"Abuse
Of Iraqi POWs By GIs Probed"
"It's just possible that no soldiers in U.S. history have done more damage to our country's cause than the Gang of Six from the 800th Military Police Brigade. But it's not just about the soldiers directly involved. These crimes demonstrate an utter failure of the chain of command. All the way to the top." (Ralph Peters)
News and commentary on the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq and the beheading
of Nicholas Berg.
2004/05/10 - 2004/05/29
2004/04/29 - 2004/05/09May 2004
Sunday, May 9, 2004
"An Iraqi man carries an anti-U.S. poster..." (Akram Saleh, Reuters, 2004/05/09)
"Chain of Command" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/05/09)
"Fake rape photos infuriate Arab world" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/09)
"Frauds Try to Exploit Iraq Abuse Scandal" (Lee Keath, AP/Newsday.com, 2004/05/09)
"A Prison on the Brink" (Scott Higham et al., The Washington Post, 2004/05/09)Saturday, May 8, 2004
"'I'm sorry'" (Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram, 2004/05/08)
"Abu Gharib, other parts of the picture" (Ali, Iraq the Model, 2004/05/08)
"Fisk Redlining" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/05/08)
"Mistreatment of Prisoners Is Called Routine in U.S." (Fox Butterfield, The New York Times, 2004/05/08)
"Prison torture common in Mideast, surveys find" (David R. Sands, The Washington Times, 2004/05/08)
"Soldier Says Role Was to 'Make It Hell' for Prisoners" (Jackie Spinner, The Washington Post, 2004/05/08)
Friday, May 7, 2004
"'US soldiers abused young girl at Iraqi prison'" (itv.com, 2004/05/07)
"Rumsfeld apologizes to abused Iraqis" (MSNBC, 2004/05/07)
"More Photos, Videos in Iraq Abuse Scandal-Rumsfeld" (Reuters/My Way, 2004/05/07)
"US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld..." (Stephen Jaffe, AFP, 2004/05/07)
"Rumsfeld Apologizes to Iraqi Prisoners" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/07)
"Local Iraqis divided over photos" (John Iwasaki, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2004/05/07)
"The Greyhawk Factor" (Greyhawk, The Mudville Gazette, 2004/05/07)
"Blame Worthy" (Lawrence F. Kaplan, The New Republic, 2004/05/07)
"Our Weird Way of War" (Victor Davis Hanson, The National Review, 2004/05/07)
"Media Missteps: Context gets lost in hysteria and grandstanding" (Jonah Goldberg, The National Review, 2004/05/07)
"This Sorry Mess" (Denis Boyles, The National Review, 2004/05/07)
"Abu Ghraib as Symbol" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/05/07)
"Good ol’ girl who enjoyed cruelty" (Sharon Churcher, The Daily Telegraph/whiteprivilege.com, 2004/05/07)
"Major U.S. Papers Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation" (Diane Bartz, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/07)
"Al-Sadr Dismisses Bush Apology for Abuse" (AP/FOX News, 2004/05/07)
Thursday, May 6, 2004
"Bush: Rumsfeld 'Will Stay in My Cabinet'" (John J. Lumpkin, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/06)
"'So Called Saddam'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/05/06)
"A naked detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison..." (The Washington Post, 2004/05/06)
"New Prison Images Emerge" (Christian Davenport, The Washington Post, 2004/05/06)
Wednesday, May 4, 2004
"Abu Ghraib" (zeyad, Healing Iraq, 2004/05/05)
"Limbaugh on torture of Iraqis: U.S. guards were "having a good time," 'blow[ing] some steam off'" (Media Matters for America, 2004/05/05)
"The Silver-Lining of Abu Ghraib" (Austin Bay, Strategy Page, 2004/05/05)
"Bush: Iraqi Prisoner Abuse 'Abhorrent'" (Terence Hunt, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/05)
"US military commander apologises to people of Iraq for prison scandal" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/05)
"Abu Ghraib Is America" (Michael Graham, The Corner, 2004/05/05)
"Iraqi Recounts Hours of Abuse by U.S. Troops" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2004/05/05)
"U.S. Reveals Iraqi Prisoner Deaths as Scandal Grows" (Alan Elsner, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/05)
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
"Prison Mutiny: What the torturers of Abu Ghraib have wrought" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2004/05/04)
"Demonstrators chant 'Bomb London, bomb New York'..." (John D McHugh, AP, 2004/05/04)
"U.S. Army report on Iraqi prisoner abuse" (NBC News, 2004/05/04)
"Rumsfeld Says Abusive Soldiers Will Pay" (Robert Burns, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/04)
"Bogus GI rape photos used as Arab propaganda" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/04)
"Army Punishes 7 With Reprimands for Prison Abuse" (Thom Shanker and Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2004/05/04)
"The General in Charge of Iraqi Force Is Replaced" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2004/05/04)
Monday, May 3, 2004
"Iraqi Prisoner Details Abuse by Americans" (Scheherezade Faramarzi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/03)
"We're fighting for the right to be outraged at those photos" (Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/05/03)
"Angry Ex-Detainees Tell of Abuse" (Scott Wilson, The Washington Post, 2004/05/03)
Sunday, May 2, 2004
"Daily Mirror Stands by Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Photos" (Reuters/My Way , 2004/05/02)
"Rough Justice in Iraq" (Rod Nordland and John Barry, Newsweek, from the 2004/05/10 issue)
"Doubt cast on Iraq torture photos" (BBC News, 2004/05/02)
Saturday, May 1, 2004
"U.S. War Crimes: Torture of Iraqi Prisoners Exposed" (Tehran Times, 2004/05/01)
"An American Disaster; Prisoner Abuse In Iraq" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/05/01)
"Shame Of Abuse By Brit Troops" (Paul Byrne, The Daily Mirror, 2004/05/01)
"Iraq Prisoner Images Anger Arabs, Bush" (Nadia Abou El Magd, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/01)
April 2004
Friday, April 30, 2004
"A hooded and wired Iraqi prisoner..." (The New Yorker, 2004/04/30)
"Torture at Abu Ghraib" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/04/30)
"US own goals" (Melanie Phillips, melaniephillips.com, 2004/04/30)
"Bush feels 'disgust' over Iraq prisoner abuse" (Peter Spiegel, Financial Times, 2004/04/30)
"Outrage At American Torture Of Iraqi Prisoners" (Anthony Harwood, The Daily Mirror, 2004/04/30)
Thursday, April 29, 2004
"Abuse Of Iraqi POWs By GIs Probed" (CBS News, 2004/04/29)
"An Iraqi man carries an anti-U.S. poster..."
(Akram Saleh, Reuters, 2004/05/09)
"An Iraqi man carries an anti-U.S. poster during a protest in central Baghdad, to denounce the U.S. government for torturing Iraqi prisoners, May 9, 2004.""Chain of Command" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/05/09)
"Last week, I was given another set of digital photographs, which had been in the possession of a member of the 320th. According to a time sequence embedded in the digital files, the photographs were taken by two different cameras over a twelve-minute period on the evening of December 12, 2003, two months after the military-police unit was assigned to Abu Ghraib.
One of the new photographs shows a young soldier, wearing a dark jacket over his uniform and smiling into the camera, in the corridor of the jail. In the background are two Army dog handlers, in full camouflage combat gear, restraining two German shepherds. The dogs are barking at a man who is partly obscured from the camera’s view by the smiling soldier. Another image shows that the man, an Iraqi prisoner, is naked. His hands are clasped behind his neck and he is leaning against the door to a cell, contorted with terror, as the dogs bark a few feet away. Other photographs show the dogs straining at their leashes and snarling at the prisoner. In another, taken a few minutes later, the Iraqi is lying on the ground, writhing in pain, with a soldier sitting on top of him, knee pressed to his back. Blood is streaming from the inmate’s leg. Another photograph is a closeup of the naked prisoner, from his waist to his ankles, lying on the floor. On his right thigh is what appears to be a bite or a deep scratch. There is another, larger wound on his left leg, covered in blood." (See also: "Torture at Abu Ghraib" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/04/30))"Fake rape photos infuriate Arab world" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/09)
Yes, the "damage has been done" — partly by the BBC itself:
"The effects of the international scandal over Iraqi prisoner abuse continue to be compounded in the Arab and Muslim worlds by fake images of rape, torture and sadomasochism taken from pornography sites and distributed on pro-Islamist websites — including even news sites — as first revealed in WorldNetDaily. ...
