Fresh details emerge of Iraqis' abuse by American soldiers

[_TJ_]

Fresh details emerge of Iraqis' abuse by American soldiers

By David Randall in London and Andrew Buncombe in Washington
27 March 2005

Damning evidence of American soldiers abusing detainees at another prison in Iraq was made public yesterday. It details how prisoners were "systematically and intentionally mistreated" at a military base in Mosul, culminating in the death of one. Nobody was court-martialled over the abuse.

An investigation by a US officer after a prisoner's jaw was broken found that inmates were hit with water bottles, made to do exhausting physical exercises until they collapsed, deprived of sleep, subjected to deafening heavy metal music and had cigarette smoke blown into sandbags they were forced to wear as hoods. One soldier said troops "always harassed the hell out of detainees"; another said that at times "the detainees would get so scared they would piss themselves".

In December 2003 a prisoner died after four days of continuous punishment. According to the documents, which were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, mistreatmentwas not confined to Abu Ghraib jail, where abuse and sexual humiliation of inmates caused worldwide outrage last year.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=624052

[pnutchuck]

1. I wonder if the 2 soldiers that took the fall for Abu Ghraib

will be able to overturn their convictions. If systematic abuse throughout the detention system is proved, then perhaps they can get a lesser sentence.

I don't condone the actions of the soldiers "just following orders", but I don't see why they have to take the fall for this administrations failures.

[democrank]

2. It`s criminal

that Americans aren`t demanding someone get to the bottom of this torture policy. How can we just turn our backs on this?