[A-List] Iraq: Pictures Of Death, Torture And Rape Scream Louder Than Words

[Rick Rozoff <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>]

1) Poll: 82% Of Iraqis Disapprove Of US, Other Western
Occupation Forces - Even Before Abuse, Torture Photos
2) US Assault On Shiite Holy City Of Najaf Leaves
Mosque Destroyed, Bodies Littering The Streets
3) Photographs Show Dead Iraqis, Torture And Rape
4) US Soldier's Video Diary: Iraqi Prisoners Shot By
American Guards
5) Iraq: Italian Commander Confirms US Prisoner Abuse
6) Danish Paramedics Witness British Abuse Of Iraqis,
Including Murder; Defense Minister 'Vigorously'
Condemns US, British Crimes
7) US Soldier Killed, Another Wounded In Baghdad
8) Iraq: Torture, Depravity Are No Aberrations
10) When Pictures Scream Louder Than Words



1)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_14-5-2004_pg4_4

Agence France-Presse
May 13, 2004

Eighty percent of Iraqis mistrust US-led coalition



WASHINGTON: Eighty percent of Iraqis mistrust the
coalition authority and 82 percent disapprove of US
and allied forces in their country, The Washington
Post said on Thursday quoting an poll conducted for
the authority.

The results of the survey, which has not been publicly
released, are disheartening for occupation and
Washington officials because they seem to indicate
that the US effort in Iraq is not winning over Iraqi
public opinion, said the daily.

Even more troubling is the fact that the residents of
Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, Nasiriyah, Karbala and Ramadi
were polled in late March and early April, before the
surge in anti-coalition violence and the prisoner
abuse scandal, the daily said. The poll results were
provided to the Post by Donald Hamilton, a senior
advisor to US overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer. Although
he did not give the number of Iraqis consulted or
other methodological details, he said the poll was
generally reliable.

A large proportion of respondents in central and
southern Iraq ? 45 percent in Baghdad, 67 percent in
Basra ? said they backed radical Shiite Muslim cleric
Moqtada Sadr, who is leading a major uprising against
coalition forces and whom the United States wants to
kill or capture..

The Iraqi police received a 79 percent positive
rating, followed closely by the Iraqi army, with a 61
percent positive rating.

Sixty-three percent of all Iraqis said security was
the ?most urgent issue? facing Iraq ? in Baghdad it
was 70 percent who rated security their topmost
concern, up from 50 percent in January, 60 percent in
February and 65 percent in March.
------------------------------------------------------
2)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/13/wirq13.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/05/13/ixnewstop.html


The Telegraph (Britain)
May 14, 2004


20 of Sadr's Mahdi army die in battle at mosque
By Oliver Poole in Baghdad


-It was reported that tank shells were fired, and
aircraft attacked the area.
Witnesses said the bodies of 14 Iraqis lay in
al-Jumhouriya Street and claimed that US snipers were
firing at anyone who broke cover.
-By daylight half the mosque - which is located a few
hundred yards from two of the holiest sites in Shia
Islam, the shrines of the martyrs Hussein and Abbas -
had been destroyed and several hotels were on fire.




Fighting raged in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala
yesterday, partly destroying a mosque and leaving
bodies scattered around the market, as American
soldiers killed at least 20 gunmen loyal to the
radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The battle emphasised the determination of the US
military to end a five-week Shia uprising.

Hundreds of troops moved in just before dawn after
members of Sadr's Mahdi army who were gathered around
the Mukhaiyam mosque began to fire mortar rounds at
the American force on the outskirts of the city.

Film from an embedded cameraman showed an armoured
vehicle trying to knock down a wall and the streets
were filled with smoke from a burning building.

It was reported that tank shells were fired, and
aircraft attacked the area.

Witnesses said the bodies of 14 Iraqis lay in
al-Jumhouriya Street and claimed that US snipers were
firing at anyone who broke cover.

A building behind the mosque was fired on, detonating
a substantial arms cache, and US soldiers stormed the
shattered mosque, chasing the insurgents into a hotel
and alley.

By daylight half the mosque - which is located a few
hundred yards from two of the holiest sites in Shia
Islam, the shrines of the martyrs Hussein and Abbas -
had been destroyed and several hotels were on fire.

Previously American forces had kept out of Karbala and
nearby Najaf, another holy city, after concerns that
their presence could further inflame Iraqi fury, which
is already outraged by the prisoner abuse photographs.

But it seems that in recent days negotiations with
local tribal and religious leaders have convinced
military leaders that many in the city would welcome
efforts to evict Sadr's militiamen.

