U.S. Commander: Iraq Fighters Use Torture

[sabra]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5276065,00.html

U.S. Commander: Iraq Fighters Use Torture

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. Army commander asserted Tuesday that extremist fighters in northern Iraq committed atrocities against civilians, including beheadings, torture and the booby-trapping of a murdered child's body.

The accusations by Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, included some of the most graphic and specific charges by an American military officer during the ongoing battle for control of Tal Afar, a city about 50 miles from the Syrian border that has been an insurgent stronghold.

``The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine - in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child's body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents; beheadings and so forth,'' McMaster said in an interview from Tal Afar with reporters at the Pentagon.

...

``Not only were they targeting civilians, brutally murdering them, torturing them, but they were also kidnapping the youth of the city and brainwashing them and trying to turn them into hate-filled murderers,'' he said.

[seemslikeadream]

1. We might not have to imagine if the Abu Grab photos were released

[ECH1969]

2. U.S. Commander: Iraq Fighters Use Torture

"The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine _ in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child's body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents; beheadings and so forth," McMaster said in an interview from Tal Afar with reporters at the Pentagon.

His comments came two days after the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, purportedly accused American forces of using poison gas in the Tal Afar fighting, a charge that U.S. officials have denied. The accusation was made in an audiotape posted on the Internet on Sunday and attributed to al-Zarqawi.

McMaster alluded to that accusation and said he believed the insurgents had planned to detonate chemicals in a building in a residential area and then claim that U.S. forces had employed poison gas against civilians. "In one of these buildings the enemy had big barrels of chemicals that had explosives implanted in the chemicals, wires running around them. The whole house was rigged for demolition," he said.

When U.S. troops went into the house, "immediately their eyes began burning, their throats began burning. So they withdrew out of the house immediately and then we conducted reconnaissance with some chemical protective gear, with a remote reconnaissance capability, into the house. And we could tell that the thing was rigged with chemicals." McMaster also said U.S. troops found manuals that described how to make "these kind of chemical dirty bombs and so forth."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091301331.html

[daleo]

3. The propaganda index is sure going up.

Methinks somebody is in coverup mode.

[htuttle]

4. "I know you are, but what am I?"

"No, you are."
"No, YOU are."
"Am not!"
"Am too!"

[sallyseven]

9. We taught them well.

[rustydog]

11. Jumpin' Jesus Christ...Do you think maybe America's torture

of Iraqi prisoners...many innocent "combatants" may have inspired an in-kind response.

This does not excuse any Iraqi horror, but you have the pot calling the kettle black!

[hobbit709]

5. Pot calling kettle black

Hard to take the high road when you're doing the same.

[Mr_Spock]

6. This sounds like something that was reported like a year ago

What else is new - they are learning from US that torture is good for everyone...

[bullimiami]

7. but the us hugs with napalm, depleted uranium and massive bombing.

[Amonester]

10. Yep. With illegal Cluster bombs too. (n/t) Just one raging smily...

:mad:

[Tempest]

8. Westmoreland made the same claim during Vietnam

He promptly shut up when evidence of U.S. atrocities against civilians was reported.


U.S. soldiers have come back from Iraq and said their fellow soldiers were murdering innocent Iraqis for fun and out of frustration.

And then there's the matter of the Iraqi troops under U.S. command who are murdering Sunni leaders.

[Poll_Blind]

12. Very important article if our own Abu Ghraib photos come out...

"I mean, hey, turns out we were fighting fire with fire all along!"

(shudder)

PB