Well-known Iraqi novelist Buthaina Al-Nasiri told WND the pornographic photos are still circulating widely through the Arab world — causing confusion between genuine abuse and fantasy. ...
Meanwhile, Adam Livingstone, senior producer for BBC NewsNight asked WND for the photos as they originally appeared on one Arabic site, as part of the BBC's further investigation into "the fake rape pictures [WND] has already exposed."
On May 4, the same day WND reported on the fake rape photos, the BBC ran a story entitled "Arab anger at torture photos" which reported a set of rape photos were circulating in the Middle East that "apparently shows two Iraqi women, both wearing traditional black robes, being raped at gunpoint by men ... wearing US Army uniforms." The BBC added that the pictures did not seem geniune because "the uniforms do not seem right." Paul Wood, BBC Middle East correspondent in Cairo added, 'The pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqis might not be genuine either. But the damage has been done.'" (See also: "Bogus GI rape photos used as Arab propaganda" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/04) and "Arab anger at Iraq torture photos" (Paul Wood, BBC News, 2004/05/04): "On the Arabic satellite channels, it's "all torture, all the time" — wall-to-wall coverage of the photographs, the graphic images flooding into homes across the region. ...
And another set of photographs is circulating on Arabic-language web sites. It apparently shows two Iraqi women, both wearing traditional black robes, being raped at gunpoint by men described as wearing US Army uniforms.
These pictures do not seem genuine: the uniforms do not seem right. The pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqis might not be genuine either. But the damage has been done. ...
So perhaps, in the backroom of a mosque in Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, or in Iraq itself, a young Muslim is being shown these photographs — and is recruited for jihad.")"Frauds Try to Exploit Iraq Abuse Scandal" (Lee Keath, AP/Newsday.com, 2004/05/09)
"Fallujah native Abdul-Qader Abdul-Rahman al-Ani, his left elbow wrapped in bandages, his right forearm bound in a cast, recounted how he was beaten by soldiers who picked him up last month. The soldiers tied him and two others arrested with him to a tree and sodomized them one after the other, he told journalists.
"I ask President Bush," he said. "Does he agree with this?"
As Ani, 47, repeated his story, he was interrupted by Jabber al-Okaili, a member of one of the human rights groups that organized the gathering. "He's lying," al-Okaili shouted. "He's a liar!"
Al-Ani was rushed to an office, where al-Okaili and others unwound the bandage on his left arm and found the elbow unscarred and healthy. They cut off half of the cast on his forearm, even as al-Ani insisted, "By God, it's true, everything I say is true."
"All his papers were forged," al-Okaili, of the Free Iraq Institute, said after al-Ani left the building. 'Who knows why he did this. Maybe he was paid by former members of Saddam Hussein's regime.'""A Prison on the Brink" (Scott Higham et al., The Washington Post, 2004/05/09)
The first of three in-depth articles about "The Road to Abu Ghraib":
"The real trouble started after Oct. 15, when the 372nd Military Police Company, a segment of the 320 Battalion based in Cresaptown, Md., took over Abu Ghraib from a military police company based in Henderson, Nev. The 372nd soldiers, reservists from small-town America, were not trained to be prison guards. An MP officer from another unit at Abu Ghraib said he was struck by their unprofessionalism. ...
With little experience in corrections to fall back on, the unit deferred to MPs who had civilian prison backgrounds.
"Detainee care appears to have been made up as the operations developed with reliance on, and guidance from, junior members of the unit who had civilian corrections experience," Taguba later found.
Those members included Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II, 37, who had worked as a correctional officer at Buckingham Correctional Center in Virginia, and Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, a divorced father of two who worked as a prison guard in Greene County, Pa. ...
"I have been made the scapegoat in this event," Phillabaum wrote in an e-mail to The Post. 'Frederick was the NCO [noncommissioned officer] in charge of that wing of the prison. No one higher in his chain of command, starting with his platoon sergeant, knew what was occurring. If he thought that his actions were condoned, then why were they only conducted between 0200-0400 hours for a few days in late October and early November?'" (See also: "In Abuse, a Portrayal of Ill-Prepared, Overwhelmed G.I.'s" (Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 2004/05/09): "The worst abuses at Abu Ghraib took place on or around Nov. 8, according to the details of the military investigation made public so far, and principally in Cellblock 1-A, the group of cells set aside for high risk prisoners. ...
"Taking these prisoners out of their cells and staging bizarre acts were the thoughts of a couple of demented M.P.'s who in civilian life are prison correction officers who well know such acts are prohibited," Colonel Phillabaum said.")"'I'm sorry'" (Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram, 2004/05/08)
An interview with President George W. Bush: "Obviously, our reputation has been damaged severely by the terrible and horrible acts, inhumane acts that were conducted on Iraqi prisoners. Today, I can't tell you how sorry I am to them and their families for the humiliation.
I'm also sorry because people are then able to say, look how terrible America is. But this isn't America, that's not — Americans are appalled at what happened. We're a generous people. I don't think a lot of people understand that. So I've got to do a better job of explaining to people that we're for a lot of things that most people who live in the Middle East want. We want there to be peace. We want people to have a living. We want people to send their kids to schools that work. We want there to be health care. We want there to be a Palestinian state at peace with its neighbours. We want there to be reform. We want people to have a chance to participate in the process.
But I'd say right now times are tough for the United States and the Middle East. ...
I'll tell you what else I'm sorry about. I'm sorry that the truth about our soldiers in Iraq becomes obscured. In other words, we've got fantastic citizens in Iraq; good kids; good soldiers, men and women who are working every day to make Iraqi citizens' lives better. And there are a thousand acts of kindness that take place every day of these great Americans who really do care about the citizens in Iraq. It's an awful, awful period for the American people, just like it's awful for the Iraqi citizens to see that on their TV screens." (See also: "Bush: Iraqi Prisoner Abuse 'Abhorrent'" (Terence Hunt, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/05))"Abu Gharib, other parts of the picture" (Ali, Iraq the Model, 2004/05/08)
Ali on a conversation with an Iraqi doctor, who spent a month at Abu-Ghraib as part of his training:
"— Yes but what about the way they are treated? And how did you find American soldiers in general?
— I’ll tell you about that; first let me tell you that I was surprised with their politeness. Whenever they come to the hospital, they would take of their helmets and show great respect and they either call me Sir or doctor. As for the way they treat the prisoners, they never handcuff anyone of those, political or else, when they bring them for examination and treatment unless I ask them to do so if I know that a particular prisoner is aggressive, and I never saw them beat a prisoner and rarely did one of them use an offensive language with a prisoner. ...
— As far as I know and from what I’ve seen, I’m sure that they are isolated.
— But couldn’t it be true that there were abusive actions at those times that the prisoners were afraid to tell you about?
— Are you serious!? These criminals, and I mean both types tell me all about there “adventures and bravery”. Some of them told me how they killed an American soldier or burned a humvee, and in their circumstances this equals a confession! Do you think they would’ve been abused and remained silent and not tell me at least!? No, I don’t think any of this happened during the time I was there. It seemed that this happened to a very small group of whom I met no one during that month. ...
— So, you believe there’s a lot of clamor here?
