On January 26, 2004, three marine reservists appeared in a military court at Camp Pendleton, California, for killing an Iraqi prisoner, Nagen Sadoon Hatab, a high ranking ex member of the Ba'ath party. Hatab was arrested holding a gun. belonging to the 507th Maintenance Company that was ambushed in Nasiriyah where 11 US soldiers were killed, nine wounded and 6 captured including Jessica Lynch. The court will decide if they will be court marshalled.
The US military authorities are also investigating the interrogation procedures used by their soldiers and the role of private contractors in military prisons in Iraq. Both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair said that they were appalled by what happened at Abu Ghraib prison. It looks like torture -including beating, mock execution, stripping, sexual abuses- went on all the time and the death of prisoners was covered up. A former Guantanamo Bay commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, has been ordered to overhaul military prisons and interrogation procedures in Iraq. Six guards, seven senior officers are under investigation and could face courts-martial.
Following the evidence that American troops tortured Iraqi prisoners, we were told that seven more soldiers were disciplined on May 3, 2004. Six officers and sergeants were given formal reprimands that probably will end their military career and the seventh was given a lesser rebuke. Other six military policemen are facing criminal charges for assaulting and sexually humiliating prisoners. And the scandal would not finish here. General Janis Karpinski, a reservist who was removed from her job as supervisor of the US military prisons in Iraq, said that General Sanchez, the commander of the US ground forces in Iraq, should share the blame. We were also told that an order gave military intelligence officers authority over military policemen; this is now highly criticised, as it is known that the intelligence officers ordered the guards to "soften" the prisoners before questioning.
On May 4, 2004, we were told that US military policemen moved around unregistered Iraqi prisoners known as "Ghost detainees" to make sure that the Red Cross would not see them. This is contrary to army doctrine and violates international law. The US authorities were forced to admit to a US Senate committee that there was evidence of widespread abuse on prisoners in military-run prisons in Iraq and also in Afghanistan. There have been 25-recorded deaths in US military custody but the exact number is thought to be much higher. The question now is "And what about Guantanamo Bay and other military detention centres such as the one in Charleston, South Carolina?
On May 11, 2004, we were told that the torture and abuses in Iraqi jails by Americans is not limited to men. Women are also threatened and sexually mistreated; some were gang raped in front of male Iraqi prisoners.
On June 17, 2004, an American civilian working for the CIA, David Passaro, was formally accused of beating to death an Afghan prisoner. At the same time the US pressure group, Human Rights First, said that the US is holding terror suspects in secret bases around the world possibly also in the British island of Diego Garcia.
And on June 22, it became clear that the USA tortured prisoners in Afghanistan. Written evidences are showing the US troops routinely tortured and humiliated prisoners as part of their interrogation ordeal just like in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. As a result at least five detainees died in custody. Beatings, stripping, hooding and sleep deprivation was the cruel and degrading rule. The White House is doing its best to try to deny that they knew about it but it is hopeless and all the documents they are now releasing -only those that take the blame from them- will not change much. For the White House, as President Bush said, "anything goes in the war against terrorism even if it is illegal". It is believed that the Americans in Afghanistan detain 2,000 people. The Americans brought back some medieval methods of interrogation, methods forgotten since the inquisition disappeared.
Other proofs of abuses of Iraqi prisoners came to light on December 14, 2004. US Marines are known to have forced juvenile Iraqis to kneel while troops staged their mock execution, used electric shocks and set fire to a puddle of solvent that burned at least one prisoner. Naked prisoners were also photographed in humiliating positions. Now it is clear that the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison were only part of a much larger well-organised scheme.
On December 22, 2004, we were told that internal Army documents describe mistreatments of Iraqi citizens by US soldiers, some of them died as a direct result of their mistreatment. They also describe US soldiers stealing cash and valuables during searches of Iraqi homes. The American Civil Liberties Union has proofs that an US Sergeant gave a handgun to an Iraqi prisoner to justify killing him.
Military documents released on Thursday February 17, 2005, say the American soldiers, fearing "another public outrage", destroyed many of the photos and video images after photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib were beamed around the world, resulting in widespread shock and criticism.
US Army soldiers in Iraq filmed themselves kicking a gravely wounded prisoner
in the
face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave, then titled the effort
"Ramadi Madness" after the city where it was made. Florida National
Guard soldiers shot the video, made public on Monday March 7, 2005. They edited
and compiled it into a DVD in January 2004, with various sections bearing
titles such as "Those Crafty Little Bastards" and "Another
Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag."
On March 26, 2005, we were told that a US Army investigation found systematic abuse and possible torture of Iraqi prisoners at a base near the city of Mosul, just as top military officials became aware of abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib. The new documents were the first to reveal abuses at the jail in Mosul and are among the few to allege torture directly. An officer found that detainees "were being systematically and intentionally mistreated" at the holding facility in December 2003. The 311th Military Intelligence Battalion of the army's 101st Airborne Division ran the lockup. "There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or translators engaged in physical torture of the detainees," a memo from the investigator said. The January 2004 report said the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions were violated.
