Not Normal

there are a few new pics to go with the story at www.washingtonpost.com (reg. req'd)
or
www.abcnews.go.com.

The whole Iraq situation is bringing out the worst in people. The homoerotic aspect of the abuse is very strange. Maybe that comes from being in the military, I dunno. Too much sexual repression. We do know, according to the Taguba report, that the 800th MP Brigade was not adequately trained for its task. So I'll accept the hypothesis that some of the sex humiliations were a spontaneous decision by a handful of bad soldiers.

But the more intricate tortures, like the "forced position" and the "connecting wires to the penis" ...there is no way these reservists devised those methods, no matter how horny or bored anyone was. Even the simple "bag over the head" technique is, I think, something a soldier would have to be instructed to do.

So if I was prosecuting this case I would try to get the accused to plead guilty to sexual abuse, but to give information on who taught them the torture techniques. It might help the situation in Iraq to get this all out in the open as quickly as possible.

These statements were taken back in January...and they mention the existence of photographic documentation...nevertheless Bush says he was not aware of photos until he watched a TV news report in April....
********************
New Details of Prison Abuse Emerge
Abu Ghraib Detainees' Statements Describe Sexual Humiliation And Savage Beatings

By Scott Higham and Joe Stephens
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A01


Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets.

The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan, according to copies of the statements obtained by The Washington Post.

The statements provide the most detailed picture yet of what took place on the cellblock. Some of the detainees described being abused as punishment or discipline after they were caught fighting or with a prohibited item. Some said they were pressed to denounce Islam or were force-fed pork and liquor. Many provided graphic details of how they were sexually humiliated and assaulted, threatened with rape, and forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers.

"They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees," said Hiadar Sabar Abed Miktub al-Aboodi, detainee No. 13077. "And we had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy. After that, they took us to our cells, took the mattresses out and dropped water on the floor and they made us sleep on our stomachs on the floor with the bags on our head and they took pictures of everything."

The prisoners also provided accounts of how some of the now-famous photographs were staged, including the pyramid of hooded, naked prisoners. Eight of the detainees identified by name one particular soldier at the center of the abuse investigation, Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., a member of the 372nd Military Police Company from Cresaptown, Md. Five others described abuse at the hands of a solider who matches Graner's description.

"They said we will make you wish to die and it will not happen," said Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik, detainee No. 151362. "They stripped me naked. One of them told me he would rape me. He drew a picture of a woman to my back and makes me stand in shameful position holding my buttocks."

The Pentagon is investigating the allegations, a spokesman said last night.

"There are a number of lines of inquiry that are being taken with respect to allegations of abuse of detainees in U.S. custody," Bryan Whitman said. "There is still more to know and to be learned and new things to be discovered."

Threats of Death and Assault


The disclosures come from a new cache of documents, photographs and videos obtained by The Post that are part of evidence assembled by Army investigators putting together criminal cases against soldiers at Abu Ghraib. So far, seven MPs have been charged with brutalizing detainees at the prison, and one pleaded guilty Wednesday.

The sworn statements, taken in Baghdad between Jan. 16 and Jan. 21, span 65 pages. Each statement begins with a handwritten account in Arabic that is signed by the detainee, followed by a typewritten translation by U.S. military contractors. The shortest statement is a single paragraph; the longest exceeds two single-spaced typewritten pages.

While military investigators interviewed the detainees separately, many of them recalled the same event or pattern of events and procedures in Tier 1A -- a block reserved for prisoners who were thought to possess intelligence that could help thwart the insurgency in Iraq, find Saddam Hussein or locate weapons of mass destruction. Military intelligence officers took over the cellblock last October and were using MPs to help "set the conditions" for interrogations, according to an investigative report complied by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. Several MPs have since said in statements and through their attorneys that they were roughing up detainees at the direction of U.S. military intelligence officers.

Most of the detainees said in the statements that they were stripped upon their arrival to Tier 1A, forced to wear women's underwear, and repeatedly humiliated in front of one another and American soldiers. They also described beatings and threats of death and sexual assault if they did not cooperate with U.S. interrogators.

Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee No. 151108, told investigators that when he first arrived at Abu Ghraib last year, he was forced to strip, put on a hood and wear rose-colored panties with flowers on them. "Most of the days I was wearing nothing else," he said in his statement.

Hilas also said he witnessed an Army translator having sex with a boy at the prison. He said the boy was between 15 and 18 years old. Someone hung sheets to block the view, but Hilas said he heard the boy's screams and climbed a door to get a better look. Hilas said he watched the assault and told investigators that it was documented by a female soldier taking pictures.