— As you said these things are unaccepted but I’m sure that they are isolated and they are just very few exceptions that need to be dealt with, but definitely not the rule. The rule is kindness, care and respect that most of these thugs don’t deserve, and that I have seen by my own eyes. However I still don't understand why did this happen." (Hat tip: Roger L. Simon. See also: "Abu Ghraib" (zeyad, Healing Iraq, 2004/05/05))"Fisk Redlining" (Tim Blair, timblair.spleenville.com, 2004/05/08)
The Ideology of Double Standards. Why is it considered radical to view the torture at Abu Ghraib as "part of a culture" or that it even "is America", but bigoted and racist to draw similar conclusions regarding Arab or Muslim culture from Islamist atrocities? What's considered racist when applied to other cultures is radical when applied to America, the West, Israel and Christianity:
"The scenes from Abu Ghraib have inspired Robert Fisk to apocalyptic hyperbole:Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash.
Our entire morality? Lynndie isn’t the only one doing some tugging here.
Could ever Islam have come so intimately into contact with the sexuality of the Old Testament? Could neo-conservative Christianity - Lynndie is also a churchgoer - have collided so violently, so revoltingly, so obscenely with Islam?
Making rather a lot of this, isn’t he? Lynndie also used to hang out at the local Dairy Dip. Maybe her victims preferred Baskin-Robbins. It’s the ultimate ice cream chain confrontation! Fisk believes that unnamed forces compelled Lynndie England — Fisk refers to her as “a girl” — and her fellow tormenters to carry out their loathsome acts:
They were told to do these despicable things. They were encouraged. This was an order from someone. Who? When can we see their pictures, their identity, their passports, their orders?
What does it matter? We’re all to blame, according to Robert:
Yes, it's part of a culture, a long tradition that goes back to the Crusades; that the Muslim is dirty, lascivious, un-Christian, unworthy of humanity — which is pretty much what Osama bin Laden (now forgotten by Mr Bush, I notice) believes about us Westerners.
Is there anything Fisk and bin Laden don't agree on?" (See also: "An illegal and immoral war, betrayed by images that reveal our racism" (Robert Fisk, Independent/robert-fisk.com, 2004/05/07) and "Abu Ghraib Is America" (Michael Graham, The Corner, 2004/05/05))
"Mistreatment of Prisoners Is Called Routine in U.S." (Fox Butterfield, The New York Times, 2004/05/08)
"Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates. ...
The corrections experts say that some of the worst abuses have occurred in Texas, whose prisons were under a federal consent decree during much of the time President Bush was governor because of crowding and violence by guards against inmates. Judge William Wayne Justice of Federal District Court imposed the decree after finding that guards were allowing inmate gang leaders to buy and sell other inmates as slaves for sex. ...
In a case that began in 2000, a prisoner at the Allred Unit in Wichita Falls, Tex., said he was repeatedly raped by other inmates, even after he appealed to guards for help, and was allowed by prison staff to be treated like a slave, being bought and sold by various prison gangs in different parts of the prison. The inmate, Roderick Johnson, has filed suit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the case is now before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, said Kara Gotsch, public policy coordinator for the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Mr. Johnson.""Prison torture common in Mideast, surveys find" (David R. Sands, The Washington Times, 2004/05/08)
"The scandal over abuse at a U.S. military prison in Iraq is unfolding in a region where governments routinely employ torture, psychological abuse and secret detentions of common prisoners and political detainees, according to numerous U.S., U.N. and private surveys.
Human rights activists say the long history of prisoner abuse and torture in the region makes the images of American troops at Abu Ghraib prison physically and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners all the more devastating to the campaign to improve civil liberties and government accountability across the Middle East. ...
Abderrahim Sabir, U.S. spokesman for the Paris-based Arab Commission for Human Rights, said the revelations coming out of Abu Ghraib prison will have "tremendous negative effects" on efforts to combat much larger systematic abuses in other countries in the region.
"Just in terms of lobbying other countries over prisoner treatment, torture and fair trials, the United States is simply not going to be able to do that for now," said Mr. Sabir, formerly head of North African affairs for Amnesty International.""Soldier Says Role Was to 'Make It Hell' for Prisoners" (Jackie Spinner, The Washington Post, 2004/05/08)
An article about Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, a military police officer who has been charged with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Apparently, she hadn't been briefed that it is wrong to stack naked detainees in pyramids:
"Her face is now famous as belonging to one of two soldiers posing in the widely published photograph of naked Iraqi detainees stacked in a pyramid. The picture is one of several that have inflamed the Arab world and brought condemnation from President Bush and other U.S. political and military leaders.
Harman is accused by the Army of taking photographs of that pyramid and photographing and videotaping detainees who were ordered to strip and masturbate in front of other prisoners and soldiers, according to a charge sheet obtained by The Washington Post. She is also charged with photographing a corpse and then posing for a picture with it; with striking several prisoners by jumping on them as they lay in a pile; with writing "rapeist" on a prisoner's leg; and with attaching wires to a prisoner's hands while he stood on a box with his head covered. She told him he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box, the documents said. ...
She said the prison had no standard operating procedures and on Tier 1A, where suspected insurgents were held, Army and other intelligence officers "made the rules as they went." ...
"The Geneva Convention was never posted, and none of us remember taking a class to review it," Harman said. "The first time reading it was two months after being charged. I read the entire thing highlighting everything the prison is in violation of. There's a lot.""'US soldiers abused young girl at Iraqi prison'" (itv.com, 2004/05/07)
"The US military has said it will investigate claims by a former inmate of Abu Ghraib prison that a girl as young as 12 was stripped and beaten by military personnel.
Suhaib al-Baz, a journalist for the al-Jazeera television network, claims to have been tortured at the prison, based west of Baghdad, while held there for 54 days.
Mr al-Baz was arrested when reporting clashes between insurgents and coalition forces in November.
He said: "They brought a 12-year-old girl into our cellblock late at night. Her brother was a prisoner in the other cells.
"She was naked and screaming and calling out to him as they beat her. Her brother was helpless and could only hear her cries. This affected all of us because she was just a child."
The allegations cannot be verified independently but Mr al-Baz maintains psychological and physical violence were commonplace in the jail. ...
Mr al-Baz claims the guards at the prison were keen to take photographs of the abuse and turned it into a competition.
'They were enjoying taking photographs of the torture. There was a daily competition to see who could take the most gruesome picture.
The winner's photo would be stuck on a wall and also put on their laptop computers as a screensaver.
I had a good opinion of the Americans but since my time in prison, I've changed my mind. In Iraq we still have no freedom or democracy. They are so cruel to us.'""Rumsfeld apologizes to abused Iraqis" (MSNBC, 2004/05/07)
"Rumsfeld did not describe the photos, but U.S. military officials told NBC News that the unreleased images showed U.S. soldiers severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi female prisoner and “acting inappropriately with a dead body.” The officials said there was also a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.""More Photos, Videos in Iraq Abuse Scandal-Rumsfeld" (Reuters/My Way, 2004/05/07)
"The abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison includes more photographs and videos that are potentially worse than the photos shown around the world of smiling American soldiers next to naked Iraqi prisoners in humiliating positions, U.S. officials said on Friday.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, said there were many more photos and videotapes that had not been published showing cruel and sadistic acts by U.S. personnel.
"I've said today that there are a lot more photographs and videos that exist. If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse. That's just a fact," Rumsfeld said.
"I mean I looked at them last night and they're hard to believe," he said. 'And if they're sent to some news organization and taken out of the criminal prosecution channels that they're in, that's where we'll be. And it's not a pretty picture.'" (See also full transcripts: "Rumsfeld Testifies Before Senate Armed Services Committee" (The Washington Post, 2004/05/07) and "Rumsfeld Testifies Before House Armed Services Committee" (The Washington Post, 2004/05/07))
"US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld..."
(Stephen Jaffe, AFP, 2004/05/07)
"US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is sworn in before the Senate Armed Services on Capitol Hill to testify on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse by US soldiers.""Rumsfeld Apologizes to Iraqi Prisoners" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/07)
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday extended "my deepest apology" to Iraqis brutally abused in U.S. military prisons and said he favors compensating them for their suffering.
