President Bush's decision to demolish Abu Ghraib prison draws little appla

[Judi Lynn]

President Bush's decision to demolish Abu Ghraib prison draws little applause in Iraq
By Associated Press, 5/25/2004 06:22

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) President Bush's announcement that he would demolish the notorious Abu Ghraib prison drew few applause Tuesday in Baghdad, and one senior Iraqi official said Iraqis themselves should decide what to do about the jail at the center of the prisoner abuse scandal.

Bush told an audience Monday night at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. that Abu Ghraib prison, notorious for torture under Saddam Hussein and scene of prisoner abuse by U.S. troops, will be destroyed ''as a fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning.''

Ahmed Hassan al-Uqaili, deputy chief of the Human Rights Organization in Iraq, dismissed Bush's promise as a Republican ploy ''to win the (presidential) election in the United States.''

Al-Uqaili said the most important thing was to end the abuses committed by both Saddam's regime and the American guards.
(snip/...)

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/146/world/President_Bus...

[Alerter_]

1. the best idea they could come up with, destroy the evidence

and build a new prison. That's it folks. That's their solution.

[dusty64]

6. Thats exactly

what I was thinking, why else destroy it while "investigations" are still going on.

[Just Me]

19. I hadn't thought of that. n/t

[izzie]

12. With a BY Brown and Root sign out side. And a Billion $ tag.

Come on Bush we are not as dumb as you are.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

18. Yeah and throw out all those Florida ballots too. nt

[keithyboy]

21. Should have been destroyed when we first went into Iraq, not after $50 m

spent to renovate it! WTF? Just to pay out money to Bechtel and Halliburton?

[TahitiNut]

25. Preventing another "Auschwitz" Historic Site

The death camps of the Nazi regime are preserved as lessons to future generations. In this "learning experience," the Busholini Regime wants to leave all the children behind.

[9215]

38. ewwww!! Nice one.

[PartyPooper]

41. Exactly. That's what I was thinking.

Thanks for the post.

[dbt]

2. The very ESSENCE of George W. bu$h!

Destruction as a "fitting symbol." When his tiny little brain can wrap itself around anything, it begins with destruction. Guess that's what happens when you dedicate your youth to getting "tore down" as often as possible.

I pity the Fool.


dbt

[Don_G]

3. I Noticed The News Feed On ABC This Morning

US to destroy Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison...like anything that happened there were the Iraqi's fault.

It's just a re-selection ploy and propaganda for the sheeple in the US.

[truthisfreedom]

4. leave it to bushco to use more destruction as a solution to everything.

Iraq bugs ya? destroy it. Iraqis bug ya? destroy them. Getting caught torturing the people you're supposed to be liberating in an old prison? destroy it.

it's just part of the general theme of the bush family. destroying things as a way of life. like when prescott bush loaned money to the nazis. like when poppy bush worked with carlisle and used insider military contacts to crush military suppliers so he could buy the companies for pennies on the dollar. bushco is in the war business, and the longer they can stay at war, the more money they make. everything about bush is coverup and make-believe.

[ze_dscherman]

5. I would applaud tearing down Abu Ghraib

if that had been done by the Iraqis.

[0007]

14. I say let Abu Ghraib stand for a thousand years!

Destroy Abu Ghraib? Hell No!!
Let's preserve this site as a historical monument for the whole world to see.

A museum that would depict the torture chambers of Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush.
Complete with mannequins that depict the likes of Military guards like Lynndie England doing all
her antics. Snarling dogs barking at naked Iraqis and then turned loose.

The murder the blood the maimed and the heart break of the loved ones should never be
forgotten.

As human beings we should all be ashamed and reminded daily of our weaknesses.

The Holocaust is still alive in the heart and minds of us and the Nazi concentration camps are still
alive as historical monuments why not Abu Ahraib?

[Spazito]

20. I agree! It should stand until the Iraqi people decide otherwise...

It is up to the Iraqi people to decide what should happen to Abu Ghraib not up to the US. This "decision" by bush is simply colonialism personified, imo.

[TahitiNut]

26. GMTA

[0007]

27. What's GMTA ?

[Spazito]

30. Great Minds Think Alike

*

[TahitiNut]

31. http://www.netlingo.com/lookup.cfm?term=GMTA

GMTA Great Minds Think Alike
GMTA Gainesville Music Teachers Association
GMTA Georgia Motor Trucking Association
GMTA Georgia Music Teachers Association
GMTA Gloucester Music Teachers Association
GMTA Goals-Means Task Analysis
GMTA Grand Manan Tourism Association
GMTA Greater Metropolitan Toronto Area
GMTA Greenfield Montague Transportation Area
GMTA Guam Mass Transit Authority
http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&...

[Mokito]

35. I second that !

The Abu Ghraib prison has become an instant historical site. It speaks of the oppression the Iraqi's had to endure under Saddam Hussein as well as under George W. Bush and his colonialists.

