Iraqi Police Say Torture is "How Things Get Done"

Are Iraqi police engaging in torture tactics?
NBC exclusive interview: Iraqi policeman says it's just how things are done
NBC VIDEO


Richard Engel
Correspondent



NBC News spoke to an Iraqi policeman, Ahmed, a 22-year-old Shiite, who did not want to show his face, but agreed to speak candidly and coldly about how things are done in Baghdad.


Ahmed (translated): As soon as a person is brought in, he is severely beaten until there is a confession. Some confess without even committing a crime.

That can be just the beginning.

Ahmed (translated): The police I consider honorable kill the terrorists they capture. If we brought them back to the station, they might to bribe their way out.


That’s how journalist Kamal Samaraie, a Sunni, says he got out. He had been picked up after criticizing police conduct in a newspaper.

Kamal Samaraie: I was blindfolded and someone kicked me in my face and broke my teeth.

He says police hung him upside down and clubbed him with a metal pipe.

Kamal Samaraie: They whispered to me, there’s no freedom, you can’t write what you want.

The U.S. always wanted an aggressive police force in Iraq, and helped the interior ministry create a paramilitary wing last year to fight insurgents.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10643911/
via:http://www.antiwar.com/

Republicans: How Things Get Done (badly)

Thank you, President Bush, the author and finisher of this shining new example of American foreign relations, plopped down smack dab in the middle of the Middle East.