New Documents
Confirm
Widespread Torture In Iraq
By Joseph Kay
31 March 2005
World
Socialist Web
A
new series of documents released over the weekend provides fresh evidence
of the pervasive US military abuse of prisoners in Iraq. The documents
were released by the Pentagon in response to a lawsuit filed by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Constitutional
Rights and other organizations.
These documents
provide further evidence that the torture of detainees was much more
widespread than the government has acknowledged, said Jameel Jaffer,
attorney for the ACLU. The actions revealed in the documents are all
clear and direct violations of international law on the treatment of
prisoners of war.
An additional document
posted on the ACLUs web site on Tuesday provides evidence that
the former top military official in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo
Sanchez, directly authorized illegal interrogation techniques.
The civil rights
organization also charged that the Pentagon has abused a court order
to turn over the documents in order to bury the scandal. The documents
were supposed to have been turned over to the ACLU on March 21, but
were not released to the ACLU until late on Friday [March 25] of what
for many is a holiday weekend [Easter], a statement from the ACLU
noted. Select reporters received a CD-ROM with the documents before
they were given to the ACLU, and before the documents could be
properly analyzed and publicly posted. All the documents are now available
on the ACLUs web site.
The document written
by Sanchez is dated September 14, 2003 and had previously been reported
by news outlets. This was the first time, however, that it was released
publicly. In it, Sanchez authorizes a number of techniques, including
presence of military working dogs, arguing that this technique
exploits Arab fear of dogs while maintaining security during interrogations.
The memo also approves yelling, loud music and light control
and stress positions.
The Sanchez memo
is more extensive than a list of techniques approved by Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld in April 2003. It corresponded with the visit
of General Geoffrey Miller to Iraq in the fall of 2003. At the time,
Miller was head of the US camp in Guantánamo Bay, where harsher
interrogation techniques were then being used. In the late fall of 2003
the incidents at Abu Ghraib occurred that were made infamous after public
release of the shocking photographs.
The other documents
consist mainly of reports from internal military investigations of abuse
allegations that occurred shortly after the Sanchez memo but were not
limited to Abu Ghraib. One series of reports concerns incidents that
took place in December 2003 inside the Brigade Holding Area (BHA) of
the 311th Military Intelligence unit, part of the 101st Airborne Division,
stationed in Mosul.
On December 11,
a 20-year-old Iraqi male had his jaw broken while detained by American
forces. He was picked up a week earlier because his father had once
been a member of Saddam Husseins Fedayeen paramilitary unit. According
to the Iraqi youths statement, he was subjected to abuse prior
to being punched in the jaw by an American soldier. All night
they were throwing water on us and making us stand and squat,
he told the investigator. From the night to the next day...they
were beating us. I was hit on Thursday [and broke my jaw]. Then they
gave me water but I couldnt really drink any. He was told
by American troops to say that he had fallen and that no one had assaulted
him.
While looking into
the incident, the investigator found evidence of widespread abuse at
the facility. There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel
and/or translators engaged in physical torture of the detainees,
he wrote. Abuse of detainees, he added, was an acceptable practice
and was demonstrated to the inexperienced infantry guards almost as
guidance.... The 3rd & 4th Geneva Conventions were violated in regard
to the treatment afforded to these detainees.
Among the methods
used by the soldiers were blasting heavy metal music, yelling at the
detainees with bullhorns, hitting them with water bottles, forcing them
to perform physical exercises for prolonged periods of time, throwing
cold water at them and depriving them of sleep.
According to one
soldier, We would force them to stay awake, by banging on metal
doors, playing loud music, screaming at them all nightthose were
our instructions. While he said that the soldiers were told not
to strike the detainees, another member of the unit reported witnessing
the commander put his knee in [a detainees] neck and back
and grind them into the floor.... He was very aggressive and rough with
the detainees.
These tactics were
apparently intended to facilitate interrogation of prisoners. One officer
whose name is redacted said that they [made] them tired, and when
youre tired, you slip up.
Two days earlier,
on December 9, another prisoner, Abu Malik Kenami, died of an apparent
heart attack. One unsigned document reports, From the 5th through
the early morning of 9th of December there is a history with Kenami
of not obeying the BHA rules for detainees; his punishment is ups and
downs. Ups and downs is a correctional technique of having a detainee
stand up and then sit down rapidly, always keeping them in constant
motion. Kenami had no history of heart problems, and no autopsy
was performed.