"The kid was hurting very bad," Hilas said.

Hilas, like other detainees interviewed by the military, said he could not identify some of the soldiers because they either covered their name patches or did not wear uniforms. But he and other detainees did know the names of three, including Graner and Sgt. Javal S. Davis, both of whom have been charged and now face courts-martial. Some of the detainees described a short female MP with dark hair and a blond female MP of medium height who watched and took part in some of the abuses. Three female MPs have been charged in the case so far.

Hilas told investigators that he asked Graner for the time one day because he wanted to pray. He said Graner cuffed him to the bars of a cell window and left him there for close to five hours, his feet dangling off the floor. Hilas also said he watched as Graner and others sodomized a detainee with a phosphoric light. "They tied him to the bed," Hilas said.

Graner's attorney, Guy L. Womack, did not return phone messages yesterday. In previous interviews, he has said that his client was following the lead of military intelligence officers.

Mustafa Jassim Mustafa, detainee No. 150542, told military investigators he also witnessed the phosphoric-light assault. He said it was around the time of Ramadan, the holiest period of the Muslim year, when he heard screams coming from a cell below. Mustafa said he looked down to see a group of soldiers holding the detainee down and sodomizing him with the light.

Graner was sodomizing him with the phosphoric light, Mustafa said. The detainee "was screaming for help. There was another tall white man who was with Graner -- he was helping him. There was also a white female soldier, short, she was taking pictures."

Another detainee told military investigators that American soldiers sodomized and beat him. The detainee, whose name is being withheld by The Post because he is an alleged victim of a sexual assault, said he was kept naked for five days when he first arrived at Abu Ghraib and was forced to kneel for four hours with a hood over his head. He said he was beaten so badly one day that the hood flew off his head. "The police was telling me to crawl in Arabic, so I crawled on my stomach and the police were spitting on me when I was crawling, and hitting me on my back, my head and my feet," he said in his sworn statement.

One day, the detainee said, American soldiers held him down and spread his legs as another soldier prepared to open his pants. "I started screaming," he said. A soldier stepped on his head, he said, and someone broke a phosphoric light and spilled the chemicals on him.

"I was glowing and they were laughing," he said.

The detainee said the soldiers eventually brought him to a room and sodomized him with a nightstick. "They were taking pictures of me during all these instances," he told the investigators.

Mohanded Juma Juma, detainee No. 152307, said he was stripped and kept naked for six days when he arrived at Abu Ghraib. One day, he said, American soldiers brought a father and his son into the cellblock. He said the soldiers put hoods over their heads and removed their clothes.

Then, they removed the hoods.

"When the son saw his father naked he was crying," Juma told the investigators. "He was crying because of seeing his father."

He also said Graner repeatedly threw the detainees' meals into the toilets and said, "Eat it."

Hussein Mohssein Mata Al-Zayiadi, detainee No. 19446, told investigators that he was one of the hooded prisoners shown in photographs masturbating before American soldiers. "They told my friend to masturbate and told me to masturbate also, while they were taking pictures," he said.

Al-Zayiadi also said he and other detainees were beaten and tossed into separate cells.

"They opened the water in the cell and told us to lay face down in the water and we stayed like that until the morning, in the water, naked, without clothes," he said in his statement.

He also said soldiers forced him and others to perform like animals.

"Did the guards force you to crawl on your hands and knees on the ground?" a military investigator asked.

"Yes, they forced us to do this thing," Al-Zayiadi said.

"What were the guards doing while you were crawling on your hands and knees?"

"They were sitting on our backs like riding animals," Al-Zayiadi said.

He said the guards took pictures of the incident.

Photographs Described


Al-Zayiadi also described what has become one of the iconic photographs in the prison abuse scandal.

"They brought my friends, Haidar, Ahmed, Nouri, Ahzem, Hashiem, Mustafa, and I, and they put us two on the bottom, two on top of them, and two on top of those and one on top," he said. "They took pictures of us and we were naked."

Another publicized photograph -- that of a hooded detainee hooked up to wires and standing on a box -- is also described in the statements.

"On the third day, after five o'clock, Mr. Graner came and took me to room Number 37, which is the shower room, and he started punishing me," said Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh, detainee No. 18170. "Then he brought a box of food and he made me stand on it with no clothing, except a blanket. Then a tall black soldier came and put electrical wires on my fingers and toes and on my penis, and I had a bag over my head."

Al-Sheik said he was arrested on Oct. 7, and brought to Abu Ghraib, where he was put in a tent for one night. The next day, he was transferred to the "hard site," the two-story building that held about 200 prisoners and contained Tiers 1A and 1B.

