US Military Intelligence Accused of Abuse (4 prisons NOT Abu Ghraib)

WASHINGTON - Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib, investigative documents show.

Court transcripts and Army investigator interviews provide the broadest view of evidence that abuses, from forcing inmates to stand in hoods in 120-degree heat to punching them, occurred at a Marine detention camp and three Army prison sites in Iraq besides Abu Ghraib.
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Other accusations against military intelligence troops include:

_Stuffing an Iraqi general into a sleeping bag, sitting on his chest and covering his mouth during an interrogation at a prison camp at Qaim, near the border with Syria. The general died during that interrogation, although he also had been questioned by CIA (news - web sites) operatives in the days before his death.

_Choking, beating and pulling the hair of detainees at an Army prison camp near Samarra, north of Baghdad.

_Hitting prisoners and putting them in painful positions for hours at Camp Cropper, a prison at Baghdad International Airport for prominent former Iraqi officials.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040529/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/military_intelligence_abuse_1

Off to the races. I'd like to see how the Pentagon will deal with this. They have publicly spoken out and singled out "6 or 7 bad apples". Just a few rogues who took matters into their own hands and caused this.

Let's see them explain this away.

Of course, Randi Rhodes says that the prison photos are homo-erotic porn. She said it's exactly the kind of stuff you see on porn web sites.

And she says it goes all the way to Bush. I can't believe she's saying this on the air.

nt

No shocking photos? No legs for this story. The Amerikan people don't wish to hear about this anymore. They are satisfied witrh the "few bad bananas" story. They are ready to move on to the next scandal.Bushco and Congress want this swept under that rug in the basement of the White House. Next!

of a collective conscious mental disorder.
There can be no other explanation.
They are given the facts and insist their delusion
is reality- complete disconnect from reality.
Reality being, that they are loathsome creatures.
Hated and feared, disgraced by their own government
and completely stark raving mad.

"Reality being, that they are loathsome creatures.
Hated and feared, disgraced by their own government
and completely stark raving mad."

Wow, what an excellent appraisal. Let me expand on it:

This all boils down to the haves and the have-nots.
A condition of sufficiency is the spiritual ideal and healthiest for the planet as well.
The greedy paranoia we project and inflict on the rest of the world is truly evil.
I think this is the root of the shocking dysfunction we suffer as a culture. The empty craving for more and finding there is never enough in a futile attempt to fill in the missing disconnect from nature and each other. Our gross consumerism is an adult form of thumb-sucking.
We are trapped in this horrific matrix...

"Our gross consumerism is an adult form of thumb-sucking."
AND HOW!
Purrrfect analogy.
BHN :yourock:

Who would want to think it runs right up the line to the President? Looks to me that it does and he set the thing up with how he said these people could be treated but who is going to believe we would do it? What group of people would like to face we would do that?

There is indeed a highly significant psychosexual element to all of this.

I actually believe the pics (even worse one's we've never seen, including murder) were passed around at the highest levels of our government (including Bush) and NOT because they were investigating, but rather because they were getting off on them. (I'm really NOT kidding!) They are the type that would enjoy REAL snuff films, and can afford them too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=556758

WASHINGTON, May 14 — An American-run detention center outside Baghdad known as Camp Cropper was reportedly the site of numerous abuses of Iraqi prisoners several months before the mistreatment of prisoners unfolded last fall at Abu Ghraib prison, according to documents and interviews.

The detention facility, on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport, appears to have served as an incubator for the acts of humiliation that were inflicted months later on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. At both sites, the mistreatment has been linked to interrogations overseen by the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, based in Wiesbaden, Germany.

The alleged abuses at Camp Cropper last May and June were severe enough to have prompted formal complaints to American commanders from visiting officials of the International Committee for the Red Cross. After several visits to Camp Cropper, where they interviewed Iraqi prisoners, officials of the I.C.R.C. in early July 2003 cited at least 50 incidents of abuse reported to have taken place in a part of the prison under the control of military interrogators.

~snip~

After the I.C.R.C. complaints, the military interrogation site at Camp Cropper where the abuses took place was closed down, senior military officials said, though they declined to discuss the committee's report or to say whether it had prompted that move. "A decision was made to close the camp and consolidate at Abu Ghraib," a senior military officer said.

It remains unclear whether any disciplinary action was taken at the time against members of the 205th Brigade. The brigade commander, Col. Thomas M. Pappas, who took command at the end of June 2003, was later put in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib and was implicated by the Army's investigation of abuses as being "either directly or indirectly responsible" for the actions of those who mistreated and humiliated Iraqi prisoners there.

~snip~

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/15/politics/15ABUS.html

The story just gets worse every day.


:puke:

this is stunningly sad and staggeringly huge. "Policy" will now enter the news stories and analysis. And given the bad apples story previously put forward, how will "cover-up" stay out of the coverage? Given the gov's lead time on the investigation, how can they claim this to have been unknown when they were floating the "bad apples" angle?

It's astonishing that even after these pictures came out, they just continued to lie. They had the testimony about additional prisons in FEBRUARY!! My head is truly going to explode.


"At the Marines' Camp Whitehorse, the guards were told to keep enemy prisoners of war — EPWs, in military jargon — standing for 50 minutes each hour for up to 10 hours. They would then be interrogated by "human exploitation teams," or HETs, comprising intelligence specialists.

"The 50/10 technique was used to break down the EPWs and make it easier for the HET member to get information from them," Marine Cpl. Otis Antoine, a guard at Camp Whitehorse, testified at a military court hearing in February."

This is SOP in the Military and the Govt. Issue until the lies can no longer be sustained then come out with half lies. When those cannot be sustained tell a bit of the truth and so forth. The MO is designed to minimizze the damge while documents are shredded and people get scared to come forward.

With the Govt. it's similar but with the proviso that the public will get burned out with the situation and stop reacting and move on the something else. Sometimes this works. It did with the Iran/Contra scandal where The Constitution was violated by the Govt. at the highest level.

more reconstruction $ for halliburton

Wonder if he will?

Don

:shrug:

The events at Abu Ghraib are endemic to the Bush administration's approach to the war on terror. It happens all over Iraq, it happens in secret detention centers in Afghanistan and it happens at Guantanamo. It is the result of a policy of circumventing the Geneva Conventions and regarding any US action as beyond international law.

The Bush administration will not stop this. They are war criminals are should be treated as war criminals. The EU should cancel the US-EU conference in June and Mr. Bush should be told to stay home by the Italian government hosting the conference.

If the United States proves unable or unwilling to stop the administrations and punish the wrongdoing, then an international tribunal should be convened for the purpose of investigating and prosecuting war crimes committed by Mr. Bush and his lieutenants.

!!