05-04-2004, 04:05 PM
|
#14 (permalink)
|
|
Junkie
|
Quote:
US army probes deaths in custody
A soldier says he was ordered to photograph Iraqi detainees (AP/Courtesy The New Yorker)
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has promised that any Americans abusing Iraqi prisoners will be punished.
The US military says there have been investigations into 25 deaths in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In two cases the dead men were found to have been murdered by Americans, according to a US army official.
Senior US politicians have called for public hearings on mistreatment of prisoners, and have demanded the right to question Mr Rumsfeld.
Angry senators said they had been kept in the dark by the defence department until photographs of apparent abuse emerged in the media.
'Un-American'
But Mr Rumsfeld said armed forces chiefs acted swiftly and properly as soon as the claims came to light in January.
Mr Rumsfeld said those responsible for the "unacceptable and un-American" conduct would be brought to justice.
The Pentagon has confirmed that criminal charges have been filed against six US soldiers in relation to the photos, while six senior officers have been reprimanded.
But there have been concerns that the mistreatment is more widespread.
A senior army official said there had been investigations into 25 cases of death and 10 of abuse in US custody in Iraq or Afghanistan since December 2002.
The BBC's Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says of the 25 deaths, 12 were found to be either of natural or "undetermined" causes, one was a "justifiable homicide", and two were murders. Ten inquiries are ongoing, he says.
Not jailed
An Army official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said a soldier had been convicted of killing one of the prisoners by hitting him with a rock.
He was thrown out of the army but did not go to jail.
The other murder was committed by a private contractor who worked for the CIA, the official said.
Following the emergence of the photos, taken at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, army chiefs were called before an emergency hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
It is a pattern on the part of the defence department of not keeping the Congress informed
Senator John McCain
Afterwards senators said they were angry that details of what the army knew - particularly the contents of an internal Pentagon report - had been given to the media before Congress.
"The ramifications are so serious and so severe, and the implications are so grave, that that report should have been forthcoming here immediately," said the committee's top Democrat, Senator Carl Levin.
Senator John McCain, a former prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, went further, saying: "It is a severe problem. But it is a pattern on the part of the defence department of not keeping the Congress informed."
'Sadistic abuses'
The internal report by Maj Gen Antonio Taguba was commissioned in January following persistent allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib and its findings are believed to have been made available early last month.
US media which have seen the report say Gen Taguba found evidence of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses of Iraqi prisoners". His findings said:
* Detainees were threatened with a loaded pistol
* Cold water was poured on naked prisoners
* Inmates were beaten with a broom handle and chair
* Male detainees were threatened with rape
* A prisoner was sodomised with a chemical light
* Detainees were forced into various sexual positions to be photographed
* Naked inmates were arranged in a pile and then jumped on
The abuse of Iraqi detainees has been condemned across the US political spectrum including by President George W Bush.
But Mr Rumsfeld also defended the actions of the armed forces, saying they had acted promptly and properly, launching an investigation in January the day after abuse allegations were first made - and issuing a press release two days after that.
Gen Peter Pace, Vice-Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "everyone" had been told about the allegations and the findings of the Taguba report but that it was normal that top officials such as himself and Mr Rumsfeld had not yet read it, as the report had to make its way slowly up the chain of command.
Damage control
As the US tried to contain the damage caused as the pictures of abuse were shown in the press in the Arab world, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on the Al-Jazeera channel to appeal for trust.
"The president guarantees that those who did that be held accountable... and people will see that we are determined to get to the truth," she said.
But in Iraq, the US-appointed human rights minister, Abdul-Basat al-Turki, resigned on Tuesday in protest at the abuses.
Meanwhile a lawyer for one of the soldiers allegedly involved in the abuse cases at Abu Ghraib said they were simply "following orders".
Guy Womack, attorney for Charles Graner Jr, said the campaign was coordinated by governmental agencies, including the CIA.
The former head of the prison, Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, said she believed military commanders were trying to shift the blame onto her and other reservists and away from the intelligence officers still at work in the prison.
|
REF: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3684381.stm
Mr Mephisto |
|
|