On June 9, 2005, we were told that a group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja last month. A Marine Corps spokesman denied that abuse had taken place and said an investigation was continuing. According to the marines, 19 employees of Zapata Engineering, including 16 Americans, were detained after a marine patrol in Falluja reported being fired on by a convoy of trucks and sports utility vehicles. The marines also claim to have seen gunmen in the convoy fire at civilians. This is believed to be the first time that private military contractors have been detained in Iraq by the US military, and it has restarted debate about their status and accountability. The security guards claim the shooting incident was a case of mistaken identity. A spokeswoman for the company told the LA Times that the guards had fired warning shots into the air when an unidentified vehicle approached their vehicle as it passed through Falluja, but had not fired at any marines.
On July 1, 2005, Iraq's UN ambassador accused US Marines of shooting to death in cold blood his unarmed 21-year-old cousin in western Iraq and demanded an immediate investigation. Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie said Marines killed his first cousin's son, Mohammed al-Sumaidaie, an engineering student, during a June 25 raid of his home in Al-Shaikh Hadid, near a US military base at Haditha Dam. "All indications point to a killing of an unarmed innocent civilian, a cold-blooded murder," said Sumaidaie, a Sunni and ally of the United States. "The Marines were smiling at each other as they were leaving." The US authorities take these allegations seriously and will thoroughly investigate this incident to determine what happened.
Eleven US soldiers have been charged with beating suspected Iraqi insurgents in custody. The charges were filed on Wednesday July 13, 2005, after a complaint by a fellow soldier. None of the insurgents required medical treatment for injuries related to the alleged assault. The 11 soldiers have been charged with "violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice".
The torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by US troops was widespread and not limited to the high-profile cases at Abu Ghraib prison, a former soldier who participated in an interrogation that she said "crossed a line." Kayla Williams, 28, a former sergeant with the US Army's 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and the author of a new book, said on August 18, 2005, soldiers interrogating a naked Iraqi asked her to humiliate him. She also saw fellow soldiers throwing lit cigarettes at him and hitting him in the face. While stationed at the 2nd Brigade's Brigade Support Area in Mosul in late 2003, Arabic linguist Williams was asked to mock an Iraqi man's sexual prowess and ridicule the size of his genitals. Williams said she was "not clear" on whether the superiors of the soldiers in charge of the interrogation had ordered the abuse. "If they didn't know what was going on, they should have," she said in an interview.
The United Nations raised the alarm on Thursday September 8, 2005, about mounting violence in Iraq blamed on pro-government militias and urged the authorities to look into reports of systematic torture in police stations. The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq also said "mass arrests" by US and Iraqi forces, and long detentions without charge, could damage support for the new political system. The Led-led government has denied accusations from the once dominant Sunni Arab minority that it tolerates sectarian death squads among police forces. It has admitted that abuses do occur but has vowed to crack down. Sunni insurgents are also accused of mass killings of civilians and security personnel. Sunni leaders were angered when 36 bound and blindfold men were found tortured and shot near the Iranian border two weeks ago. On Thursday, police said they found 14 bodies, similarly tied, some of them policemen, in a farm stream south of Baghdad.
Human Rights Watch has published a report on September 24, 2005, giving fresh details of alleged torture and abuse of detainees by US forces in Iraq. The report quotes three US soldiers who described routine, severe beatings of prisoners, including a detainee's leg being broken with a baseball bat. Other allegations included applying burning chemicals to detainees' eyes and skin, making them glow in the dark. A US defence spokesman said the report contained errors and distortions. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report is based on interviews with a captain and two sergeants who served in a battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division. They said abuse, at a military base called Mercury near Falluja, was not only overlooked, but was sometimes ordered. The punishments handed out included sleep deprivation, withholding food and water, "human pyramids" like those seen in photos from Abu Ghraib prison, and blows to the face.
The U.S. Army after a brief inquiry has failed to determine whether U.S. soldiers provided grisly photos of people killed in the Iraq war to a porn Web site in exchange for free access to it, officials said on Wednesday September 28, 2005. The numerous graphic pictures posted on the Web site showed men, with their faces visible and wearing what looked like U.S. military uniforms, standing over a charred corpse, mutilated dead bodies and severed body parts. The Army Criminal Investigation Command in Iraq conducted the preliminary inquiry within the past week but closed it after concluding no felony crime had been committed and failing to determine whether U.S. soldiers were responsible for the photos and whether they showed actual war dead, Army officials said.
Bush said on December 6, 2005, that the US does not torture prisoners but the world is not convinced. Most human right organisations believe that the US is using secret prisons in Eastern Europe and send prisoners to countries where they know they will be tortured.
An US Army interrogator, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis E. Welshofer, was convicted
of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty on January 21, 2006.
He caused the death of an uncooperative Iraqi general by putting him, arms
bound by a rope, in a sleeping bag during interrogation. Iraqi Major General
Abed Hamed Mowhoush, a high-ranking Saddam Hussein's general, was thought
to be involved in the insurgency but he refused to talk. Welshofer could be
condemned to three years in prison. In fact on January 23 he was only reprimanded,
he loss $6,000 on his salary and he was at the equivalent of house arrest
for 60 days. Is it sad or laughable? What is certain is that it shows clearly
the way the Americans value the life of any foreigner. America is not a dirty
word for nothing outside the USA!