We heard about stealing. Now US kidnaps innocents to threaten

[LittleApple81]

others.
U.S. using some Iraqis as bargaining chips
Iraqi woman says U.S. imprisoned her husband - and said he'd go free when her father surrenders
May 26, 2004


BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops wanted Jeanan Moayad's father. When they couldn't find him, they took her husband in his place.

Dhafir Ibrahim has been in U.S. custody for nearly four months. Moayad insists he is being held as a bargaining chip, and military officials have told her he will be released when her father surrenders. Her father is a scientist and former Baath party member who fled to Jordan soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. "My husband is a hostage," said Moayad, 35, an architect who carries a small portrait of Ibrahim in her purse. "He didn't commit any crime."

Dozens detained

In a little-noticed development amid Iraq's prison abuse scandal, the U.S. military is holding dozens of Iraqis as bargaining chips to put pressure on their wanted relatives to surrender, according to human rights groups. These detainees are not accused of any crimes, and experts say their detention violates the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. The practice also risks associating the United States with the tactics of countries it has long criticized for arbitrary arrests.

snip...

U.S. officials deny that there is a systematic practice of detaining relatives to pressure Iraqi fugitives into surrendering. "The coalition does not take hostages," said a senior military official who asked not to be named. "Relatives who might have information about wanted persons are sometimes detained for questioning, and then they are released. There is no policy of holding people as bargaining chips."

But Iraqi human rights groups say they have documented dozens of cases similar to Moayad's, in which family members who are not accused of any crimes have been detained for weeks or even months and told that they would be released only when a wanted relative surrenders to U.S. forces.

more at link:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woabus263819545may26,0,4004730.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

[Djinn]

1. it's just a freaky coincidence

"Relatives who might have information about wanted persons are sometimes detained for questioning, and then they are released. There is no policy of holding people as bargaining chips."

that they happened to be released when the other relative is arrested.

[LittleApple81]

2. Yeah. An explanation for everything...isn't it amazing? And all of them

sound so off the wall that makes the whole situation tragic-comical.

[Alerter_]

3. sorry to ask the question, but we must

are they kidnapping people's relatives, wives, and daughters, and raping and tortuing them on camera in order to "influence" their target?