WP: Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails

[Pirate Smile]

Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails
U.S. Pledge to Protect Prisoners 'Not Being Followed'

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 24, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- Last Nov. 13, U.S. soldiers found 173 incarcerated men, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture, in a secret bunker in an Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad. The soldiers immediately transferred the men to a separate detention facility to protect them from further abuse, the U.S. military reported.

Since then, there have been at least six joint U.S.-Iraqi inspections of detention centers, most of them run by Iraq's Shiite Muslim-dominated Interior Ministry. Two sources involved with the inspections, one Iraqi official and one U.S. official, said abuse of prisoners was found at all the sites visited through February. U.S. military authorities confirmed that signs of severe abuse were observed at two of the detention centers.

But U.S. troops have not responded by removing all the detainees, as they did in November. Instead, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, only a handful of the most severely abused detainees at a single site were removed for medical treatment. Prisoners at two other sites were removed to alleviate overcrowding. U.S. and Iraqi authorities left the rest where they were.

This practice of leaving the detainees in place has raised concerns that detainees now face additional threats. It has also prompted fresh questions from the inspectors about whether the United States has honored a pledge by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that U.S. troops would attempt to stop inhumane treatment if they saw it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/23/AR2006042301027.html

[Erika]

1. U.S. tortures...

Why?

[Robbien]

2. More torture at Iraqi jails: U.S. pledge to protect not being honored

BAGHDAD - Last Nov. 13, U.S. soldiers found 173 incarcerated men, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture, in a secret bunker in an Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad. The soldiers immediately transferred the men to a separate detention facility to protect them from further abuse, the U.S. military reported.

Since then, there have been at least six joint U.S.-Iraqi inspections of detention centers, most of them run by Iraq's Shiite Muslim-dominated Interior Ministry. Two sources involved with the inspections, one Iraqi official and one U.S. official, said abuse of prisoners was found at all the sites visited through February. U.S. military authorities confirmed that signs of severe abuse were observed at two of the detention centers.

But U.S. troops have not responded by removing all the detainees, as they did in November. Instead, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, only a handful of the most severely abused detainees at a single site were removed for medical treatment. Prisoners at two other sites were removed to alleviate overcrowding. U.S. and Iraqi authorities left the rest where they were.

. . .

Pace said at a news conference Nov. 29 with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it." Turning to Pace, Rumsfeld responded: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

"If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," Pace answered.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12454357/

[PSPS]

3. There's no bottom to this pit of inhumanity, is there?

> Rumsfeld responded: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

I suppose he means to let it go on and report it to him, so he can turn on his closed circuit and undo his trousers.

[papau]

4. Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails (Washington Post 4/24/06)

Remember Pace/Rumsfeld Nov 29 press conference exchange?
PACE: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it."
RUMSFELD: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."
PACE: "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it."

U.S. ambassador to Iraq Khalilzad: "We take this very seriously." as quoted in WP

Like under Nixon - those statements are now "inoperative" :-(
Guess we'd rather not rein in the Interior Ministry's Shiite security forces and militias - we want civil war.
===========================================================================================

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/23/AR2006042301027.html

Inspectors Find More Torture at Iraqi Jails
Top General's Pledge To Protect Prisoners 'Not Being Followed'

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 24, 2006; A01



BAGHDAD -- Last Nov. 13, U.S. soldiers found 173 incarcerated men, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture, in a secret bunker in an Interior Ministry compound in central Baghdad. The soldiers immediately transferred the men to a separate detention facility to protect them from further abuse, the U.S. military reported.

Since then, there have been at least six joint U.S.-Iraqi inspections of detention centers, most of them run by Iraq's Shiite Muslim-dominated Interior Ministry. Two sources involved with the inspections, one Iraqi official and one U.S. official, said abuse of prisoners was found at all the sites visited through February. U.S. military authorities confirmed that signs of severe abuse were observed at two of the detention centers.

But U.S. troops have not responded by removing all the detainees, as they did in November. Instead, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, only a handful of the most severely abused detainees at a single site were removed for medical treatment. Prisoners at two other sites were removed to alleviate overcrowding. U.S. and Iraqi authorities left the rest where they were.

This practice of leaving the detainees in place has raised concerns that detainees now face additional threats. It has also prompted fresh questions from the inspectors about whether the United States has honored a pledge by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that U.S. troops would attempt to stop inhumane treatment if they saw it.
<snip>
==============================================================================
Aljazeera reports on the WP story and the separated shoulders,problems with their hands and fingers, scars, missing toenails, dislocated shoulders, severe bruising, and cigarette burns - but do not worry -General John Gardner, the commander of US detention operations in Iraq, said in an interview: "I would strongly disagree with the statement that Americans are seeing cases of abuse (at Irag's more than 1,000 detention centers)and not doing anything.":

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E6E82EC9-66D5-486E-A6BA-2458140
Report: Abused Iraqi prisoners found


Monday 24 April 2006, 17:15 Makka Time, 14:15 GMT


Interior ministry detainees are allegedly being abused


<snip>In November, US soldiers said they found 173 incarcerated men in a secret interior ministry bunker, some of them emaciated and showing signs of torture.

Bayan Baqir Solagh Jabir, the Iraqi interior minister, played down the findings at the time, saying a handful of people had merely been beaten.

Since then, at least six joint US-Iraqi inspections have found abused detainees in several other detention centres, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

A US official involved in the inspections said the Iraqi detainees had "numerous bruises on the arms, legs and feet".<snip>


.

[SpiralHawk]

5. George AWOL Bush is responsible for this

The fish rots from the head down.

Bush is responsible for torturing in the name of American citizens; he is lacking in all honor.

[papau]

6. I agree :-(

:-(

[VegasWolf]

7. George aWol Bush. nt

[Sinti]

8. I wish this was surprising, not finding torture would be more shocking n/t

[Sparkly]

9. Kick...

:kick:

I posted this on GD-Pol this morning, and it sank like a stone. I'm surprised it's not getting more attention.

[Auntie Bush]

10. Maybe this is where we now send those we want tortured.

I wouldn't put it past bush, chaney and rummy.