"These events occurred on my watch. As Secretary of Defense, I am accountable for them. I take full responsibility," Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Rumsfeld took the witness chair after a week of controversy over shocking photographs of U.S. captors abusing their prisoners, often forcing them to assume sexually humiliating poses. Several Democratic lawmakers have demanded his resignation. ...
Rumsfeld had scarcely uttered his opening apology when protesters interrupted him.
"Fire Rumsfeld," some yelled before they were hustled from the room.
Rumsfeld sat calmly in his seat while the room was quieted.
Moments earlier, he added his personal apology to Bush's.
"I feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees. They are human beings. They were in U.S. custody," he said.
'To those Iraqis who were mistreated by the U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology.'" (See also: "Major U.S. Papers Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation" (Diane Bartz, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/07))"Local Iraqis divided over photos" (John Iwasaki, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2004/05/07)
"The abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers draws intense reactions from some who left Iraq to find freedom in Washington state, but prolonged outrage isn't one of them.
While some local Iraqis are bothered by the images, others welcome them. ...
Imad al-Turfy, another Everett resident, shows no sympathy for the prisoners, saying their treatment paled when compared with the horrors inflicted under Saddam Hussein's regime.
"They raped our women. They killed our kids. So there's hatred between us, the people here, and the people in Iraq," he said, referring to the Shiite Muslims who emigrated and the Sunni Muslims who ruled Iraq under Saddam.
"Anything coming to them would make me happy."
Al-Muhanna and al-Turfy were among about 20 Iraqi men who met last night to talk politics, discuss their jobs and offer opinions on the latest headlines.
Al-Turfy said he could "tell a million stories" about Saddam's abuses: the people who were blown apart by dynamite or thrown off 20-story buildings, or the family that was buried alive in a car in Baghdad.
"You can't imagine," he said. "They killed us like rats. Like anything cheap."
So to view photos of prisoners in humiliating positions — one month after seeing another chilling image, the charred and mutilated corpses of Americans hanging from a bridge over the Euphrates River — was "worth it, because they did the same to us," al-Turfy said, a comment echoed by several other Iraqis.""The Greyhawk Factor" (Greyhawk, The Mudville Gazette, 2004/05/07)
A brilliant post on Hersh's "televised disinformation campaign": "Seymour Hersh has had an amazing story dropped into his lap. A group of American GIs, caught on camera, abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners. Heinous acts. The wheels of justice were certainly turning, but nailing the abusive guards is not enough for the intrepid reporter. Indeed, since evidence indicates that one of those guard's attorneys most likely provided that information to Hersh, it follows that getting the higher ups was likely part of the deal.
But, having failed to provide "actionable intelligence" against those "higher ups" in his largely factual (albeit chronologically challenged) New Yorker article, Hersh has embarked on a televised disinformation campaign, recently appearing on the "O'Reilly Factor" in an effort to sow additional confusion in a public already stunned into incomprehension by the graphic photos he helped make famous worldwide.
The campaign relies on two main points, neither of which is completely factual: 1) the Army did nothing, and 2) it's the superior's fault, not the troops. Point one is a lie. Point two is true, but there's a level where it becomes ludicrous. Given that point one is a lie, that level is low." (See also the transcript of the O'Reilly Factor: "Inside Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison" (FOX News, 2004/05/04) and "Torture at Abu Ghraib" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/04/30))"Blame Worthy" (Lawrence F. Kaplan, The New Republic, 2004/05/07)
Kaplan on "one of the thorniest questions of our time: Does the responsibility for wartime atrocities lie with their immediate perpetrators or does it lie within a "system" that permits and even encourages such depredations?":
"To understand Kerry's reluctance to focus on the guards, we would do well to cast a glance backward, for this is hardly the first time the public has responded to a wartime revelation of this scope. Having been convicted in 1971 of premeditated murder during the My Lai massacre of 1968, Lieutenant William Calley became an overnight hero. A White House poll found that 79 percent of Americans disagreed with the verdict, and on the day it was handed down, the Nixon team received over 50,000 telegrams demanding clemency. Within days, "The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley" had sold 200,000 copies, and Nixon, citing "public support," sprung Calley from his jail cell.
As it happens, one of the voices raised in Calley's defense belonged to John Kerry. The responsibility for My Lai, Kerry said in congressional testimony, rested not with Calley, but "with the men who designed free fire zones ... with the men who encourage body counts." Lest anyone miss the point, Kerry told an audience at the New York Stock Exchange, "Guilty as Lt. Calley might have been of the actual murder, the verdict does not single out the real criminal. Those of us who have served in Vietnam know that the real guilty party is the United States of America." ...
Echoing as it does the cliché that Vietnam was an "atrocity-producing situation," Kerry's suggestion that Abu Ghraib was more policy than accident implies that the guards were not so much victimizers as victims who deserve a Nuremberg defense. But the notion, popularized then as now by the likes of Kerry and Hersh, is risible. By all accounts, what happened at Abu Ghraib did not reflect official policy — indeed, the source of the photographs was a military investigation into violations of official policy.""Our Weird Way of War" (Victor Davis Hanson, The National Review, 2004/05/07)
"No, the challenge again is that bin Laden, the al Qaedists, the Baathist remnants, and the generic radical Islamicists of the Middle East have mastered the knowledge of the Western mind. Indeed they know us far better than we do ourselves. ...
First, shock the sensibilities of a Western society into utter despair at facing primordial enemies from the Dark Ages. The decapitation of a Daniel Pearl; the probing of charred bodies with sticks, whether in Iran in 1980 or Fallujah in 2004; the promise of torturing Japanese hostages — all this is designed to make the Western suburbanite change channels and head to the patio, mumbling either, "How can we fight such barbarians" or — better yet — "Why would we wish to?"
If, on occasion, an exasperated and furious West sinks to the same level — renegade prisoner guards gratuitously humiliating or torturing naked Iraqi prisoners on tape — all the better, as proof that the elevated pretensions of Western decency and humanity are but a sham. A single violation of civility, a momentary lapse in humanism and in the new world of Western cultural relativism and moral equivalence, presto, the West loses its carefully carved-out moral high ground as it engages not merely in much needed self-critique and scrutiny, but reaches a feeding frenzy that evolves to outright cultural cannibalism. ...
Key here is our own acceptance of such moral asymmetries. Storming the Church of the Nativity is a misdemeanor in the Western press; shelling a minaret full of shooters is a felony. Blowing up Westerners in Saudi Arabia or Jordan is de rigueur; asking Muslims to take off their scarves while in French schools is a casus belli. If Afghanistan has roads, a benevolent man as president, and al Qaedists on the run, call it a failure because Mr. Karzai has not been able, FDR-like, to tour the countryside in a convertible limousine waving to crowds.""Media Missteps: Context gets lost in hysteria and grandstanding" (Jonah Goldberg, The National Review, 2004/05/07)
"CBS should be ashamed for running those photos. ...
Now before you get all pious with table-thumping sermons about the glories of the First Amendment and the need to publish news without fear and all that, consider a few facts.
In 1994, ten Belgian peacekeepers were horribly mutilated alive (castrated, their Achilles tendons slashed, etc.) in Rwanda. The full extent of the barbarity wasn't disclosed for a long time for fear of reprisals.
Just a month ago, television news networks agonized about how much they should show of the butchery of Americans in Fallujah. They opted for very, very little.
Within 48 hours of the 9/11 attacks, the major news networks and leading newspapers were settling on a policy to stop showing images of victims leaping to their death from the World Trade Center. NBC ran one clip of a man plunging to his death, and then admitted it was a mistake. An NBC News v.p. told the New York Times, "Once it was on, we decided not to use it again. It's stunning photography, I understand that, but we felt the image was disturbing."
