Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Scandal Update - Good Email To Send Out

sandboxface

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Thu May-20-04 03:27 PM
Original message

Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Scandal Update - Good Email To Send Out

Below is a collection of statements and articles I have collected in the past week relating to the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. One thing is clear: Rumsfeld must go. Scroll down and decide for yourself. I encourage you to share your feelings and concerns with your representatives and the White House. And don�t forget to pass this on.

Call your Senators, Representatives and the White House:

http://www.senate.gov
http://www.house.gov

White House comment line
202-456-1111 or
202-456-1112

Also send your representative and senator an email:
http://action.truemajority.com/action/index.asp?step=2&item=10169&ms=rum1

"If America has reached a point where only one person has the ability in our great democracy to manage the Pentagon and to continue or to put in place a better policy even, we're in deeper trouble than you think," Kerry told broadcaster Don Imus. "I don't accept that. I just don't accept that. I think that's an excuse. The fact is that we need a change in policy."

Seymour Hersch has been saying this for days.
DIANE REHM: Sy Hersh, a number of e-mailers are asking what about female prisoners, were there any?
SY HERSH: Yes
DIANE REHM: How were they treated?
SY HERSH: Oh God, well, there was a separate wing for females and juveniles and ahh, umm, I can just tell you there's video-tape of some very horrible things happening to some of the young boys in that jail. And so we haven't seen the end of this. I know that's terribly shocking to hear, but it's, it's, we haven't seen the end of this.
http://www.wamu.org/dr

``I expected that these pictures would be very hard on the stomach lining and it was significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated,'' said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. ``Take the worse case and multiply it several times over.''

"There are a lot more photographs and videos that exist," Rumsfeld said at a hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee."If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse." "I mean I looked at them last night and they're hard to believe," he said. "And if they're sent to some news organization and taken out of the criminal prosecution channels that they're in, that's where we'll be. And it's not a pretty picture. -Rumsfeld, May 7th

Shocking prison pictures emerge
Two new photographs have surfaced in the Iraq prison abuse scandal which appear to show U.S. soldiers gloating over a corpse.

In one, Spc. Charles Graner of the 372nd Military Police is seen smiling, giving the thumbs up.

In the other, Spc. Sabrina Harmon, a member of the same unit, is in a similar pose.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/20/congress.abuse/index.html

Rumsfeld approved 'harsh' interrogation
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of "harsh" interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay, including stripping detainees naked, making them hold "stress" positions and depriving them of sleep, a Pentagon official has confirmed.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/12/1084289748000.html

Rumsfeld denies techniques violate international rules for POW interrogation
Rumsfeld told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stress positions.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4855930

The Gray Zone
The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focused on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld�s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of �lite comba units, and hurt America�s prospects in the war on terror

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon�s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld�s long-standing desire to wrest control of America�s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, �Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding.� The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld�s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, �Some people think you can bullshit anyone.�

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040524fa_fact

Sergeant Says Intelligence Directed Abuse
Military intelligence officers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq directed military police to take clothes from prisoners, leave detainees naked in their cells and make them wear women's underwear, part of a series of alleged abuses that were openly discussed at the facility, according to a military intelligence soldier who worked at the prison last fall.

Sgt. Samuel Provance said intelligence interrogators told military police to strip down prisoners and embarrass them as a way to help "break" them. The same interrogators and intelligence analysts would talk about the abuse with Provance and flippantly dismiss it because the Iraqis were considered "the enemy," he said.

The first military intelligence soldier to speak openly about alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, Provance said in a telephone interview from Germany yesterday that the highest-ranking military intelligence officers at the prison were involved and that the Army appears to be trying to deflect attention away from military intelligence's role.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41035-2004May19.html

�Definitely a Cover-Up�
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.

"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet."

Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his commanders not to.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/abu_ghraib_cover_up_040518-1.html

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.

The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report. The documents contradict an earlier Defense Department statement that said the general died "of natural causes" during an interrogation. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the new disclosure.

Another Iraqi military officer, records show, was asphyxiated after being gagged, his hands tied to the top of his cell door. Another detainee died "while undergoing stress technique interrogation," involving smothering and "chest compressions," according to the documents.

Beyond the interrogation deaths, the military documents show that investigators are examining other abuse cases involving soldiers using choking techniques during interrogations, including the handling of prisoners at a detention facility in Samarra, Iraq, where soldiers allegedly "forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees."

