandash stares with pursed lips at the photograph of naked and hooded Iraqi detainees piled in a heap before two laughing American soldiers.

"It's sick, horrible, disgusting," says the 17-year-old Lebanese student.

"The Americans say they went into Iraq to stop these abuses. But now they're doing exactly the same thing as Saddam Hussein."

To Arabs, photos confirm brutal US | csmonitor.com

Posted by marga at 3:06 PM | TrackBack

Officer Suggests Iraq Jail Abuse Was Encouraged

An Army Reserve general whose soldiers were photographed as they abused Iraqi prisoners said Saturday that she knew nothing about the abuse until weeks after it occurred and that she was "sickened" by the pictures. She said the prison cellblock where the abuse occurred was under the tight control of Army military intelligence officers who may have encouraged the abuse.

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Officer Suggests Iraq Jail Abuse Was Encouraged

Posted by marga at 7:53 AM | TrackBack

May 1, 2004

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?

In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world's most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women -no accurate count is possible- were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.

The New Yorker: Fact

Posted by marga at 3:58 PM | TrackBack

Soldier's diary details wider abuse at prison

The Iraq journal of Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, penned in careful handwriting and mailed home as he feared becoming a scapegoat for egregious military misdeeds, paints a nightmarish picture of overworked, undertrained guards coping with hostile Iraqi prisoners and using tactics that flagrantly violated international rules for treatment of detainees.

baltimoresun.com - Soldier's diary details wider abuse at prison

Posted by marga at 3:51 PM | TrackBack

Iraq: Torture not isolated -- independent investigations vital

There is a real crisis of leadership in Iraq -- with double standards and double speak on human rights, Amnesty International said today.

"The latest evidence of torture and ill-treatment emerging from Abu Ghraib prison will exacerbate an already fragile situation. The prison was notorious under Saddam Hussein -- it should not be allowed to become so again. Iraq has lived under the shadow of torture for far too long. The Coalition leadership must send a clear signal that torture will not be tolerated under any circumstances and that the Iraqi people can now live free of such brutal and degrading practices," Amnesty International said.

"There must be a fully independent, impartial and public investigation into all allegations of torture. Nothing less will suffice. If Iraq is to have a sustainable and peaceful future, human rights must be a central component of the way forward. The message must be sent loud and clear that those who abuse human rights will be held accountable.

"Our extensive research in Iraq suggests that this is not an isolated incident. It is not enough for the USA to react only once images have hit the television screens".

Amnesty International has received frequent reports of torture or other ill-treatment by Coalition Forces during the past year. Detainees have reported being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrest and detention. Many have told Amnesty International that they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods often reported include prolonged sleep deprivation; beatings; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding; and exposure to bright lights. Virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill-treatment has been adequately investigated by the authorities.

Amnesty International is calling for investigations into alleged abuses by Coalition Forces to be conducted by a body that is competent, impartial and independent, and seen to be so, and that any findings of such investigations be made public. In addition reparation, including compensation, must be paid to the victims or to their families.

Posted by marga at 8:47 AM | TrackBack

February 13, 2004

Secret report warns of Iraq 'Balkanisation'

A confidential report prepared by the US-led administration in Iraq says that the attacks by insurgents in the country have escalated sharply, prompting fears of what it terms Iraq's "Balkanisation". The findings emerged after a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the top US general in Iraq, John Abizaid, on Thursday. FT story

Posted by marga at 9:28 PM | TrackBack

February 6, 2004

Action on behalf of Iraqi Activist

Note: We don't necessarily agree with all the sentiments in this action by the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq, but we do support the right to equality of men and women in Iraq, as well as the right to religious freedom.

International campaign to defend the life of Yanar
Mohammed against the death threat by Islamists in Iraq

Yanar Mohammed, the head of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), is a renowned political activist from Iraq, and highly regarded in the world today for her brave efforts in defending women's rights in Iraq. She and the OWFI have been at the forefront of raising Iraqi women's awareness of their rights, fighting for an egalitarian secular state and full equality for women, as well as advocating for the separation of religion from the state and educational system which is a precondition for guaranteeing women's rights in Iraq.