In fact, post-9/11 coverage illuminates an interesting cultural cleavage in the media. When shocking images might stir Americans to favor war, the Serious Journalists show great restraint. When those images have the opposite effect, the Ted Koppels let it fly. ...
Of course, CBS had every right to do what it did. But that's irrelevant. Nobody's suggesting the government should have stopped them. I'm suggesting that CBS should have stopped itself. Now we'll all have to live with the consequences — and some of us will die from them.""This Sorry Mess" (Denis Boyles, The National Review, 2004/05/07)
"The Bush apology makes the facts of this case suddenly irrelevant. Real torture's one thing, and it's wise that the military's taking seriously its investigation of the serious charges against the guards at Abu Ghraib. But humiliation? Making captured Iraqi terrorists wear ladies' undergarments is tantamount to what, exactly? Treating them like British comedians? ...
In fact, only moments after Bush spoke his apology, Le Monde was suggesting that one apology may not be sufficient anyway, since the prison scandal was just the tip of an iceberg of American outrages in Iraq. In an editorial the paper explained that it is American "brutality and incompetence [that] nourished radical Islam" while one of Le Monde's popular cartoonists pointed out that "torturing" prisoners is just part of the American way of life. I felt humiliated just reading the paper. ...
Judging the merits of an entire war by the stupid acts of "trailer-trash troops" (to use Johnson's phrase) in one incident in one battle in that war is dumber — and far more irresponsible — than the acts over which Johnson and the the Euro-press are waxing hysterical; even in the short-run, this kind of cheap posturing is much more dangerous and threatening to lives, American, Iraqi, British, and otherwise." (See also: "Bush: Rumsfeld 'Will Stay in My Cabinet'" (John J. Lumpkin, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/06))"Abu Ghraib as Symbol" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2004/05/07)
"For the jihadists, at stake in the war against the infidels is the control of women. ... The case the jihadists make against freedom is that wherever it goes, especially the United States and Europe, it brings sexual license and corruption, decadence and depravity. ...
Which is what made one aspect of the Abu Ghraib horrors even more incendiary — the pictures of female U.S. soldiers mocking, humiliating and dominating naked and abused Arab men. One could not have designed a more symbolic representation of the Islamist warning about where Western freedom ultimately leads than yesterday's Washington Post photo of a uniformed American woman holding a naked Arab man on a leash. ...
Which is why the abuse at Abu Ghraib is so inflammatory and, for us and our cause, so damaging. It reenacted the most deeply psychologically charged — and most deeply buried — aspect of the entire war on terrorism, exactly as Osama bin Laden would have scripted it." (See also: "New Prison Images Emerge" (Christian Davenport, The Washington Post, 2004/05/06))"Good ol’ girl who enjoyed cruelty" (Sharon Churcher, The Daily Telegraph/whiteprivilege.com, 2004/05/07)
"Pointing crudely at the genitals of a naked, hooded Iraqi, the petite brunette with a cigarette hanging from her lips epitomised America’s shame over revelations US soldiers routinely tortured inmates at Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad.
Lynndie England, 21, a rail worker’s daughter, comes from a trailer park in Fort Ashby, West Virginia, which locals proudly call “a backwoods world”.
She faces a court martial, but at home she is toasted as a hero.
At the dingy Corner Club Saloon they think she has done nothing wrong.
“A lot of people here think they ought to just blow up the whole of Iraq,” Colleen Kesner said.
“To the country boys here, if you’re a different nationality, a different race, you’re sub-human. That’s the way girls like Lynndie are raised.
“Tormenting Iraqis, in her mind, would be no different from shooting a turkey. Every season here you’re hunting something. Over there, they’re hunting Iraqis.”
In Fort Ashby, in the isolated Appalachian mountains 260km west of Washington, the poor, barely-educated and almost all-white population talk openly about an active Ku Klux Klan presence.
There is little understanding of the issues in Iraq and less of why photographs showing soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company, mostly from around Fort Ashby, abusing prisoners has caused a furore.""Major U.S. Papers Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation" (Diane Bartz, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/07)
Micro Swedish Site Wants Rumsfeld to Stay, Considers Calls for his Resignation Hysterical and Out of All Proportions: "Donald Rumsfeld took a beating in the U.S. press as many newspapers demanded the defense secretary's resignation with scathing critiques of his handling of the war in Iraq that cited the abuse of Iraqi prisoners as the last straw.
The New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, New York Newsday, Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune and Detroit Free Press all called for Rumsfeld to step down in editorials on Thursday or Friday. ...
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called for Rumsfeld's resignation, as well as that of his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and Undersecretary Douglas Feith for the prisoner abuse, underestimating the number of troops needed in Iraq, overestimating the danger of weapons of mass destruction, alienating allies and pushing the State Department out of plans to run a postwar Iraq.
"It's the accumulation of all these miscalculations, misconceptions and missteps — and an arrogant inability to admit his mistakes — that require him to step down," the paper wrote on Thursday.
In New York, The New York Times and Newsday called for Rumsfeld to go and the Wall Street Journal and Daily News said President Bush should keep him on.
The Times accused Rumsfeld of "almost willful blindness" and said his whole team should step down." (See also even more "Rumsfeld Should Go" Op-Ed's and editorials, via RealClear Politics:
"You're Fired" (Peter Beinart, The New Republic, 2004/05/07)
"Star player Rumsfeld drops the ball" (Michael O'Hanlon, Newsday.com, 2004/05/07)
"He Must Go ... Immediately" (Jeffrey H. Smith, Los Angeles Times, 2004/05/07)
"Restoring Our Honor" (Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, 2004/05/06)
"Resign, Rumsfeld" (The Economist, 2004/05/06))"Al-Sadr Dismisses Bush Apology for Abuse" (AP/FOX News, 2004/05/07)
"Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced the U.S. abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, dismissing an apology by President Bush and demanding Friday that the American soldiers charged with abuse be tried in Iraqi courts.
Meanwhile, one of al-Sadr's senior aides told worshippers in Basra that anyone capturing a female British soldier can keep her as a slave. Waving an assault rifle, Sheik Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli also said anyone capturing a British soldier will receive about $350 and anyone killing one will receive $150.
He held what he said were documents and photographs of three Iraqi women being raped at British-run prisons in Iraq.""Bush: Rumsfeld 'Will Stay in My Cabinet'" (John J. Lumpkin, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/06)
"President Bush said Thursday that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "will stay in my Cabinet" despite Democratic calls for his departure over abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners by American military guards.
"Secretary Rumsfeld has served our nation well," Bush told reporters in an appearance in the White House Rose Garden. Speaking slowly for emphasis, he added, "Secretary Rumsfeld has been the secretary during two wars, and he is an important part of my Cabinet."
With King Abdullah II of Jordan at his side, Bush also offered his first outright apology for the mistreatment suffered by Iraqis at the hands of their American captors. He said he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families," and said the images had made Americans "sick to their stomach." ...
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters she believes Rumsfeld must go, then issued a statement that said, "The abuses could have been prevented with proper leadership at the top of the chain of command."
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, issued a statement saying, "For the good of our country, the safety of our troops, and our image around the globe Secretary Rumsfeld should resign. If he does not resign forthwith, the president should fire him." ...
At the same time, he was unflinching in his support of Rumsfeld, whom he called back to the Pentagon in 2001 for his second tour of duty as secretary.
"He will stay in my Cabinet," the president said.""'So Called Saddam'" (James Taranto, Best of the Web Today, 2004/05/06)
"Rep. Maxine Waters, a far-left Californian and member of the Congressional Black Caucus, had this to say in an interview yesterday with the "Democracy Now" radio program: "Everywhere we go we seem to be creating a mess. We've created a mess in Iraq, and our soldiers are dying every day. Now we find that we are violating the prisoners. We're treating them worse than so-called Saddam had treated them."
