Doesn't anyone want tocomment ...
Find a Conversation
Doesn't anyone want tocomment ...
| Sat, 05-01-2004 - 8:54pm |
It is now news all over the world that US soldiers and "contractors" have been torturing and humiliating Iraqis. What does this say about us? I heard one of those accused say he hadn't had training on how to handle POWs. How much training did he need to know that what was going on was wrong?
Is this yet another similarity between this war and the one in Vietnam?

Pages
C
You have pinpointed the problem with contractors. However, in this case it doesn't appear that it was contractors that caused the dismay. From the New Yorker magazine that broke the story:
"The New Yorker magazine said in its new edition that the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba found that reservist military police at the prison were urged by Army military officers and C.I.A. agents to "set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses."
Copied from the previous post.
"In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called “O.G.A.,” or other government agencies—that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees—was brought to his unit for questioning. “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.” The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison’s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, “and therefore never had a number.”
These "private contractors" do not have to abide by the Geneva Convention because they are not strictly U.S. military. That's why they're there. They are our dirty little secret. They can get away with things that the regular military can't. The repercussions will probably be greater for the soldiers than for these "private contractors" who could be reprimanded and fired as punishment, but probably won't. Names were named and responsibility laid on the "private contractors" in the article. ---
"General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military policemen “who were not trained in interrogation techniques to facilitate interrogations by ‘setting conditions’ which were neither authorized” nor in accordance with Army regulations. “He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba wrote. He also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee, John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had “received no formal communication” from the Army about the matter.)
“I suspect,” Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz, and Israel “were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib,” and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary action."
You can find the whole article at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
This is despicable behaviour from the 'liberators' of the Iraqi people.
Obviously these people didn't receive adequate training in the handling prisoners.
As for the perpetrators, I find the "lack of training" defense to be somewhat thin. I am not in the military, but I feel I have a pretty good understanding of what is allowable under the Geneva Convention, and any soldier that can say that they needed to be told that the Geneva Convention forbids the types of torture they were performing on these prisoners should be handed over to parties to hold them as POWs and see how much of the Geneva Convention they are able to recall then. That would not be the American way, lucky for them, but it would certainly be poetic justice.
I am also bit concerned that the reports I've been hearing/reading say that the Pentagon report identifying and confirming these types of abuses was done in January. Why the delay in acting? That is very disturbing if they were sitting on it. I guess more will come out over time; there may have been things in motion, but not nearly enough it seems.
One of the prisoners I saw interviewed who was confirmed by the Pentagon as being a prisoner in the abuse photos said he was in prison because he was stopped without the proper registration papers for his car and was suspected of stealing it. Then I saw last night that O'Reilly was trying to justify the abuse somewhat by saying that the prisoners were all terrorists; when the guest gave him the figures from the Pentagon report that estimated 60% in the prison were in on charges other than enemy combatant-type charges, he said he didn't believe it. It made me ill to think he was trying to justify this type of behavior even in some small way. Sickening.
Glassy
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171778_prisonabuse04.html
6 supervisors reprimanded in abuse of Iraqi prisoners
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
By THOM SHANKER AND DEXTER FILKINS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON -- The senior U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered the first punishments in the abuse of prisoners by U.S. soldiers there, issuing severe reprimands to six who served in supervisory positions at Abu Ghraib prison and a milder "letter of admonishment" to a seventh.
The officers and non-commissioned officers received penalties that likely will end their military careers, although they were not demoted or discharged. They have not been charged with any criminal activity; six subordinates accused of carrying out the abuse already face criminal charges.
"They did not know or participate in any crimes," a senior U.S. officer in Baghdad said of the officers who received the reprimands, issued by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq. "Their responsibility is to set the standards in the organization. They should have known, but they did not."
As more details emerged of widespread problems in the detention system in Iraq, President Bush yesterday telephoned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "to make sure that appropriate action was being taken against those responsible for these shameful, appalling acts," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman.