On Tuesday several hundred Iraqis marched in Najaf to
demand Sadr's withdrawal and businessmen in both
cities expressed frustration at the collapse of the
local economy.

Whether the Americans have read the public mood
correctly will be crucial in determining the impact of
their strategy.

If a peaceful solution is not reached and US troops
are seen as being heavy-handed, it could turn public
opinion back Sadr's way. The coalition has made
concessions.

On Tuesday, the American-appointed governor in Najaf
suggested that US authorities were reconsidering their
stated goal of "killing or capturing" Sadr. The US
commander in the area said he was prepared to hand
over security of the city to a locally raised security
force that could include members of Sadr's Mahdi army.

Sadr said yesterday: "The dissolution of the Mahdi
army depends on the religious authorities. If they
issue an edict to disband then we will disband."

Seizing on the abuse scandal and foreign al-Qa'eda
militants in Iraq, he lashed out at Americans.

"Their presence in Iraq is not peace and will lead to
the spread of terrorism," he said. "Look at what your
army has done at the behest of its leaders - torture
of all kinds. Are those who came to remove Saddam
becoming just the same as Saddam?"
------------------------------------------------------
3)
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/05/13/1084289818093.html

The Age (Australia)
May 14, 2004

Photos show dead Iraqis, torture and rape
By Marian Wilkinson
United States Correspondent


Washington - Graphic new photographs and videotape of
the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison including images of
dead Iraqis, prisoners being brutalised, tortured and
forced to have sex, and female detainees being forced
to expose their breasts have stunned members of
Congress who saw them in a secure briefing room on
Capitol Hill.

"There were some awful scenes", said Democrat senator
Richard Durbin, "It felt you were descending into one
of the wings of hell and sadly it was our own
creation."

"There are a lot of dead people shown and a lot of
people brutalised," said independent senator Jim
Jeffords, formerly a Republican, but he said it was
unclear whether the Iraqis shown had died in combat or
after they were imprisoned.

"Take the worse case and multiply it several times
over," said Democrat senator Ron Wyden. "I expected
that these pictures would be very hard on the stomach
lining and it was significantly worse than anything
that I had anticipated."

Democrat senator Bill Nelson described for the first
time the videotape that he said included poor quality
images that may be evidence of attempts to sodomise
prisoners.

Of the more than 1800 images seized by army
investigators, many, according to the Pentagon, are
private photographs taken by the military personnel.

Some are innocuous while others show pornographic acts
between soldiers including some between Private
Lynndie England, who has already been charged, and a
partner. But there were also photos showing the sexual
abuse of prisoners.

Leading Republican senators backed the Pentagon's call
not to release the new photographs and videotape for
fear it would incite further violence against
Americans in Iraq, especially in light of the brutal
beheading of US citizen Nicholas Berg.

The US military has announced two more soldiers will
face court martial over the abuse of prisoners at Abu
Ghraib. Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick and
Sergeant Javal Davis, both reservists, were the second
and third of seven US Army military police guards who
have been charged in the affair.

- with Reuters
------------------------------------------------------
4)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/13/wtort13.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/05/13/ixnewstop.html

The Telegraph (Britain)
May 14, 2004

Iraqi prisoners 'shot by guards'
By Alec Russell in Washington


An American soldier's video diary detailing the chaos
at a jail in Iraq was broadcast last night as
Washington conceded the prisoner abuse scandal had
been a "body blow" for the country.

The woman soldier described the jail as out of control
with guards shooting prisoners to maintain order.

"I hate it here," said the soldier, who has not been
named. "We shot two prisoners today. One got shot in
the chest for swinging a pole against our people on
the feed team. The other got shot in the arm. We don't
know if the one we shot in the chest is dead yet."

The film about Camp Bucca prison, in southern Iraq,
was broadcast on the CBS programme, 60 Minutes II,
which first revealed the abuse.

In the video, the soldier described the hazards at
Camp Bucca saying: "This is a sand viper. One bite
will kill you in six hours. We've already had two
prisoners die of it, but who cares? That's two less
for me to worry about."

Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, described the
prisoner abuse scandal as "a body blow" for the US but
said enormous progress in Iraq was being ignored.
------------------------------------------------------
5)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1107955.htm

BBC News
May 13, 2004

Italian commander confirms prisoner abuse knowledge


The commander of the 3,000-strong Italian contingent
in Iraq has confirmed claims that American-trained
Iraqi police have mistreated prisoners.

But the Italian Defence Minister has denied he had any
knowledge of the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq.

Although no members of the Italian military serving
with coalition forces in Iraq have been accused of
torturing prisoners, the general in command of the
3,000-strong Italian contingent has in a newspaper
interview contradicted the government line on torture.