With all due respect to the glories of free speech, this is pathetic. What happened at Abu Ghraib is bad enough without exaggerating it by preposterously calling it worse than Saddam. And "so-called Saddam"? Does Waters simply believe America's enemies don't exist?" (See also: "Rep. Maxine Waters Calls on Congress Not To Recognize New Haitian Government" (Democracy Now!, 2004/05/05))
"A naked detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison..."
(The Washington Post, 2004/05/06)
"A naked detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison is tethered by a leash to prison guard Army Pvt Lynndie England in these undated photos. Relatives positively identified England from this photo. These photos were cropped from the waist down for publication purposes.""New Prison Images Emerge" (Christian Davenport, The Washington Post, 2004/05/06)
"The collection of photographs begins like a travelogue from Iraq. Here are U.S. soldiers posing in front of a mosque. Here is a soldier riding a camel in the desert. And then: a soldier holding a leash tied around a man's neck in an Iraqi prison. He is naked, grimacing and lying on the floor.
Mixed in with more than 1,000 digital pictures obtained by The Washington Post are photographs of naked men, apparently prisoners, sprawled on top of one another while soldiers stand around them. There is another photograph of a naked man with a dark hood over his head, handcuffed to a cell door. And another of a naked man handcuffed to a bunk bed, his arms splayed so wide that his back is arched. A pair of women's underwear covers his head and face. ...
Other photographs show wounded men and corpses. In one, a dead man is lying in the back of a truck, his shirt, face and left arm covered in blood. His right arm is missing. Another photograph shows a body, gray and decomposing. A young soldier is leaning over the corpse, smiling broadly and giving the "thumbs-up" sign.
And in another picture a young woman lifts her shirt, exposing her breasts. She is wearing a white band with numbers on her wrist, but it is unclear whether she is a prisoner." (See also the gallery: "Iraqi Prisoners Controversy" (The Washington Post, 2004/05/06))"Abu Ghraib" (zeyad, Healing Iraq, 2004/05/05)
"Now, regarding the disgusting images from Abu Ghraib that the whole world had witnessed in the last few days. They didn't come as a surprise at all, we have been hearing stories about the abuse of prisoners for a long time from released detainees and from humanitarian organisations. It doesn't shock me at all that some American soldiers are so sick and devoid from any humanity. You need to have a cousin pushed off from a dam by some in order to learn that. What surprises me though are people saying "Saddam did worse", or the soldiers responsible claiming they were 'never taught anything about running a prison', and 'No one gave us a copy of the Geneva conventions'. We have a saying for that over here, "An excuse uglier than the guilt". ...
While Saddam Hussein sits safely in his comfortable cell in Qatar or wherever else he is being held, Iraqi detainees are being put into the most humiliating and degrading conditions that can be imagined. While the guilty are free to wreak havoc, and take refuge in holy cities, the innocent are detained and mistreated for months without charges. But it seems like that is life.
They may be just a few soldiers, it may be an isolated case, but what's the difference? The effect has been done, and the Hearts and Minds campaign is a joke that isn't funny any more.""Limbaugh on torture of Iraqis: U.S. guards were "having a good time," 'blow[ing] some steam off'" (Media Matters for America, 2004/05/05)
"Hours before President George W. Bush announced plans to address the Arab world to condemn the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison, Rush Limbaugh justified the U.S. guards' mistreatment of the Iraqis, stating that they were just "having a good time," and that their actions served as an "emotional release."
As reported by Wonkette.com, Limbaugh's comments can be found on his website. From the May 4 Rush Limbaugh Show, titled "It's Not About Us; This Is War!":CALLER: It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men --
LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?The day before, on his May 3 show, Limbaugh observed that the American troops who mistreated Iraqi prisoners of war were "babes" and that the pictures of the alleged abuse were no worse than 'anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage.'"
"The Silver-Lining of Abu Ghraib" (Austin Bay, Strategy Page, 2004/05/05)
"The photos are an anti-American propagandist's centerfold, and provide America-haters with a new Exhibit A to support their perpetual charges of American hypocrisy and decadence. They stir legitimate anger at a difficult time of transition in Iraq. They damage American military and political efforts.
But there is an odd silver-lining. America's open society includes its military. U.S. military actions are subject to legal review. The American public's revulsion is also a healthy indicator. Unlike Baathists who danced for Al Jazeera television after the murder and mutilation of four Americans in Fallujah, the American reaction is regret. The American message is, "We don't rejoice, we don't condone or excuse, we investigate and prosecute."
Immediate candor, supported by verifiable change in procedures and then followed by quick compensation of victims — that should be U.S. policy for addressing the crimes at Abu Ghraib.
Candor in the digital age means more than press conferences. Candor in the digital age means press tours of Abu Ghraib. Candor entails a comparison of current conditions there with those in the October to December 2003 time frame when the mistreatment occurred. Full candor — here's where the bitter truth begins to seed a better future — also means a comparison of current conditions with those under Saddam's regime.""Bush: Iraqi Prisoner Abuse 'Abhorrent'" (Terence Hunt, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/05)
"President Bush told a skeptical Arab world on Wednesday that the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by some members of the U.S. military was "abhorrent" and does not represent the America he knows. He conceded mistakes but stopped short of apologizing in interviews with two Arabic-language TV stations.
"We don't tolerate these type of abuses," Bush told Al-Arabiya television, a satellite channel based in the United Arab Emirates. He said there was "more than an allegation, in this case, actual abuse — we saw the pictures. There will be a full investigation."
Seeking to counter photographs beamed around the world of U.S. soldiers gloating over naked detainees in demeaning positions, Bush sat for interviews with both Al-Arabiya, which is popular around the Arab world, and with Al-Hurra, a U.S.-government funded station." (See also: "President Bush Meets with Al Arabiya Television on Wednesday" (The White House, 2004/05/05): "In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse — more than an allegation in this case, actual abuse, we saw the pictures — there will be a full investigation and justice will be delivered. We have a presumption of innocent until you're guilty in our system, but the system will be transparent, it will be open and people will see the results. This is a serious matter. It's a matter that reflects badly on my country. Our citizens in America are appalled by what they saw, just like people in the Middle East are appalled. We share the same deep concerns. And we will find the truth, we will fully investigate. The world will see the investigation and justice will be served." )"US military commander apologises to people of Iraq for prison scandal" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/05)
"The US commander of the prison system in Iraq, Major General Geoffrey Miller, apologised to the Iraqi people for the abuse of detainees by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.
"I would like to personally apologise to the people of Iraq for a small number of leaders and soldiers who have violated our policies and possibly committed criminal acts," Miller told reporters touring the Abu Ghraib detention facility outside Baghdad.
'I personally guarantee that this will not happen again.'""Abu Ghraib Is America" (Michael Graham, The Corner, 2004/05/05)
"Kennicott condemns American society as a whole for the actions of a few out-of-control prison guards in Iraq."Look at these images closely and you realize that they can't just be the random accidents of war, or the strange, inexplicable perversity of a few bad seeds...we are, collectively, responsible for what these individuals have done... These photos ARE us." [emphasis in the original].
Kennicott goes on to compare us to the colonial powers of old Europe (America is an empire, remember?) and he even somehow links the crimes of Abu Ghraib to the popularity of internet porn.
You know, if a conservative Christian wrote an essay linking sex crimes and child abuse to the widespread availability of porn, the Washington Post would toss it into the circular file. But there is no attack on the war effort so ridiculous and irrational that it will not appear in my morning paper." (See also: "A Wretched New Picture Of America" (Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post, 2004/05/05): "But these photos are us. Yes, they are the acts of individuals (though the scandal widens, as scandals almost inevitably do, and the military's own internal report calls the abuse "systemic"). But armies are made of individuals. Nations are made up of individuals. Great national crimes begin with the acts of misguided individuals; and no matter how many people are held directly accountable for these crimes, we are, collectively, responsible for what these individuals have done. We live in a democracy. Every errant smart bomb, every dead civilian, every sodomized prisoner, is ours.")"Iraqi Recounts Hours of Abuse by U.S. Troops" (Ian Fisher, The New York Times, 2004/05/05)
"Mr. Abd spoke with no particular anger at the American occupation, though he has seen it closer than most Iraqis. In six months in prisons run by American soldiers, in fact, he said most of them had treated him well and with respect.