The military's investigative report into the abuses of detainees in Iraq, by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, described broader problems in the prison system throughout Iraq, as well as pervasive flaws in the leadership, training and morale of military police at Abu Ghraib, a sprawling prison west of Baghdad that was notorious under Saddam Hussein for overcrowded cells and torture chambers, and elsewhere in Iraq. It suggested that these problems had contributed to abuses of prisoners over many months, even after earlier instances were reported and punished.
The report found, for example, that after several detainees were beaten at Camp Bucca, another detention site in Iraq, in May 2003, nothing was done to make clear to military police elsewhere that this was not to be tolerated. Soldiers responsible for those earlier abuses were charged and punished late last year.
The report also found at least 27 cases of prisoner escapes and said that the number was probably higher but could not be verified because prisoner lists were so poorly maintained.
And it cited several cases of "riots, escapes and shootings" of prisoners over many months, adding that "the same types of deficiencies" were found repeatedly, but that "little to nothing was done."
The Central Intelligence Agency is also investigating reports of detainees dying during incarceration, and even interrogation, while in U.S. custody in Iraq, a CIA official said yesterday. The official said the agency's inspector general was investigating the possible involvement of CIA personnel in the deaths of two prisoners in Iraq, one at Abu Ghraib in November and another elsewhere at an unspecified time.
Military officers would not say publicly whether Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and the senior officer at Abu Ghraib, was among the seven who received reprimands. But Taguba's 53-page report on the military's inquiry into abuse at Abu Ghraib said she received a "General Officer Memorandum of Admonishment" from Sanchez.
In the criminal portion of the investigation, six enlisted personnel or non-commissioned officers of the 372nd Military Police Company, who were assigned to Abu Ghraib, face charges of assault, cruelty, indecent acts and maltreatment of detainees.
The Taguba report indicates that military police may have been used to "soften up" detainees in Afghanistan before interrogations there, as well. Without providing details, the report includes a reference stating that recent intelligence collection in support of the Afghan operation used military police to "actively set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews. Such actions generally run counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to maintain its population in a compliant and docile state."
Arabic language TV networks aired interviews yesterday with two of the Iraqis said to be depicted in the photographs taken with the American guards.
In a brief interview on Al-Jazeera, Haishem Mohsen, a man who said he was one of the Iraqis depicted in the photos described his abuse at the hands of U.S. soldiers. Mohsen said that when he was detained in January, he was interrogated by U.S. intelligence officers and Iraqi and Egyptian interpreters.
"They covered our heads with bags; they beat us with the butts of their guns without any fear that we would die of the blows."
"They made us take our clothes off, and they pushed us against the wall," he said. "They did things to us that I am unable to talk about."
The other Iraqi, Haider Sabar, said a U.S. intelligence officer, along with an Iraqi and an Egyptian translator, showed him "immoral photos of the acts that took place," apparently to frighten him.
The names of both the men in the al-Jazeera report roughly matched those on a list of abused Iraqi detainees named in an investigation conducted by the U.S. military.
The Taguba report concludes that several soldiers committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.
In addition, the report states that senior leaders in both the 800th Military Police Brigade and the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade failed to comply with established regulations, policies and command directives in preventing detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib and at Camp Bucca between August and February.
DEVELOPMENTS
© 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
cl-nwtreehugger
Community Leader:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=US%20Prisoner%20Abuse
Tuesday, May 4, 2004 · Last updated 10:09 a.m. PT
Prisoner abuse may be more widespread
By ROBERT BURNS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The scandal of the U.S. military's abuse of Iraqi prisoners threatened to widen Tuesday as lawmakers emerging from a closed-door briefing with Pentagon officials said similar abuses - though "small in number" - may also have occurred at other Iraqi facilities and in Afghanistan.
Outraged by the sexual humiliation and abuses of Iraqis by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison, senators called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to explain the situation in an open hearing as soon as possible.