The investigator
did not recommend that any disciplinary action against the commander
of the 311th Military Intelligence unit.
Another investigation
involved Task Force Iron Gunner, a unit of the 4th Infantry Division,
stationed in Taji, Iraq, 30 miles north of Baghdad. The incidents took
place in June 2003.
A report from a
Psychological Operations (PSYOP) officer gives an indication of the
indiscriminate and criminal character of detentions and operations,
often targeting the Iraqi population as a whole. According to the officer,
Task Force Gunner continually detains local civilians on nothing
more than a whim. At first, detainees were brought in for nothing more
than having the equivalent of $100 on their possession.... Many times
this task force kept the money and never returned it.... Of the over
650 detainees interrogated, only 20 have proven to be of any real intelligence
value.
The commander, he
continues, had an unorthodox method of deciding who was a bad
guy and needed to be detained; he would wave at them and if they
did not wave back, he had them arrested. In one incident, the
unit was fired upon while on patrol. The [redacted] had a raid
executed on the dwelling closest to the incident.... On the broadcast
of the surrender appeal, the residents of the house (approximately 19
women and children and 3 men) immediately surrendered to us. When the
residents were clear, a Bradley fighting vehicle then opened fire on
the house for approximately 1 minute, at which point the house burst
into flames right in front of the weeping and distraught families.
In another case,
an artillery convoy opened fire on a vehicle that had allegedly fired
on the convoy, though the report failed to mention any weapons
being recovered, the officer wrote. The bodies were promptly
buried on Taji military complex, and when the family inquired as to
their whereabouts, they were detained temporarily, and told to come
back on the following day to claim the bodies. The father returned the
next day, and had to dig the bodies of his sons up.
According to the
officer, The [redacted] also made it very clear on every occasion
that shooting and killing an Iraqi national for running on task force
members is acceptable and even required.
A number of other
incidents are reported in the documents. According to one document,
an officer stationed near Baghdad pled guilty to violations of the code
of military justice for willfully directing his soldiers to strip
all clothing from a detainee, a person whose name is unknown, and release
said detainee naked in public.
A commander in the
41st Infantry was accused of telling his troops, during the initial
invasion of Iraq in March 2003, that they were not to take POWs
and [instead] kill all Enemy whether they are fighting, injured or surrendering.
Documents dated
August 16, 2003, describe one officer as telling one of his soldiers
to take take the detainee[s] out back and beat the f*** out of
them. One soldier in Husaybah, Iraq, made a video that was meant
to be a spoof on an MTV show, Jackass, in which the hosts
engage in often violent pranks. In the video he said, I am going
to punch this guy in the stomach; this is Jackass Iraq, and then
punched the prisoner.
These are only the
latest in a massive quantity of documents that civil liberties advocates
have forced the US military to release. On March 9, the ACLU posted
on its web site a series of documents relating to the CIAs ghost
detainees, including sworn statements that an agreement was reached
between the CIA and military intelligence at Abu Ghraib to use the prison
to store the CIAs secret prisoners. These prisoners were hidden
from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Washington Post
obtained related documents last week. According to a Post article of
March 24, unregistered CIA detainees were brought to Abu Ghraib
several times a week in late 2003, and...were hidden in a special row
of cells. Military police soldiers came up with a rough system to keep
track of such detainees with single-digit identification numbers, while
others were dropped off unnamed, unannounced and unaccounted for.
The documents obtained
by the Post show that Colonel Thomas Pappas and Lieutenant Colonel Steven
Jordan, the highest-ranking military intelligence officials at the prison,
were involved in discussion with the CIA over how to handle ghost detainees.
One of the documents is a deposition from Sanchez, then the military
commander in Iraq, stating that the top intelligence officer in Iraq,
Major General Barbara Fast, had been made aware of the allocation
of cells used by OGA [Other Government Agency, referring to the CIA].
The CIA ghost detainees
are among those who were abused in the infamous Abu Ghraib photos. One
of these photographs is of a dead Iraqi, Manadel a-Jamadi, packed in
ice. A-Jamadi was likely a CIA prisoner. These documents indicate that
top intelligence officials in Iraq were aware that Abu Ghraib prison
was being used to hide prisoners, a blatantly illegal practice under
international law.