Since the recent introduction of Law Number 137 by the Iraqi Ruling Council, which is to remove the previous Personal Status Code and replace it with Sharia law, Yanar has exposed the serious threat to women's lives and rights if Sharia is imposed and organized women and men in opposition to it. She has also spoken out and denounced Sharia law and called for the unconditional equal rights for women in a demonstration in Baghdad. The day after the demonstration, she received an e-mail titled "Killing Yanar within a few days". The e-mail was sent from the Army of Sahaba (Jaysh Al-Sahaba).

Once again, Islamic groups have proven they are nothing but a bunch of murderers despised and opposed by the people. They have threatened Yanar for the very reason that her defence of women's rights and secularism is meeting with widespread approval and support among the Iraqi people. Furthermore, the USA government's gory New World Order and its war, which has established a reign of terror on the people of Iraq, has allowed Islamic groups to impose their inhumane policies on the people and in particular the women in Iraq. The USA government has even included Islamic and other reactionary groups in its so-called Ruling Council.

The OWFI holds the USA government primarily responsible for this abysmal situation that has now threatened Yanar Mohammad's life. Yanar and many others are afforded no protection.

The OWFI calls upon all political parties, human and women's rights organisations, and freedom loving people across the world to defend Yanar Mohammed and OWFI's women's rights activists in Iraq from the threats of Islamic terrorism, to defend secularism, namely the separation of religion from the state and educational system and full equality for women, and denounce Islamic terrorist groups. While denouncing and holding the USA administration in Iraq fully responsible for Yanar's life, organisations, parties, groups and individuals should exert full pressure on that government to provide full security for Yanar Mohammad.

Please send your letters of protest to Paul Bremer, head of CPA in Iraq:
Paul Bremer
Chief US Administrator
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Or Choose 'Foreign Policy Opinions' via online form at http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_foreign.html

Please also send a copy to us, and to your local media:
Owfi_campaign@hotmail.com
Tel: 00 44 79 56 88 3001

Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq-abroad representative
February 06, 2004
Campaign coordinators:
Nadia Mahmood, and Houzan Mahmoud

Posted by marga at 11:33 PM | TrackBack

January 26, 2004

HRW: New Global Survey Analyzes War and Human Rights

The invasion of Iraq ended the reign of a brutal government, but coalition leaders are wrong to characterize it as a humanitarian intervention, Human Rights Watch said in the keynote essay of its annual global survey released today.read more

Posted by marga at 8:50 PM | TrackBack

BBC: US troops face Iraq abuse charges

Four US marine reservists are due in a military court on Monday to face charges of abusing Iraqi prisoners.read more

Posted by marga at 8:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 25, 2004

McNamara: 'It's just wrong what we're doing'

In an exclusive interview, repentant Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara breaks his silence on Iraq: The United States, he says, is making the same mistakes all over again. Read more

Posted by marga at 3:14 PM | TrackBack

WP: Changes In U.S. Iraq Plan Explored

The Bush administration has produced a list of possible changes for Iraq's political transition, with some U.S. and British officials acknowledging for the first time that the original plan could even be scrapped altogether if the United States is to preempt the growing clamor for elections.

Posted by marga at 12:41 PM | TrackBack

January 24, 2004

AM: Spies, Lies, and Weapons:

How could we have been so far off in our estimates of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs? A leading Iraq expert and intelligence analyst in the Clinton Administration�whose book The Threatening Storm proved deeply influential in the run-up to the war�gives a detailed account of how and why we erred

Posted by marga at 12:29 PM | TrackBack

Comment: Of course the White House fears free elections in Iraq

Naomi Klein argues in an

an article in the Duardian that only an appointocracy can be trusted to accept US troops and corporations

Posted by marga at 11:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 23, 2004

Give Iraqis the Election They Want

"roving again that Martin Luther King Jr. had the right idea, the peaceful demonstrations by thousands of Iraqi Shiites demanding direct elections have been a far more effective challenge to the arrogance of the U.S. occupation than the months of guerrilla violence undertaken by a Sunni-led insurgency."

Read rest of this Robert Scheer
column
in The Nation

Posted by marga at 12:43 PM | TrackBack

USA Watch: Iraq Archives