"There were some incidents in Afghanistan," said Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, after the panel's closed briefing with Pentagon officials. "We did not get the full details but were left with the impression that they were relatively isolated and certainly small in number."
He said briefers told the committee that the sexual humiliation photographed in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison - which have drawn worldwide condemnation - stand out among the other alleged incidents and "very little parallels this elsewhere." And he added, "This is as serious a problem of breakdown in discipline as I've ever observed."
The Senate's top Democrat, meanwhile, demanded to know why President Bush was not earlier informed of a report that American soldiers had subjected detainees to blatant and sadistic abuse at Abu Ghraib and why Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers have not yet read the two-month old report.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that Bush has told the Pentagon that he expects prompt action to be taken against those who committed the abuse.
"The president has told the secretary of defense that he expects people to be held accountable and that he wants, too, to know that this not a systemic problem," Rice told the Anti-Defamation League during its national leadership conference. "In other words, quite apart from the specific cases of those particular photographs, Americans do not dehumanize other people."
Gen. George Casey, the vice chief of the Army, told reporters after Tuesday's briefing that those who are found guilty will be punished appropriately.
"We're extremely disappointed that anyone would mistreat detainees in the manner that they have in Iraq," Casey said. "What you see on those pictures is not indicative of our training or our values. It is a complete breakdown of discipline."
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., emerged from the briefing saying he feared allegations made public so far are "the beginning rather than the end" of the abuse allegations.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters outside the hearing he was "extremely hopeful that ... this was not a widespread pattern of abuse and that the conduct of the overwhelming majority of Americans is honorable and decent."
Members of the Senate committee promised a full investigation of the abuses and said they were outraged that they had not been informed of the incidents earlier.
"We must be open about this," Levin said. "We must assure the world thereby that in this open society, actions of this kind are going to be dealt with both criminally and within the military code as appropriate."
As the committee met, Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said on the Senate floor that he wanted to know why Bush hadn't been informed of the report, "Why, in other words, has there been this extraordinary disconnect, this unbelievable failure of communication, of oversight."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that Bush first became aware of the allegations of abuse some time after the Pentagon began looking into it but did not see the pictures until they were made public and did not learn of the classified Pentagon report until news organizations reported its existence.
Meanwhile, an attorney for a military police officer being investigated in the abuse probe, said on NBC's "Today" show that the photographs of the Iraq prisoners that have inspired widespread revulsion "were obviously staged" in order to manipulate the prisoners into cooperating with intelligence officials.
"They were part of the psychological manipulation of the prisoners being interrogated," said Guy Womack, attorney for Charles A. Graner, Jr., a Greene County, Pa. corrections officer who was activated to the military in March 2003 and served at Abu Ghraib.
"It was being controlled and devised by the military intelligence community and other governmental agencies, including the CIA," Womack said. The soldiers, he said, were simply "following orders."
On Capitol Hill, concern over the abuses spread. McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said such abuses would not be tolerated or excused.
"The rules for the treatment of prisoners of war are very clear," McCain said. "There is no justification for this kind of treatment."
On March 20, criminal charges were filed against six military police officers. As many as three of the six cases have been referred to military trial, and others are in various stages of preliminary hearings, officials said.
In addition to the criminal cases, seven others - all military police - have been given noncriminal punishment - in six of the cases they got letters of reprimand. Some of the seven are members of the Army Reserve, according to a defense official who direct knowledge of the situation.
It was unclear whether others, including those in military intelligence, will face disciplinary action. The names of the seven have not been made public.
In other developments, the top U.N. human rights agency has opened an investigation into civil rights in Iraq, and urged the U.S. military to prosecute soldiers alleged to have abused prisoners.
And, U.S. officials in Baghdad ordered a halt to using hoods to blindfold Iraqi prisoners, a military spokesman said, in the wake of the uproar over abuse of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.
The use of hoods has been stopped at Abu Ghraib for the past month, and troops conducting raids in the field stopped hooding detained Iraqis four days ago, the spokesman said.
cl-nwtreehugger
Community Leader:
Pages