The Berlusconi Government says it never received any
information about prisoner abuse from the
International Red Cross or from anyone else about the
mistreatment of detainees in Iraq.

The Italian contingent consists mainly of regular army
personnel and Carbinieri police.
------------------------------------------------------
6)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1538&u=/afp/20040513/wl_uk_afp/denmark_iraq_us_britain_040513230817&printer=1


Agence France-Presse
May 13, 2004

Two Danes witnessed results of brutal treatment of
Iraqis by British troops: Danish ministry


COPENHAGEN - Two Danish paramedics have reported
seeing the results of abusive treatment inflicted by
British soldiers on two Iraqis, one of whom was said
to have died as a result of injuries sustained during
questioning, the Danish defence ministry announced.

The assistant nurses were working in the British
military hospital in Iraq's southern capital Basra
when they were asked to assess the condition of the
two Iraqis who had been brought to the hospital after
allegedly enduring brutal treatment at the hand of
their British interrogators.

One of the Iraqis later succumbed to his injuries,
according to the Danish witnesses.

The Danish paramedics had reported the matter to a
Danish army legal adviser but news of the incident
only reached the Danish Defence Ministry on Thursday,
the ministry said.

Defence Minister Soeren Gade has asked the Danish
chief of staff to explain the delay in relaying the
information.

The ministry said that a British investigation was
underway.

Earlier this month Gade strongly condemned the
reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US and British
troops.

"I vigorously condemn these acts of abuse reported
with photos and in media images showing...
inexcusable... abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American
soldiers and perhaps British soldiers," Gade said
then.
------------------------------------------------------
7)
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en64453&F_catID=&f_type=source

Hi Pakistan
May 13, 2004


US soldier killed in Baghdad


BAGHDAD: One US soldier was killed and another wounded
when a homemade bomb hit a convoy in Baghdad, the US
military said in a statement Thursday.

"One Task Force Baghdad soldier was killed and another
was wounded when an improvised-explosive device struck
a convoy Wednesday in Baghdad," the statement said.
The latest death brings to 776 the number of US
soldiers killed since the start of the Anglo-US led
invasion of Iraq in 2003.
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.vnagency.com.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=34&NEWS_ID=99131

Viet Nam News Agency
May 13, 2004

UN staff union against sending UN personnel to Iraq


Washington - The UN staff union has expressed its
dismay at the Secretary-General's decision to continue
to send staff to Iraq despite the country's present
highly volatile and insecure environment.

In a newly-adopted resolution, the union called for
additional steps to address the serious flaws in the
security management system.

Last August, the UN headquarter in Baghdad was bombed,
resulting in the death of 22 people, including UN
envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. More than 150 others
were wounded in the bombing. The second bombing of UN
offices in September killed several Iraqi police
officers. The bombings led the UN to withdraw all its
staff from Iraq.

Most recently, the al-Qaeda group has even offered
rewards in gold for the killing of UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his special envoy to
Iraq.
------------------------------------------------------
9)
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en64399&F_catID=&f_type=source

Hi Pakistan
May 13, 2004

Iraq: torture is no aberration
By Praful Bidwai


The depravity shown by Iraq?s occupation forces in
inflicting nauseating forms of sexual torture upon
prisoners in Abu Ghraib jail has shocked the world. As
if the stories of detainees being kept in 3 feet X 3
feet cells without water or toilets and pictures of
"pyramids" of naked men and women weren?t repulsive
enough, even more sickening disclosures have come in,
including pictures of US soldiers setting German
shepherd dogs upon a terrified naked Iraqi, causing
deep wounds.

Equally degrading is the picture of a crawling, naked
prisoner tied to a leash, being dragged by a female
soldier. Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld himself says
"more terrible" disclosures may follow.

It?s becoming apparent that the sexual abuse was not
the work of mavericks acting on their own. Nor were
such practices confined to Abu Ghraib. By all
accounts, US troops have routinely been torturing
Iraqi prisoners. It won?t do to blame this upon "a few
bad apples".

The torturers weren?t exactly "bad apples" or
"rogues". Rather, they were acting under orders from
US military intelligence to "break down" prisoners and
extract information. The authorisation, disclose "The
New Yorker" and "The Washington Post", was similar to
the sanction granted in April last year for coercive
interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay,
including reversing the detainees? normal sleep
patterns and exposing them to heat, cold and "sensory
assault". The classified list of about 20 such
techniques was approved at the highest levels.

