LAT: Guards' Testimony Paints Grisly Picture of Prisoner Abuse(Dead-Ice)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-prison18may18,1,4837434,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines

When CIA officers brought the Iraqi detainee to Abu Ghraib prison, his head was covered with an empty sandbag and Army guards were ordered to take him directly to a shower room that served as a makeshift interrogation center at the overcrowded, shell-damaged facility outside Baghdad.

An hour later, amid intensive questioning by intelligence officers, the prisoner collapsed and died. Only then did interrogators remove the hood to reveal severe head wounds that had never been treated.

The dead prisoner, whose identity still has not been made public, would become famous around the world in the photograph of a body wrapped in plastic sheeting and packed in ice -- among the most indelible images made public in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

An account of his final hours, and of the failure to provide medical attention to a severely wounded prisoner, is contained in sworn testimony provided to Army investigators by military police guards at Abu Ghraib.

[Frances]

1. This is real news

I am surprised that there are not more people discussing the abuse and how the U.S. set it up

[jdj]

28. Don't forget the diabolical cover-up re this man.

Apparently there is a picture of him with an I.V. in his arm. I heard he was removed from the prison with an I.V. in his arm because they were trying to make it look like he was still alive, although they knew he was deceased. At first they were saying he died of a heart attack. Does anyone have a link to the orignal photos?

One of the soldiers' uncle was defending his nephew on the grounds that the pictures were posed because "the man packed in ice with the I.V. in his arm" was already dead when the photo was taken, so in this man's words "he never actually existed". Try to find the logic in that. This was on a news show at the very beginning of this scandal, it's been a while and the name of the soldier and his uncle have escaped me.

They are nailed on the cover up of this as well as the actual crime.

[lolly]

2. Well,

At least we didn't behead him. That makes us better than "them," doesn't it? :eyes:

[funnymanpants]

10. Much better!

Yes, because we all know that if you have to die, getting beheaded is so much more pleasant than dying slowly with a bag over your head.

As Jon Stuart said "The USA: we're better than Saddam!"

Of course, the yahoos will insist that it was an accident.. blah blah blah.

[Zerex71]

19. USA taking a page from the Wehrmacht's books

And we expect flowers and dancing in the streets? We get everything we deserve after this.

[jdj]

29. Idea for anti-Bush ad: Kodak "True Colors" song!

Wasn't Cyndi Lauper the original artist? Or she did a cover. I'd love to see this, Cyndi singing in the background while the photos are shown one after the other

"We see your true colors
shining through
Your
True colors
and that's why we're firing you.

It's too late, you let them show,
your true colors are out,
and now you have to GO!!!

[Judi Lynn]

3. We have heard of this prisoner before, only they simply said

he was beaten severely, then died, and was hidden on ice.

The thought that he had been left with his hood on a long time, and they knew absolutely nothing about his head injuries or how they got there is a brand new twist.

From a couple of weeks ago, we were told he was simply beaten until he died.

Odd, isn't it? Someone fired up his spin machine and spit out a new little drama to explain what the hell happened, with the guards coming out a lot cleaner.

[bobthedrummer]

7. Then too, we have heard about corpses being used in cult rituals recog-

nized by law enforcement. That evidence is being held by the Pentagon.
NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Everything went really silent on what you've mentioned.....

There was reference to dead animals showing up in photos, including a cat's head in quite a few... It's just too damned odd.

Do you remember reading last week that someone in th prison bought a couple of sheep from relatives who came to the prison seeking word on their loved one? It didn't hit me until hours after reading that that maybe they used these sheep in horrid ways, as well.

You have to wonder if they actually didn't "interrogate" prisoners in the showers merely because it's the easiest place to wash away blood.

Even after he died, the documents say, officials continued to pursue their own agendas: They haggled over who was responsible for the body. Eventually, the body deteriorated to where it had to be disposed of.

The official documents describing the grim episode, obtained Monday by the Los Angeles Times, were based on testimony at a secret military court hearing last month on the charges against Sgt. Javal Davis, one of seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company accused of beating and humiliating Iraqi detainees.

"He wasn't dead at first," said Spc. Jason A. Kenner of the nameless detainee, explaining that guards were told not to remove the prisoner's hood when they took him to the shower room.

"We didn't know how much he was injured. He went into the showers for interrogation, and about an hour later he died on them. I was sent to find out what was going on. Later that day, they decided to put him on ice. ..."

"After he passed, the sandbag was removed and I saw that he was severely beaten on his face," Kenner testified. "At the time, they would interrogate people in the shower rooms. He was shackled to the wall. ... The shower room was just used because there was no other space available."
(snip)

[Alerter_]

27. they talked about a bed with candles and an audience

Remember when all the exotic animals were cooked and eaten? weird.

[yardwork]

8. Maybe the head injuries occurred during the interrogation?

There's no way to say when the head injuries occurred. I agree that this is new spin to make it look like the interrogators were negligent but not directly responsible for his wounds. I don't buy it.

They probably beat his head against the wall during the "interrogation."

[daleo]

4. Would there not have been blood on the sandbag/hood?

Maybe someone who has registered for the L.A. Times could answer this.

[NYC]

6. daleo, are those sandbags made of plastic?

The article doesn't say. It also doesn't say anything about blood on or showing through the sandbag.

In a few of the pictures I have seen, they appear to be plastic/vinyl.

