Iraq Official Demands Prison Abuse Probe

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=2&u=/ap/20040501/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prisoner_abuse

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council demanded Saturday that Iraqi authorities investigate reports that American guards abused inmates in the very prison where Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime tortured opponents.

As international condemnation intensified, the scandal broadened with a British newspaper publishing new photographs of a hooded Iraqi prisoner, who reportedly was beaten and humiliated by British troops. The Daily Mirror's front page showed a soldier apparently urinating on the prisoner, who was sitting on the floor.

Also Saturday, The New Yorker magazine said it obtained a U.S. Army report that Iraqi detainees were subjected to "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Those abuses included threats of rape and the pouring of cold water and liquid from chemical lights on detainees, said the internal report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. Detainees were beaten with a broom handle and one was sodomized with "a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick," the report said, the magazine reported in its May 10 issue.

Weren't slogans printed on their bodies at that time as well? This treatment of prisoners is SOP, not "rogue."

:hi: Sad it took this long...

it's all over. In fact, Bush has to take the lead on this, what he said yesterday was not nearly enough.

If they don't handle this right, this could be it, any slim chance of success in Iraq, whatever that
means, is out the window. How can anyone expect any Iraqi to take a word of ours seriously?

start screaming louder because he thinks he gets a PASS for the BS comment he made yesterday and that will end it. Between the abuse and the caskets, I can't believe people aren't throwing the entire mob on the street!

They should ALL be tried,...all the way to the top.

IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!!!

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that they have only scratched the surface. Give them a few more weeks, interview some prison inmates, and we're going to find out that the US is no different from any other dictator. A little more imaginative, maybe.

But the deeper question is, who did it? Was it US troops? Or were they under the command of some prisonkeeper-for-hire from the U.S. Or was it mercenaries? An important question.

And no doubt, it will come out. Along with some very, very hideous stories that will probably have the American public reeling.

what is the chain of command for the MI's?

This was institutional - going on in a U.S. military prison, repeatedly, for months, with no efforts to hide it (people were taking photos for God's sake). This has to go to the top, at least to Rummy. Maybe to Bush.

I think any investigation and report by the Iraqi National Council will spend most of its time emphasizing how bad Saddam was, to make this seem minor in comparison. They are puppets.

You are right. this has to go all the way to the top. The buck stops with Bush.

of his fate...



An Iraqi woman holds a young boy as they wait for the release of a loved one at the U.S.-run prison of Abu Ghraib in this January 8, 2004 file photo. Iraqi prisoners faced numerous 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses' by U.S. soldiers, including sodomy and beatings, according to a U.S. Army report quoted by the New Yorker magazine May 1. Photo by Ceerwan Aziz/Reuter