Clinching evidence that the Pentagon was aware of the
torture and yet refused to act comes from the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which
can scarcely be accused of an anti-US bias. The ICRC
made 29 visits to 14 detention centres in
March-October 2003. Its evidence of abuse "went beyond
exceptional cases and might be considered a practice
tolerated by" US forces. The ICRC "repeatedly
requested the US authorities to take corrective
action". This went unheeded for nine months.

The US?s failure to act has damaged Washington?s
credibility irreversibly - globally, not just in the
"Arab world" or "Muslim world", as the Western media
often emphasises. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld has
apologised and owned up "responsibility" for the
torture. From Washington?s standpoint, the simplest
way to cap the damage would be to sack him although
this won?t redress the systemic wrong. But the Bush
Cabinet seems to have rallied around him.
Vice-President Cheney has described him as "the best
Secretary of Defence the US has ever had"!

The Iraqi prisoners? sexual humiliation is closely
related to the nature of Iraq?s occupation. An
excellent report in "The Guardian", quoting British
military sources, reveals that it is "part of a system
of ill-treatment and degradation used by Special
Forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among
ordinary troops and contractors". The techniques
belong to a system called R2I - resistance to
interrogation.

R2I includes using sexual jibes, along with stripping
prisoners naked - a method taught on both sides of the
Atlantic to "prolong the shock of capture". Female
guards play an important role in sexually taunting
male prisoners. R21 techniques include keeping
prisoners naked most of the time, as well as hooding,
sleep deprivation, time disorientation and water and
food deprivation.

Crucial is the recent change in the relationship
between military policing and intelligence gathering
in Iraq?s prisons in favour of military intelligence,
reducing the military police to a subordinate,
supportive role. Matters have been complicated by the
presence of 20,000 mercenaries and employees of
military contractors like CAC International, over whom
even the Pentagon?s oversight is "inconsistent and
sometimes incomplete".

The torture is inseparable from the larger context set
by the post-September 11 consensus in the Bush
administration - namely that old rules cannot apply to
"the war against the terrorism". This is a special
kind of war against an unknown, yet all-powerful,
omnipresent enemy. Established rules of warfare can
only hamper it.

It?s this mindset that led Rumsfeld to repeatedly ask
his generals and admirals to act aggressively and
ruthlessly, and "take greater risks". One of his memos
said: "Our prerequisite of perfection for ?actionable
intelligence? has paralysed us. We must accept that we
may have to take action before every question can be
answered..." Rumsfeld wanted to give military protocol
the go-by. This was reflected in his contempt for the
global outrage over the torture of Guantanamo Bay?s
prisoners and in his cavalier dismissal of the Geneva
Conventions. The US has resisted attempts to define
their status as prisoners of war.

The assumption is that the Guantanamo-Abu Ghraib
detainees don?t deserve humane treatment because they
are sub-human. "Civilised" norms cannot apply to them.
Coercion and torture are "the only language they
understand". This is a horrendously racist way of
demonising people. Yet, such demonisation underlay the
post-1990 sanctions on Iraq, which led to the death of
1.3 million, including 500,000 children. Then,
Secretary Madeline Albright notoriously said the
"price is worth it".

The way the US and UK have conducted the year-long
occupation is fully consistent with demonisation. Over
10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, many of them
in indiscriminate, vengeful "retaliation". The
occupation forces? actions in Fallujah and Najaf have
earned them international notoriety.

The US has been sucked into a quagmire in Iraq, which
is worse than the 1991 situation. Cheney had then
described it thus to justify a quick withdrawal from
Iraq after the Kuwait invasion was vacated: "Once
you?ve got Baghdad, it?s not clear what you do with
it. It?s not clear what kind of government you would
put in place ... How much credibility is that
government going to have if it?s set up by the US
military? ... [I] think to have American military
forces engaged in a civil war inside Iraq would fit
the definition of quagmire, and we have absolutely no
desire to get bogged down in that fashion."

The US faces an insurgency from both the Sunni
Centre-North and the Shia South. The prospect for it
looks bleak. This situation is of Washington?s own
making - traceable to its lies about Iraq?s weapons of
mass destruction. It acted against the will of the
international community and manipulated the UN. The
occupation has turned out even more grotesque than the
war.

