Rage Greets Journalists on Iraq Prison Tour! (the Cables cleaned it up)

[KoKo]

Anyone see the photo's on the cables today of "clean" and orderly prison cells. Turns out the WaPo says that it isn't the whole story. What was going on outside painted a different picture of what folks are thinking. I may have missed an honest cable report on this, but my scan today just showed pic's of "model prison." Anyway, it's still worth a read.

+++++++++++++++++++

Rage Is on Display During Prison Tour
General Touts Reforms, New Facilities


By Sewell Chan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 6, 2004; Page A19

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq, May 5 -- The Iraqi prisoners dashed from their beige canvas tents, gathering at the edge of a razor-wire barrier in a desperate but defiant throng. Drowning out a U.S. Army general, they shouted in anger about their treatment by American captors."Mr. Bush, is this the freedom you want for Iraq?" one man yelled in Arabic.

An amputee removed his prosthetic leg and waved it in protest. "How can I be a security detainee?" he asked. "What can I do without a leg?" A second man raised a metal cane above his head; five others brandished wooden crutches.

The chaotic scene unfolded in front of two busloads of journalists whom the U.S. military brought to the world's largest Army-run prison for a tour Wednesday morning, hours before President Bush went on two Arab television channels to discuss the physical and sexual abuses of detainees here last fall.
(SNIP)

The virulence of the inmates who swarmed toward the visiting journalists on the first part of the tour visibly surprised military officers, who hustled the journalists back on their way. "Come on, in the bus," ordered Col. David E. Quantock, who commands the 450 military police officers at the prison. "We've got other things to do."

Along with a slate of reforms that Miller announced to reporters, the four-hour tour suggested new efforts by the Army to bring transparency to Abu Ghraib in the wake of allegations that military police had subjected Iraqi prisoners to humiliating and sometimes abusive punishments late last year. The Army has launched five investigations, filed criminal charges against six members of a military police unit and notified seven officers and sergeants that they will receive letters of reprimand or admonishment that could end their careers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5674-2004May5.html

[KoKo]

1. This reminds me of what they did in Nazi Germany. Allowing the inspectors

in for one day to show how clean and nice the prisoners had it, and how wonderful the facilities were. After the blood and vomit were hosed off the floor and the bedding was changed to get rid of the fleas and vermin.

At least they didn't make the prisoners dress up and play instruments!

[opihimoimoi]

2. The notion of SECRECY is troubling indeed. Sooner than later, Truth has a

way of emerging. When people get the real truth and find they were FOOLED, they get PISSED, then they vote the decievers OUT

[KoKo]

4. You and I can read this Opi, but what about those who just watch the

Cables. If they saw what I saw (I admitted I only saw a scan at noon today) then they saw pics of a prison that could have been in the US. They saw an interrogation room which could have been any local police station's interrogation room with a table chairs and a pad and pencil.

They didnt' show the room with the "blood stained walls" talked about in Hersh's article and one reporter did say there were areas that were "off limits" but why didn't they pressure them to show the "off limits" room and area where probably alot of the stuff went on.

I feel I'm living in a novel from the Cold War about the Gulag. All those Ludlum and LeCarre and Higgins books I read are coming back to haunt me. This is just dreadful...there is no excuse.

I know you agree, I'm just ranting because I know worse than we imagine is going to come out about all this. :-(

[opihimoimoi]

6. Koko, have heart. Redemption is close at hand.

The evils of this world are being slowly exposed for what they are. There is a paradigm shift going on,,, that from Anger, Bad, to Benevolence, good.

Slowly, ever so slow at first, but soon the rush towards what is GOOD.

All the things Bush stands for and reveals are Bad.... the evidence is shown clearly. There are delusional people of course blind to the facts, but they are slowly being left at the wayside fixing wagon wheels of the outmoded Anger Society....

We will be passing them with the Benevolent Vehicles of the future.

In a Nut shell, the old Angry Philosophy is an out dated vestiage of our Village Days. This is 2004, there is little room these days for that old Philosophy. Bush and Co are dinosaurs, out dated and soon to be extinct as the NEW WAVE of Benevolency arrives.

[revcarol]

3. About 90% of the prisoners are in a TENT CITY outside of the prison.

Named after a 9/11 police or fire captain.(Wonder why the troops connect 9/11 and Iraq?)
Nothing like being jammed into "temporary" tents for months,unable to see family, no access to anyone who could free you even if they had a legal system, to make one want to go out and get roses and strew them in front of American Humvees.

[KoKo]

5. I wondered if they moved them out in the tents so the reporters could go

in and show the "sanitized cells." The photos I saw showed empty cells in a huge cell block. Makes one wonder why there were so many in tents if the part of the prison they showed was empty. Maybe the have 10 or more to a cell with one bunk. They didn't want us to know that. UGH!

[Gloria]

7. Clip on Newsnight (Brown) looked antiseptic.....

Both Sunnis and Shiites protesting, together...

Maj. General apologized for the actions of a few of the troops and "leaders" who may have commited "criminal" acts....

[revcarol]

8. The same major general who went there last year to give them

"guidelines for interrogation?" And recommended doing things that are shameful in their culture? And is currently the commander of the WHOLE PRISON SYSTEM, AFTER HAVING COMMANDED AT GUANTANMO?

That one?

[AbbeyRoad]

9. I was listening to NPR's All Things Considered

this afternoon when the journalists were on the grand tour of the prison.

They said during the piece that there were only 5 female prisoners in the entire prison. That really threw me for a loop. I had heard before that there was an entire wing for women. I mean, were a whole bunch conveniently released?

It just smells very fishy.