This "let's destroy it"-ploy is nothing less than an flagrant attempt to erase and change history.

He who forgets is destined to remember.

[patricia92243]

7. I assume we'll have to pay for it.

[ze_dscherman]

8. AND also for the new high security prison

the US will build instead. Probably by KBR.

[crossroads]

40. Ya think they will *give* the contract to Halliburton ?

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they had the 'nads to.

[UpInArms]

9. more of the too little too late syndrome

this prison should have been torn down when we went to Iraq - to show that the era of torture was over - instead we used that prison as the backdrop for more torture and now just want to have another Hell-a-burnin' contract that folks can "get behind".

[lumpy]

23. Agreed, UpInArms

If Abu Ghraib had been destroyed immediately after the invasion it certainly would have made a postitive impact. Unfortunetly the military probably had plans for using it as it has been proved.

[susu369]

37. Hell-a-burnin'

You are good, UIA.

[DrBB]

10. Well, if this was a YEAR ago, yeah. Now it's a "fitting symbol"

...of Bush's too-little-too-late, fuck-up-royally-and-hope-someone-cleans-up-the-mess way of dealing with Iraq, the economy, and, well, pretty much everything in his whole life.

[Mace]

11. Why waste money on destroying the prison and creating a new one

Why would bush want to waste money destroying the prison, and then create a new one?

Didn't the army cleanup/restore the prison?

Seems like a waste of money/time/energy to me..

Obviously there's nothing wrong with the prison, other than it was used for torture. That's what prisons do though, mentally or physically.

[UpInArms]

13. Welcome to DU Mace!

[susu369]

15. "Tear down this jail"

Georgie felt so-o-o presidential. Of course, he couldn't pronounce the name of the prison.

Where's Mark Crispin Miller these days, BTW? I thought about him last night when bu$h* couldn't seem to get Abu Ghraib out of his mouth.

[murielm99]

16. Yeah, I noticed that.

He stumbled over it the first time, and pronounced it three different ways during the speech.

I thought he PRACTICED. What was he practicing, then? How to wear makeup properly, to hide his boo-boo?

[UpInArms]

17. Since none of the channels

I get, carried his water (snicker), I had to watch Nightline to see the word-mangler in action.

He truly does need a diction instructor.

[MrTriumph]

22. More tax & borrow

So George wants to destroy the prison and build a, um, prison in its place? More "tax and borrow" irresponsible government....

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

24. Total lack of new ideas

Let's spend $10 million to tear down a prison and built a new one for $300 million. Is this the reason why my kids' school is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy? So we can build new and improved prisons in Iraq?

[NickB79]

28. Bush to Iraqis:

"Don't worry, we're destroying the horrible old prison where so many of you were tortured. In it's place we will build a new state-of-the-art prison where so many of you will be tortured. Grab your vasoline and watch out for the broomsticks. Thank you."

[The Stranger]

29. They're destroying evidence and the scene of war crimes.

[ElementaryPenguin]

33. Evidence of the torture AND the apparent scene of the Nick Berg murder!

There's plenty of evidence that BushCo needs to bulldoze!

[Judi Lynn]

36. No doubt!Probably could find his fingerprints on the walls and floors.n/t

[SOS]

32. Negroponte

is not the guy to be building prisons in Iraq. Here's an example of his "leadership".

From the Baltimore Sun, 1995:

By Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson
Sun Staff

June 15, 1995

DAY AFTER DAY, for 78 days, Ines Consuelo Murillo was tortured by a secret Honduran military intelligence unit called Battalion 316.

Her captors tied the 24-year-old woman's hands and feet, hung her naked from the ceiling and beat her with their fists. They fondled her. They nearly drowned her. They clipped wires to her breasts and sent electricity surging through her body.

"It was so frightening the way my body would shake when they shocked me. They put rags in my throat so I would not scream," she said. "But I screamed so loud, sometimes it sounded like an animal. I would even scare myself."

Murillo is one of hundreds abducted and tortured during the 1980s by Battalion 316, a unit trained and equipped by the CIA to gather intelligence about subversives, at a time when Honduras was crucial to the Reagan administration's war against communism in Central America.

Many of those kidnapped were later murdered, their bodies discovered in fields and along riverbanks. At least 184 people are missing and presumed dead.


Information about Murillo's ordeal also was obtained from secret testimony by a high-level CIA official before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In that June 1988 testimony, Richard Stolz, then the CIA deputy director for operations, confirmed that a CIA officer visited the jail where Battalion 316 held Murillo.

She and her captors recalled the visits by the American, a man they knew as "Mr. Mike."

The CIA's visits to the jail are significant because U.S. officials in Honduras repeatedly claimed at the time that they had no evidence that the Honduran military was engaging in systematic human rights abuses."

[BonjourUSA]

34. Shouldn't the Iraqis decide ?

[progressivebydesign]

39. If he can't pronnounce it? Get rid of it! His new motto! N/T