Early Iraq Abuse Accounts Met With Silence

Early Iraq Abuse Accounts Met With Silence
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

Detailed allegations of psychological abuse, deprivation, beatings and deaths at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq were met by public silence from the U.S. Army last October — six months before shocking photographs stirred world outrage and demands for action.

At the time, one ex-prisoner sensed that words might count for little. Instead, Rahad Naif told a reporter, "I wish somebody could go take a picture of Camp Bucca."

These early accounts by freed prisoners, reported by The Associated Press last fall, told of detainees punished by hours lying bound in the sun; being attacked by dogs; being deprived of sufficient water; spending days with hoods over their heads.

One told AP of seeing an elderly Iraqi woman tied up and lying in the dust; others told of ill men dying in crowded tents.

They spoke repeatedly of being humiliated by American guards. None mentioned the sexual humiliation seen in recently released photos, but Arab culture might keep an Iraqi from describing such mistreatment.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040508/ap_on_re_mi_ea/abuse_early_accounts

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Amnesty International recalls your statement on 26 June 2003, made on the occasion of the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, in which you said that "the United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example". The organization urges you now to ensure that the USA fully meets its international obligations, including as a state party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to investigate all allegations of torture and ill-treatment, publish all findings, prosecute all perpetrators, compensate all victims, and prevent any future torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. We call on the USA to open the doors of its detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, and at undisclosed locations elsewhere, to independent bodies, including visits by United Nations Special Rapporteurs.

In July 2003, Amnesty International sent your government a Memorandum on Concerns Relating to Law and Order in Iraq. The Memorandum included allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Iraqi detainees by US and Coalition forces.(1) The allegations included beatings, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, hooding, and prolonged forced standing and kneeling. We have never received a response or any indication from the administration or the Coalition Provisional Authority that an investigation took place. Likewise, we have never received a response to the Memorandum to the US Government on the rights of people in US custody in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay which we sent to you in April 2002, and which also raised concerns about questions and allegations of torture and ill-treatment.(2)

The military investigation in Iraq headed by Major General Antonio Taguba found "systemic and illegal abuse of detainees" in the Abu Ghraib facility (Baghdad Central Confinement Facility, BCCF) between August 2003 and February 2004, and concluded that soldiers had "committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib/BCCF and Camp Bucca, Iraq". Amnesty International is concerned that the Taguba report was not intended for public release, and that the administration's current response has only come once the report and the photographic evidence came into the public domain.

At the Department of Defense news briefing on 4 May 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said that he was "stunned" by the allegations. In one of several statements apparently downplaying the seriousness of the allegations, however, he added that his "impression is that what has been charged so far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture". Amnesty International stresses that the "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuse" found by the Taguba investigation constitute acts of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, in violation of international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 147, Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949) lists "torture or inhuman treatment, without distinguishing among the two in terms of gravity, among their "grave breaches". These are war crimes and are the most serious offences that every High Contracting Party to the Conventions must prevent and suppress, including by prosecuting the perpetrators. The incidents recorded in the Taguba report include:

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http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=77EC1B8868C9828F80256E8D0041F7B5

I couldn't be more disgusted and outraged, there are no words.

As long as no one acknowledges evil, it will continue. Government officials never act until they know that you know what is going on and speak out. They ALWAYS KNOW!!