Also under investigation are reports that soldiers in Iraq abused women and children. One April 2003 case, which is awaiting trial, involves a reservist who pointed a loaded pistol at an Iraqi child in front of witnesses, saying he should kill the youngster to "send a message" to other Iraqis.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%7E11676%7E2157003,00.html

Soldiers Back in U.S. Tell of More Iraq Abuses
Three U.S. military policemen who served at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison said on Thursday they had witnessed unreported cases of prisoner abuse and that the practice against Iraqis was commonplace.

"It is a common thing to abuse prisoners," said Sgt. Mike Sindar, 25, of the Army National Guard's 870th Military Police Company based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I saw beatings all the time.

"A lot of people had so much pent-up anger, so much aggression," he said. Sindar and the other military policemen, who have returned to California from Iraq, spoke in interviews with Reuters.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-RTO-rontz&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20040507%2F0741856132.htm&sc=rontz

'I killed innocent people for our government'
Q: Your feelings changed during the invasion. What was your state of mind before the invasion?

A: I was like every other troop. My president told me they got weapons of mass destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world, that he had all this might and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into the whole thing.

Q: What changed you?

A: The civilian casualties taking place. That was what made the difference. That was when I changed.

Q: Did the revelations that the government fabricated the evidence for war affect the troops?

A: Yes. I killed innocent people for our government. For what? What did I do? Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've had a hand in some sort of evil lie at the hands of our government. I just feel embarrassed, ashamed about it.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/9316830p-10241546c.html

Elderly Woman 'Ridden Like A Donkey' by US Troops
US soldiers who detained an elderly Iraqi woman placed a harness on her, made her crawl on all fours and rode her like a donkey, Prime Minister Tony Blair�s personal human rights envoy to Iraq has claimed.

Labour MP Ann Clwyd said she had investigated the claims of the woman in her 70s and believed they were true.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2884671

GI: Boy mistreated to get dad to talk
A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites) said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.

The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.

The new account of mistreatment came as Army Spec. Jeremy Sivits was sentenced in Iraq to a year in prison Wednesday and a bad-conduct discharge after pleading guilty in the first court-martial stemming from the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&e=5&u=/chitribts/giboymistreatedtogetdadtotalk

Pentagon's Explanations Add to Confusion
Congress is demanding answers, but some conflicting testimony from top military and defense officials only has added to the uncertainty.

The examples abound:

_ The Pentagon's top spokesman said Defense Department intelligence chief Stephen Cambone was not involved in discussions of interrogation rules for Iraq. But only days earlier, Cambone testified he, in fact, helped push for those new rules.

_ The general in charge of all U.S. troops in Iraq contradicted the general in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison guards � and an Army investigative report � about who was in command at the lockup after mid-November.

_ A top military lawyer contradicted a defense spokesman and an Army general about whether some interrogation techniques used at the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay violate the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war.

One area of conflict involves the role played by Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Cambone testified that he urged Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, then the commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, to travel to Iraq last August and make recommendations on how to better interrogate prisoners. Cambone said he was involved in Pentagon discussions on how to press detainees for information without violating the Geneva Conventions.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=542&e=2&u=/ap/20040520/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_abuse_fact_check

U.S. avoiding 'torture' to describe soldiers' actions
The U.S. military has been careful to make sure none of the seven soldiers charged in the prisoner abuse scandal has been officially accused of torture.

Instead, they're facing charges that include maltreating detainees and failing to protect detainees from abuse.

The United Nations defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted � (to obtain) information or a confession�"

Robert Goldman, an expert on the law of war at American University in Washington, says Rumsfeld is being deliberately unclear about what was going on. "Rumsfeld's a smart guy," said Goldman, "this is not fuzzy."

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/05/13/world/torture040513

Lack of protection
Long before official reports and journalistic expos�s revealed the horrific abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, high-ranking American officers expressed their deep concern that the civilian officials at the Pentagon were undermining the military's traditional detention and interrogation procedures, according to a prominent New York attorney.