"Most of the time, they wouldn't even say, 'Shut up,'" he said.
That changed in November — he does not know the exact date — when punishment for a prisoner fight at Abu Ghraib degenerated into torture. That night, he said, he and six other inmates were beaten, stripped naked (a particularly deep humiliation in the Arab world), forced to pile on top of one another, to straddle one another's backs naked, to simulate oral sex. American guards wrote words like "rapist" on their skin with Magic Marker, he said.
The curiosity, through much of the ordeal, was the camera. It was a detail he mentioned repeatedly as he recalled being forced against a wall and ordered by the Arabic translator to masturbate as he looked at one of the female guards.
"She was laughing, and she put her hands on her breasts," Mr. Abd said. "Of course, I couldn't do it. I told them that I couldn't, so they beat me in the stomach, and I fell to the ground. The translator said, 'Do it! Do it! It's better than being beaten.' I said, 'How can I do it?' So I put my hand on my penis, just pretending."
All the while, he said, the flash of the camera kept illuminating the dim room that once held prisoners of Mr. Hussein, recording images that have infuriated the Arab world and badly sullied America's image in a country more willing these days to think the worst of its occupiers.""U.S. Reveals Iraqi Prisoner Deaths as Scandal Grows" (Alan Elsner, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/05)
"Two Iraqi prisoners were murdered by Americans and 23 other deaths are being investigated in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States revealed on Tuesday as the Bush administration tried to contain growing outrage over the abuse of Iraqi detainees. ...
Army officials said the military had investigated the deaths of 25 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and determined that an Army soldier and a CIA contractor each murdered a prisoner. Most of the deaths occurred in Iraq.
An Army official said a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of homicide for shooting a prisoner to death in September 2003 at a detention center in Iraq.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a private contractor who worked for the CIA was found to have committed the other homicide against a prisoner.""Prison Mutiny: What the torturers of Abu Ghraib have wrought" (Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2004/05/04)
"The images from Abu Ghraib prison do not test one's convictions about the wrongness of torture. They test one's opinions about the wrongness of capital punishment. Just consider for a moment what this bunch of giggling sadists has done, with its happy snaps and recreational cruelties:• It has defiled one of the memorials of regime change. I was a visitor to Abu Ghraib last summer, and the stench of misery and evil was still palpable in those pits and cellars. It is as if British or American soldiers had not only executed German prisoners of war, but had force-marched them to Dachau in order to commit the atrocity.
• It has been like a shot in the back to the many soldiers (active front-line duty, not safe-job prison guards) who were willing to take casualties rather than inflict them and who fought selectively and carefully. What are the chances of the next such soldier who is captured by some gang of Saddamists or Wahabbists or Khomeinists? ...This is only the rehearsal for one's revulsion. One of two things must necessarily be true. Either these goons were acting on someone's authority, in which case there is a layer of mid- to high-level people who think that they are not bound by the laws and codes and standing orders. Or they were acting on their own authority, in which case they are the equivalent of mutineers, deserters, or traitors in the field. This is why one asks wistfully if there is no provision in the procedures of military justice for them to be taken out and shot."
"Demonstrators chant 'Bomb London, bomb New York'..."
(John D McHugh, AP, 2004/05/04)
Double Standards 101: "Demonstrators chant 'Bomb London, bomb New York' and 'We are terrorists' outside Downing Street, London, Tuesday May 4, 2004, on the day that the British government announced that it will make a statement concerning the photographs which allegedly show British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.""U.S. Army report on Iraqi prisoner abuse" (NBC News, 2004/05/04)
The complete text of the Taguba report:
"6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:
a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear;
f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
i. (S) Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees." (See also: "Torture at Abu Ghraib" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/04/30))"Rumsfeld Says Abusive Soldiers Will Pay" (Robert Burns, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/04)
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday condemned the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers and said the Defense Department would move vigorously to bring those responsible to justice. The Army said 20 investigations into prisoner deaths and assaults were under way in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Any who engaged in such action let down their comrades who serve honorably each day and they let down their country," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference. Such abuse is "totally unacceptable and un-American," he said.""Bogus GI rape photos used as Arab propaganda" (Sherrie Gossett, WorldNetDaily, 2004/05/04)
"Graphic photos appearing on Arabic websites of U.S. servicemen raping and sexually abusing Iraqi women were actually taken from American and Hungarian pornography sites.
Albasrah.net and a Tunisian website produced in France by Committee for the Defense of Saddam Hussein [Comité de Défonce de Saddam Hussein En Tunisie], posted not only the recently broadcast photos of U.S. troops abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners but additional ones of alleged group rape of women by American soldiers, some who are depicted holding rifles against their victims' heads.
The Tunisian site described the photos as the "unedited" versions of actual events and Albasrah ran the photos under the heading "The Abu Ghraib Prison Photos," indicating they had received the photos via e-mail.
A WND investigation has revealed that most of the photos are taken from the American pornographic website "Iraq Babes," and the Hungarian site, "Sex in War," which is linked to by the American site. Both websites are linked to by violent pornography sites and both describe Iraqi women — played by "actresses" — in vulgar terms.""Army Punishes 7 With Reprimands for Prison Abuse" (Thom Shanker and Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2004/05/04)
"The senior American commander in Iraq has ordered the first punishments in the abuse of prisoners by American 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 noncommissioned officers received penalties that most likely will end their military careers, although they were not demoted or discharged. They have not been charged with crimes; six subordinates accused of carrying out the abuse already face criminal charges.
"They did not know or participate in any crimes," a senior American officer in Baghdad said of the officers who received the reprimands, issued by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq. 'Their responsibility is to set the standards in the organization. They should have known, but they did not.'""The General in Charge of Iraqi Force Is Replaced" (Dexter Filkins, The New York Times, 2004/05/04)
"American military commanders said Monday that they had selected a new commander for the Iraqi security force in Falluja, dropping a general who had been accused of involvement in widespread repression under Saddam Hussein.
The American commanders said they had chosen Muhammad Latif, a former intelligence officer, to lead the Iraqi security force. Unlike the man he is replacing, Jasim Muhammad Saleh, Mr. Latif appears to have been regarded as an opponent of Mr. Hussein. ...
General Saleh, on the other hand, was regarded by many Iraqis as so close to Mr. Hussein that his resurrection by the Americans ran the risk of putting in charge of the city the very people they had been fighting to expel.""Iraqi Prisoner Details Abuse by Americans" (Scheherezade Faramarzi, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/03)
Worse than Saddam?: "In an interview Sunday with The Associated Press, Dhia al-Shweiri said he too was stripped naked during his stay in the prison and the humiliation was worse than the torture he endured under Saddam Hussein.
Now the 30-year-old is in the al-Mahdi Army, a militia fighting on behalf of an anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric. ...
During his stay at Abu Ghraib, he said was asked to take off his clothes only once and for about 15 minutes.
"I thought they wanted me to change into the red prison uniform, so I took off my clothes, down to my underwear. Then he asked me to take off my underwear. I started arguing with him, but in the end he made me take off my underwear," al-Shweiri said.
He said he and six other prisoners — all hooded — had to face the wall and bend over a little as they put their hands on the wall.
"They made us stand in a way that I am ashamed to describe. They came to look at us as we stood there. They knew this would humiliate us," he said, adding that he was not sodomized. ... He was jailed twice by Saddam's regime — for 19 months in the early 1990s and again in 1999 — during which he said he was given electric shocks, beaten and hung from the ceiling with his hands tied behind his back.