Excerpt:


"He wasn't dead at first," said Spc. Jason A. Kenner of the nameless detainee, explaining that guards were told not to remove the prisoner's hood when they took him to the shower room.

"We didn't know how much he was injured. He went into the showers for interrogation, and about an hour later he died on them. I was sent to find out what was going on. Later that day, they decided to put him on ice. ..."

"After he passed, the sandbag was removed and I saw that he was severely beaten on his face," Kenner testified. "At the time, they would interrogate people in the shower rooms. He was shackled to the wall. ... The shower room was just used because there was no other space available."

[daleo]

11. They do look kind of shiny

But plastic bags tend to make it hard to breath, so you would think there would be some kind of pores that blood could leak through.

A nameless man shackled to a wall in a shower room, dying from a beating - sounds like a scene from a World War II movie about the Gestapo. Incredible.

[Tinoire]

20. They're plastic... woven strands of plastic

Polypropylene Sandbags



I can't imagine having that on my head.

[NYC]

22. Thanks, Tinoire.

That's what they looked like to me. And thanks for the very clear photograph.

[NYC]

21. Shackled to a wall.

Why are there shackles in a shower room wall? (Or was this a non-permanent set up?)

I suppose it is possible the only air entering the bag comes from the neckline. I really don't know. Thanks to Tinoire for telling us what they are made of.

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. Here's an example of one of the bags

[NYC]

26. To me, that looks the same as the polypropylene bag

in Tinoire's post #20.

Thanks for the picture.

[Tinoire]

31. That's Iraq - Now check out Israel in 2000 / Sandbags over the head etc

(( DoYouEverWonder, that's one of the most heart-breaking photos of this war... I can't imagine the pain of trying to comfort a child in that madness... Heart-breaking.))



Picture from this Feb 2000 article: Israel admits torture

<snip>

An official Israeli report has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli security service tortured detainees during the Palestinian uprising, the Intifada, between 1988 and 1992.


The report, written five years ago but kept secret until now, said the leadership of the security service Shin Bet knew about the torture but did nothing to stop it.

The report did not detail the torture methods used, but human rights organisations say some detainees died or were left paralysed.

<snip>

The report acknowledged that the security issues faced by the agents at the time were unprecedented, and that they succeeded in preventing a number of guerilla attacks.

The report describes this activity as "holy work" but criticises the methods used and recommends measures to ensure that they be stopped.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/637293.stm
====

Skipping forward to 2004...

May 10, 2004

The Israeli Torture Template
Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks
By WAYNE MADSEN


With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. In March 2000, a lawyer for a Lebanese prisoner kidnapped in 1994 by the Israelis in Lebanon claimed that his client had been subjected to torture, including rape. The type of compensation offered by Rumsfeld in his testimony has its roots in cases of Israeli torture of Arabs. In the case of the Lebanese man, said to have been raped by his Israeli captors, his lawyer demanded compensation of $1.47 million. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel documented the types of torture meted out on Arab prisoners. Many of the tactics coincide with those contained in the Taguba report: beatings and prolonged periods handcuffed to furniture. In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day for 120 days . . . had his head covered with a sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence." If additional photos and videos document such practices, the Bush administration and the American people have, indeed, "seen nothing yet."

<snip>


http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html

[struggle4progress]

5. Rape and murder ...

Boy, the Iraqis must really love us and what we stand for. :-(

[Unperson 309]

12. F.R.A.T. Pranks!

These are, indeed, nothing more than simple F.R.A.T. pranks.

Federally Recommended Anguish and Torture F.R.A.T.

So, yes, indeed, Rush and the rest are correct. Simple F.R.A.T. pranks and they are standard operating procedure for our dealings with prisoners.

We need to make certain that everyone understands the meaning of F.R.A.T.

Other meanings of F.R.A.T. include

Federally Recommended Approved Techniques
Fascist Republican Asshole Talkingpoints
Fucking Racist American Troops
Fear, Revulsion, Anguish = Torture
Figures! Rush Approves Torture.

etc...

I'm certain all of you can come up with other acronyms for protest signs! :)

309

[daleo]

18. How about: Fear, Rape, and Torture

or Fear, Rape, Abuse, Torture

[Unperson 309]

30. F.R.A.T. = Fear, Rape, Abuse, Torture!

Excellent! Spread the word. They were F.R.A.T. pranks!

309

[Spazito]

13. Yahoo now has the article up as well...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/deathofprisonerdetailedintestimony

[Bandit]

14. I hate those bags ~ I love them at the same time

They are sand bags that every grunt knows well. We all packed them and had to fill them every night and empty them every morning. they were our protection and our tedious labor. I hate filling sandbags with a passion but would not be here today without them. I wish they would have used something else or nothing at all.

[mmm]

16. very interesting

I have never been up close and personal with a sand bag.
Good post.

[kentuck]

24. Bandit....it sounds like you were traumatized by those sandbags..

:)..They used to cost the govt about .75 cents each...I wonder if the price has gone down??

[The Stranger]

15. Is it pointless now to point out that these are war crimes?

If not murder?

[CaptainClark23]

17. Shades of Stephen Biko

goddamn.

[DoYouEverWonder]

25. Here's the poor fellow after they had him on ice

for awhile





Can someone tell me is that laying on his lap?

[Tinoire]

32. I shudder to guess... after reading reports of knives at the genitals

What bad karma this!