Scott Horton, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler who now chairs the Committee on International Law of the Association of the Bar of New York City, says he was approached last spring by "senior officers" in the Judge Advocate General Corps, the military's legal division, who "expressed apprehension over how their political appointee bosses were handling the torture issue." Horton, who once represented late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was serving as the chairman of the bar association's Committee on Human Rights law when the JAG officers first contacted him.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/07/rights/index_np.html

Accused Soldier Paints Scene of Eager Mayhem at Iraqi Prison
When a fresh crop of detainees arrived at Abu Ghraib prison one night in late October, their jailers set upon them.

The soldiers pulled seven Iraqi detainees from their cells, "tossed them in the middle of the floor" and then one soldier ran across the room and lunged into the pile of detainees, according to sworn statements given to investigators by one of the soldiers now charged with abuse. He did it again, jumping into the group like it was a pile of autumn leaves, and the highest-ranking officer called for others to join in. The detainees were ordered to strip and masturbate, their heads covered with plastic sandbags. One soldier stomped on their fingers and toes.

"Graner put the detainee's head into a cradle position with Graner's arm, and Graner punched the detainee with a lot of force, in the temple," Specialist Jeremy C. Sivits said in his statements to investigators, referring to another soldier charged, Cpl. Charles A. Graner Jr. "Graner punched the detainee with a closed fist so hard in the temple that it knocked the detainee unconscious."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/14/national/14SIVI.html?hp

Gulf War I POWs cite Abu Ghraib
Former American prisoners tortured by Saddam Hussein�s regime in the first Gulf War are criticizing the Bush administration for fighting their compensation claims while planning to compensate the Iraqi victims of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

In a letter to Donald Rumsfeld, retired Lt. Col. Jeffrey Fox, one of 17 American Gulf War POWs, yesterday expressed �frustration and disbelief� at the secretary of defense�s testimony on the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers.

Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that he is �seeking a way to provide appropriate compensation to those detainees who suffered such grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty at the hands of a few members of the United States armed forces. It�s the right thing to do.�

Rumsfeld also indicated the United States has the ability to compensate Iraqis and will do so �one way or another.�

The administration also wants to set up a fund with taxpayer money that would compensate Iraqis harmed under Saddam�s regime.

http://www.thehill.com/news/051104/pows.aspx

Military Personnel: Don't Read This!
How a Pentagon email sought to contain the prison abuse scandal
It's not exactly every day that the Pentagon warns military personnel to stay away from Fox News. But that's exactly what some hopeful soul at the Department of Defense instructed, in a memo intended to forbid Pentagon staff reading a copy of the Taguba report detailing abuse of detainees at prisons in Iraq that had been posted at the Fox News web site.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,634638,00.html
Find the report here: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001

US soldiers abused young girl at Iraqi prison
The US military has said it will investigate claims by a former inmate of Abu Ghraib prison that a girl as young as 12 was stripped and beaten by military personnel.

Suhaib al-Baz, a journalist for the al-Jazeera television network, claims to have been tortured at the prison, based west of Baghdad, while held there for 54 days.

...He said: "They brought a 12-year-old girl into our cellblock late at night. Her brother was a prisoner in the other cells.

"She was naked and screaming and calling out to him as they beat her. Her brother was helpless and could only hear her cries. This affected all of us because she was just a child.

http://www.itv.com/news/623337.html

Excerpts from Red Cross report on Iraq
-Prolonged solitary confinement in cells devoid of daylight.

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

-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 forced to remain for prolonged periods in stress positions such as squatting or standing with our without the arms lifted.

More:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Red%20Cross%20Excerpts

Red Cross: Iraqi abuse widespread, routine; most detained by mistake
Up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake, according to coalition intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report disclosed Monday. It also said U.S. officers mistreated inmates at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison by keeping them naked in totally dark, empty cells.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/breaking/051004_Iraq.html

Officer Says Army Tried to Curb Red Cross Visits to Prison in Iraq
Army officials in Iraq responded late last year to a Red Cross report of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison by trying to curtail the international agency's spot inspections of the prison, a senior Army officer who served in Iraq said Tuesday.

After the International Committee of the Red Cross observed abuses in one cellblock on two unannounced inspections in October and complained in writing on Nov. 6, the military responded that inspectors should make appointments before visiting the cellblock. That area was the site of the worst abuses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/politics/19ABUS.html?hp

From a Picture of Pride to a Symbol of Abuse in Iraq
For weeks, the Mineral County courthouse has proudly displayed the photographs of local soldiers stationed in Iraq along the stairway at its front entrance. "We're hometown proud," the banner said.