He said a bag was put over his head and he was made to strip. He said American soldiers started to taunt him.

"Do you pray to Allah?" one asked. "I said yes. They said, '[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.' One of them said, 'You are not getting out of here health[y], you are getting out of here handicapped. And he said to me, 'Are you married?' I said, 'Yes.' They said, 'If your wife saw you like this, she will be disappointed.' One of them said, 'But if I saw her now she would not be disappointed now because I would rape her.' "

He said the soldiers told him that if he cooperated with interrogators they would release him in time for Ramadan. He said he did, but still was not released. He said one soldier continued to abuse him by striking his broken leg and ordered him to curse Islam. "Because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion," he said. "They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive."

The detainee said the soldiers handcuffed him to a bed.

"Do you believe in anything?" he said the soldier asked. "I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, "But I believe in torture and I will torture you.' "

onetime2

Obviously there are plenty of outrageous instances coming to light and they are evidenced by pictures.

But some of these statements seem a little off. There are lots of little details like "I was taken to room XYZ" or being in a certain position for 5 hours (when he didn't know what time it was in the first place) and certainty that is was Graner (one of the few who has been identified in all the news stories with his picture everywhere). But when they get into who else was involved the descriptions become very vague like "There was also a white female soldier, short, she was taking pictures".

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Sparhawk

To paraphrase Kenneth Roth, these abuses are diversion from the violations of the Geneva Conventions that are authorized by the DoD. But if, through the publicity of these photos, the real policy can be overturned, some good will come of it.

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

Mr. Mojo

I'm so relive it’s a sworn statement. These guys would <i>never</i> lie.

"sworn statements" from murders, rapists, thieves and ignorant violent skells mean nothing.

__________________
When I jerk off I feel good for about twenty seconds and then WHAM it's right back into suicidal depression

nanofever

Are you talking about the MPs or the Iraqis ? I'm just curious since they both fit your description...

__________________
I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

Not Normal

haha nanofever. But Mojo, these statements are pretty solid because of the photographs that depict exactly what these guys swore happened.

sailor

As far as I am concered, our administration approved behavior like this as soon as the first prisoners got to Guantanamo Bay. They have *NO* excuses.

__________________
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
--Plato

filtherton

You must know something i don't. I must've missed the part where these people were convicted of murder, rape, or theft. Certainly there are guilty prisoners at said prison, but certainly there are also many who are completely innocent, seeing as how they have released at least six hundred of them in the past two days.

Maybe you'd enjoy it if somebody pulled you off the street for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and sodomized you with a chemical light all the while telling you that you're better off without the depraved dictator who used to do the exact same things to your people.

OFKU0

Hmmm,... then that would make him a victim instead of a terrorist.

__________________
" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

pan6467

I get tired of these self rightous peabrains that believe that the Iraqis deserved the torture or that none of it was torture.

First, the argument made over and over is what seperates us from them when we do this? Absolutely NOTHING.

In fact it makes us look like hypocrites, as we preach about "saving them from a bloodthirsty dictator" and yet treat them just as callously. It only instills more hate, more anger, a bigger desire to destroy us. I would not be surprised at all if more Iraqis (who welcomed us at first ) now hate us and are plotting against our men. So when they torture our men we now have no right to call foul. And that is pathetic, because these people will do alot worse to us. But we stooped to their level and now we have become or at least can be portrayed as barbaric as they.

We are fucking making it so much easier for these terrorists to recruit people who before the tortures (we have been proven to give out) would have stayed away and perhaps been allies to us.

So by all means, keep praising and saying how great it is we torture them, so that they may find even more reason to fight and win.

Secondly, how can we ever get world support for this war. We are acting like fucking renegades and destroying any alliances we have....... oh except for that great peaceful nation that lives off our taxes called Isreal. Britain is going to see leadership change and will no longer stand with us. The only countries that will be there are from the old Warsaw Pact and they are there because we are paying them. They will pull out when their people realize the money isn't worth it.

We have pictures, we have statements from the investigators, the prisoners and the guards, not to mention Red Cross statements. How anyone can defend what we did is beyond me. Why don't we just fucking put targets on our men and women over there now.

And if I were a conspiracist I'd say the administration plotted all this from thge torture, to it getting out (why would anyone be stupid enough to take pictures of torture, and how did they get out into the press's hands?), so that we'd see a drastic upswing in the violence against us so that we'd have more reason to stay there. So the blood of our men spilt because of this I blame 100% on Bush, Cheney and Rummy. And can only say that until we get rid of them, and show the world that the torture was not approved by the masses here and that we will punish those that did this, the Muslim world now has their martyrs.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"