The US is now desperate for a "face-saver" through the
same UN. One formula is that of a "fully sovereign"
Iraqi government by June 30, to which it will
"transfer power". But there can be no sovereignty
until the occupation ends. After that, the Iraqis can
decide which peace-keeping force - all-Arab, UN-led,
or whatever - they need to make a transition to
constitutional democracy. The priority is to get US-UK
troops out NOW!
------------------------------------------------------
10)
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,250890,00.html

Straits Times (Singapore)
May 13, 2004

When pictures scream louder than words
By Evelyn Goh

-Attempts to portray the offending military personnel
as 'rogue elements' engaged in 'vigilante justice' are
likely to fail. The offenders were official arms
bearers, sanctioned to use force on behalf of their
country, the most obvious front-line manifestations of
the American 'liberation' force in Iraq.
-[T]his episode is traumatic for the American people
precisely because it indicates to the American people
that the 'evildoers' they are fighting are not just
'others out there', but the boy or girl next door too,
who might be a perpetrator of atrocities.
Disconcertingly, the enemies of freedom, as it were,
are to be found a lot closer to home.



The photographs and reports of American soldiers'
abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib
constitute evidence that members of the United States
armed forces have violated the Geneva Convention on
prisoners' rights. Yet, this is not the first time
evidence has been presented for US violation of this
body of international law - recall the ongoing
controversy over the imprisonment of enemy combatants
at Guantanamo Bay, and the targeting of civilian
infrastructure during the 1990-1991 Gulf War and the
Kosovo campaign.

What makes this latest revelation such a big deal?

First, pictures scream louder than words. Reports
about alleged abuses have been around since last
November; the Red Cross forwarded them to the US
military command in Baghdad then. The Pentagon issued
statements to the press and Congress in January and
March on investigations under way into the abuses.
Yet, not many people digested the news. It took
pictures to make them sit up and take notice.

Second, this comes at a particularly bad time.
Militarily, more than a year after President George W.
Bush declared victory in Iraq, US forces continue to
battle insurgents. Politically, the Bush
administration is striving to cobble together a new
government in Iraq, working with Iraqi leaders, the
United Nations and other friendly nations. And, of
course, President Bush is gearing up for re-election
this November.

Third, the current controversy is a critical test of
American resolve on a number of levels. The key
concern is not so much over the deeds themselves -
repugnant as they are - but rather with how these
episodes will reflect on America's image, identity and
credibility.

Attempts to portray the offending military personnel
as 'rogue elements' engaged in 'vigilante justice' are
likely to fail. The offenders were official arms
bearers, sanctioned to use force on behalf of their
country, the most obvious front-line manifestations of
the American 'liberation' force in Iraq.

The only way to dissociate the US, to some extent,
from these actions, is by demonstrating that political
leaders and the military chain of command do not
approve and will punish these reprobates. On this
score, the emerging testimony of military commanders
in Congress in fact suggests that coercive practices
were used systematically as part of military
intelligence collection. Blame thus shifts further up
the chain of command.

Even so, this apparent obsession with finger-pointing
and with establishing exactly who knew what when and
told whom, detracts from the main issue that this saga
has thrown up.

The main trouble lies not in the contradiction between
those acts of abuse and President Bush's avowed moral
agenda in deposing a despotic leader and bringing
freedom, justice and dignity to the Iraqi people.

The central image problem is that the very values that
the US has held itself to stand for have now been
called into question. Some fundamental boundaries have
been blurred: the self-professed liberators, or
redeemers, now contain elements which are readily
recognised as 'enemies of freedom'.

ASSAULT ON THE SENSES

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put his finger on
the heart of the issue when he told Pentagon personnel
that the abusive actions 'ought not be allowed to
define us' because 'we know who we are'.

As Straits Times columnist Janadas Devan has pointed
out, this episode is traumatic for the American people
precisely because it indicates to the American people
that the 'evildoers' they are fighting are not just
'others out there', but the boy or girl next door too,
who might be a perpetrator of atrocities.
Disconcertingly, the enemies of freedom, as it were,
are to be found a lot closer to home.

In the last three days, the American people have been
subject to more gruesome pictures - this time the
taped beheading of an American prisoner by
Al-Qaeda-linked extremists. Given that pictures
clearly speak louder than words, this could represent
a new side-war aimed at the attrition of public
sensibilities.

The terrorists will be working on the calculation that
the US public will be the first to lose its collective
stomach for such a fight. The heart of US foreign
policy has always lain within domestic politics, and
the most worrying aspect of the current crisis is not
the possibility that US troops will be withdrawn from
Iraq soon. Rather, this assault on the American
public's sense of self and its sense of purpose may
tip the scales significantly against the Bush
administration in the months to come.

Heightened public uncertainties about the rationale
for the war have so far translated into falling
approval ratings for the President. If other
controversies should subsequently arise regarding the
war, this public confusion may well turn into a
significant weakening of resolve, not on the part of
the administration, but crucially, on the part of the
electorate.



The writer is an assistant professor at the Institute
of Defence and Strategic Studies [Singapore].








	
		
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