- Photographs that have emerged showing the torture of
Iraqi detainees by US soldiers substantiated evidence already given to
the authorities in Iraq at the beginning of January.
- The news also challenges the claim by the US military
that the torture was an "isolated incident".
-
- In January, as reported by Ekklesia, Christian Peacemaker
Teams (CPT) presented the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq
with a dossier of statistical data compiled from seventy-two case studies
of the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees, including torture.
-
- Now United States soldiers at a prison outside Baghdad
have been charged with forcing Iraqi prisoners into acts of sexual humiliation
and other abuses, which have been documented by photographs taken by guards
in the prison.
-
- Some of the photographs, and descriptions of others,
were broadcast in the US on Wednesday by a CBS television news program
and were verified by military officials.
-
- Of the six people reported in March to be facing preliminary
charges, three have been recommended for courts martial.
-
- Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, in charge of prisons
in Iraq, has also been suspended.
-
- At the time that Christian Peacemaker Teams presented
the Coalition authority with the dossier, an American soldier is said to
have also alerted superior officers to the abuses saying: "There are
some things going on that I can't live with."
-
- But staff Sgt Chip Frederick claimed civilian observers,
FBI and CIA agents and senior officers turned a blind eye and even encouraged
some of the abuses. Several of the accused soldiers claimed they had been
told to "soften up" the prisoners for interrogation.
-
- Christian Peacemaker Teams, which had maintained an almost
continuous presence in Iraq from October 25, 2002 followed the cases of
numerous Iraqis detained by US forces. In evidence presented to the CPA
they highlighted that often these detentions involved acts of violence,
as well as theft and destruction of personal property. They also highlighted
the lack of legal representation or clear judicial process.
-
- Such actions, said CPT, were violations of Iraqis' human
rights according to international law and fuelled violent responses which
endangered the lives of the Coalition soldiers who occupy Iraq.
-
- A television program on CBS has now reported that poorly
trained US reservists were forcing Iraqis to conduct simulated sexual acts
in order to break down their will before they were turned over to others
for interrogation.
-
- In one photograph naked Iraq prisoners stand in a human
pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English.
-
- In another, a prisoner stands on a box, his head covered,
wires attached to his body. The news show said that, according to the army,
he had been told that if he fell off the box he would be electrocuted.
Other photographs show male prisoners positioned to simulate sex with each
other.
-
- "The pictures show Americans, men and women, in
military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners," a transcript
said.
-
- "And in most of the pictures, the Americans are
laughing, posing, pointing or giving the camera a thumbs-up."
-
- The program's producers said the army also had photographs
showing a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and another that
showed a dog attacking a prisoner.
-
- The photographs were taken inside Abu Ghraib prison,
near Baghdad, where US forces have been holding hundreds of Iraqis.
-
- Gary Myers, the lawyer for one of the enlisted men who
has been charged, said the military had treated the six enlisted soldiers
as scapegoats and had failed to deal adequately with the responsibilities
of senior commanders and intelligence personnel involved in the interrogations.
-
- Officers at the prison, including a brigadier-general,
faced administrative review, officials said.
-
- Mr Myers said that the accused men, all from a reserve
military police unit, were told to soften up the prisoners by more senior
interrogators, some of whom they believe were intelligence officials and
outside contractors.
-
- "This case involves a monumental failure of leadership,
where lower level enlisted people are being scapegoated," Mr Myers
said. "The real story is not in these six young enlisted people. The
real story is the manner in which the intelligence community forced them
into this position."
-
- The views expressed in this article do not necessarily
represent the views of Ekklesia
-
- © Copyright 2004 All rights reserved
- Ekklesia is an initiative of the Anvil Trust charity
- no. 1010354 and can be contacted on 020 8769 8163
-
- http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_040430torture.shtml
|