But in the last few days, one photograph was taken down, that of Pfc. Lynndie R. England, whose face has become famous for a painfully different reason.

Private England is perhaps the most prominently displayed person in a series of photographs taken in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad that show members of the 372nd Military Police Company abusing prisoners.

In one image, Private England is clenching a cigarette between her teeth while giving a thumbs-up in front of naked Iraqi prisoners. In another that became public on Thursday, she is holding a leash attached to a naked prisoner's neck.

The photographs have left her family and friends aghast and searching for answers. They are convinced that she would never have thought up anything so cruel on her own and that she must have been following orders. (Get a Freak�n clue, idiots!)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/national/07SOLD.html

Prisoner-abuse soldier pictured having sex with guards
THE female soldier at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal was photographed having sex with other military guards, sometimes in front of detainees, United States senators said yesterday.

Private First Class Lynndie England has become the face of the scandal, with photographs showing her pointing at a naked Iraqi and holding another by a leash.

She has claimed she was following orders from senior personnel and that the pictures were used to terrify other inmates into talking.

But unpublished photographs show Pte England engaged in sex acts with other soldiers, some senators told the US television network NBC.

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=547922004

A Timeline of the Abuse Controversy
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=542&e=7&u=/ap/20040507/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/prisoner_abuse_timeline

Abuse photos undermine Bush's religious rhetoric
Church leaders object to casting God on U.S. side
The abuse of Iraqi prisoners by some U.S. soldiers points to the danger of President Bush describing the occupation of Iraq and the war on terror as battles between forces of good and the "evildoers" of the world, religious leaders say.

Even before compromising photos of nude and hooded prisoners surfaced in the news media, some mainline Protestant and American Muslim leaders had criticized the president for a series of speeches that appeared to say that God was on the side of America.

"We question that kind of theology -- putting 'good' on us and 'evil' on the other,'' said Antonios Kireopoulous, the associate general secretary for international affairs at the National Council of Churches, the major ecumenical agency in the United States.

Rosemary Ruether, a professor of theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, said the president and many of his supporters on the Christian right speak of his administration as "messianic agents chosen by God to combat evil and to establish good.''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/07/MNGV66H4IU1.DTL

Reuters, NBC Staff Abused by U.S. Troops in Iraq
U.S. forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said Tuesday.

The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only decided to make it public when the U.S. military said there was no evidence they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=8&u=/nm/20040518/wl_nm/iraq_reuters_dc

Detainees� families want soldiers executed
On the eve of the first court-martial in the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal, relatives of those still held at the Abu Ghraib prison said Tuesday that the only suitable punishment would be death, illustrating the potential gap in expectations in the case.

�If they actually committed such offenses, they should be executed,� Odai Ibrahim, 55, said as he waited in a line with hundreds of other Iraqis to visit relatives at Abu Ghraib, the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad that was notorious as the site of executions and torture during former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein�s regime.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5006372/

Army, CIA want torture truths exposed
Efforts at the top level of the Bush administration and the civilian echelon of the Department of Defense to contain the Iraq prison torture scandal and limit the blame to a handful of enlisted soldiers and immediate senior officers have already failed: The scandal continues to metastasize by the day.

Over the past weekend and into this week, devastating new allegations have emerged putting Stephen Cambone, the first Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, firmly in the crosshairs and bringing a new wave of allegations cascading down on the head of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when he scarcely had time to catch his breath from the previous ones.

Even worse for Rumsfeld and his coterie of neo-conservative true believers who have run the Pentagon for the past 3? years, three major institutions in the Washington power structure have decided that after almost a full presidential term of being treated with contempt and abuse by them, it's payback time.

Those three institutions are: The United States Army, the Central Intelligence Agency and the old, relatively moderate but highly experienced Republican leadership in the United States Senate.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040518-064124-9605r

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Beam Me Up

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu May-20-04 03:50 PM
Response to Original message

1. Thanks SBF!

:kick:

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sandboxface

(337 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu May-20-04 07:42 PM
Response to Reply #1

2. I can't believe you look at DU from work!!!

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Beam Me Up

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu May-20-04 10:59 PM
Response to Reply #2

3. Dude!! Only when I'm eating my lunch

which usually consists of either cheap Chinese food from across the street or a self-made smoothie. See ya at the ranch, cow-poke.

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