"But that's better than the humiliation of being stripped naked," he said." (Hat tip: James Taranto.)"We're fighting for the right to be outraged at those photos" (Barbara Amiel, The Daily Telegraph, 2004/05/03)
"Still, the outrage felt at those photos of torture is what makes this society worth living in. It distinguishes us from our enemies. But, like everything, this outrage has a price. If it is to conclude that we should not defend ourselves against the Saddams of the world, then it is too dear. The secret is to retain the outrage and not draw that conclusion. We have to keep two thoughts parallel in our heads — these are appalling acts that must not be tolerated, but neither are they to be used as a block against our instincts of self-preservation or to render us defenceless against the worst systems and enemies of civilisation.
Integrating those two thoughts is marginally more complicated than walking and chewing gum at the same time, but ultimately far more rewarding.""Angry Ex-Detainees Tell of Abuse" (Scott Wilson, The Washington Post, 2004/05/03)
"Interviews with former Iraqi prisoners and human-rights advocates present a picture of the U.S. prison system here as a vast wartime effort to extract information from the enemy rather than to punish criminals. Former prisoners say lengthy interrogation sessions, employing sleep depravation, severe isolation, fear, humiliation and physical duress, were regular features of their daily regimen and remain so for the estimated 2,500 to 7,000 people inside the jails.
The system comprises 16 prisons, four of which hold prisoners accused of being part of the anti-occupation insurgency. But there are countless other holding cells on U.S. bases, many once used by former president Saddam Hussein's government, where young Iraqis spend their first fearful hours in captivity.""Daily Mirror Stands by Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Photos" (Reuters/My Way , 2004/05/02)
"The Daily Mirror newspaper stood by its report that British soldiers beat an Iraqi detainee and published new allegations on Monday about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
A number of political and media commentators have questioned the integrity of five black and white photographs published in the newspaper on Saturday, apparently showing British soldiers abusing a hooded Iraqi detainee arrested for stealing.
"Despite the whispering campaign and dodgy briefings that went on yesterday, the Daily Mirror has no doubt that the allegations made by the two soldiers who came to us were true," the newspaper said in an editorial on Monday." (See also: "Doubt cast on Iraq torture photos" (BBC News, 2004/05/02))"Rough Justice in Iraq" (Rod Nordland and John Barry, Newsweek, from the 2004/05/10 issue)
"Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski is angry. She says she warned her superiors from the first about the ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners. As commander of the Army Reserve's 800th Military Police Brigade, she oversaw the guards at U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, including those at Saddam Hussein's former torture center at Abu Ghurayb. The trouble was, Karpinski says, she didn't have enough troops or resources to do the job right, and the men at the top ignored her complaints. "They just wanted it to go away," she told Newsweek last week. In the end, several of her soldiers apparently went out of control. The CBS News show "60 Minutes II" released snapshots last week of grinning guards at Abu Ghurayb forcing naked prisoners to pose in degrading positions. One picture showed a hooded prisoner perched on a box and holding a pair of wires; if he fell, his captors allegedly told him, he would be electrocuted. "There's no excuse for what these people did," says Karpinski. 'They're just bad people. But the guys involved in this were new to Abu Ghurayb. It got way out of hand.'""Doubt cast on Iraq torture photos" (BBC News, 2004/05/02)
"Sources close to the army have questioned the authenticity of photographs appearing to show British soldiers torturing an Iraqi prisoner. ...
However the BBC's defence correspondent Paul Adams says sources close to The Queen's Lancashire Regiment believe many aspects of the photographs are suspicious.
He says they believe the pictures may not have even been taken in Iraq.
• They believe the rifle is an SA80 mk 1 — which was not issued to troops in Iraq.
• They say soldiers in Iraq wore berets or hard hats — and not floppy hats as in the photos.
• They also believe the wrong type of Bedford truck is shown in the background - a type never deployed in Iraq." (See also: "Shame Of Abuse By Brit Troops" (Paul Byrne, The Daily Mirror, 2004/05/01))"U.S. War Crimes: Torture of Iraqi Prisoners Exposed" (Tehran Times, 2004/05/01)
Tehran Times is of course having a field day: "At the same time, the fact that US soldiers are employing methods similar to those used by the Nazis in World War II is indicative of a deep-seated state of demoralization and degradation that the occupation has bred within the US military. Finding themselves in a hostile environment with the vast majority of Iraqis opposing the occupation, many American soldiers have come to see the country’s entire population as the enemy. Fed lies about the colonial intervention in Iraq being part of a global “war on terrorism,” some have also assumed a license to torture and humiliate their helpless captives.
Contrary to Kimmitt’s claims — slavishly echoed by the corporate media — this is the logic and modus operandi of imperialist conquest and colonial occupation. The pictures of torture, brutality and sexual sadism are representative of the entire criminal operation being conducted in Iraq." (Hat tip: Mudville Gazette.)"An American Disaster; Prisoner Abuse In Iraq" (Ralph Peters, New York Post, 2004/05/01)
"The United States just experienced its first true disaster in Iraq. As news of the disgraceful mistreatment of prisoners by American soldiers sweeps the world, our enemies celebrate a major propaganda gift. Even our friends cannot defend the indefensible. ...
It's just possible that no soldiers in U.S. history have done more damage to our country's cause than the Gang of Six from the 800th Military Police Brigade. But it's not just about the soldiers directly involved. These crimes demonstrate an utter failure of the chain of command. All the way to the top. ...
The thugs of Abu Gharaib — the American thugs — just dealt the greatest blow to America's prestige since the fall of Saigon. In the Middle East, this story will morph into myth and outlast our lifetimes. It will haunt our every effort. And yes, it will recruit terrorists.
At least some of the accused enlisted soldiers are likely to spend time behind bars. Their leaders should, too. And not just those in uniform.""Shame Of Abuse By Brit Troops" (Paul Byrne, The Daily Mirror, 2004/05/01)
"A hooded Iraqi captive is beaten by British soldiers before being thrown from a moving truck and left to die.
The prisoner, aged 18-20, begged for mercy as he was battered with rifle butts and batons in the head and groin, was kicked, stamped and urinated on, and had a gun barrel forced into his mouth.
After an EIGHT-HOUR ordeal, he was left barely conscious and close to death. Bleeding and vomiting and with a broken jaw and missing teeth, he was driven from a Basra camp and hurled off the truck. No one knows if he lived or died. ...
Army chiefs believe it was an isolated incident involving a few rogue troops. But, it is claimed, officers turned a blind eye. One of the soldiers said: "Basically this guy was dying as he couldn't take any more. An officer came down. It was 'Get rid of him - I haven't seen him'. The paperwork gets ripped. So they threw him out, still with a bag on his head."
Weeks after the pictures were taken, a captive was allegedly beaten to death in custody by men from the same Queen's Lancashire Regiment. It is also alleged a video was found of prisoners being thrown off a bridge.""Iraq Prisoner Images Anger Arabs, Bush" (Nadia Abou El Magd, AP/Yahoo! News, 2004/05/01)
"Arab outrage flashed across the Middle East on Friday as TV stations showed graphic images of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by smiling U.S. military police. President Bush condemned the mistreatment, saying he shared "a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated."
The photographs, shown on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya and the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, included pictures of prisoners naked except for the hoods that covered their heads. ...
In Baghdad, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the commander of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, was being sent to Iraq to take over the coalition detention facilities. ...
"They were ugly images. Is this the way the Americans treat prisoners?" asked Ahmad Taher, 24, a student at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University. 'Americans claim that they respect freedom and democracy — but only in their country.'"
"A hooded and wired Iraqi prisoner..."
(The New Yorker, 2004/04/30)
From the gallery "Primary Sources" (The New Yorker, 2004/04/30): "A hooded and wired Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib prison who reportedly was told that he would be electrocuted if he fell off a box.""Torture at Abu Ghraib" (Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 2004/04/30)
"A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:
