Red Cross Report Describes Systemic Abuse in Iraq
Compiled From Wire Reports
Monday, May 10, 2004; 8:56 AM
GENEVA - Abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers was broad and "not
individual acts" as President Bush has argued, according to a Red Cross
report disclosed today.
Bush has said the abuses were the result of the "wrongdoing of a few."
However, the report says "the use of ill-treatment against (Iraqi) persons
deprived of their liberty went beyond exceptional cases and might be
considered a practice tolerated by" coalition forces.
A senior Red Cross official added: "We were dealing here with a broad
pattern, not individual acts. There was a pattern and a system."
"ICRC (Red Cross) delegates directly witnessed and documented a variety of
methods used to secure the cooperation of the persons deprived of their
liberty with their interrogators," according to the confidential report. The
24-page document was confirmed as authentic by the International Committee
for the Red Cross (ICRC) after it was published today by the Wall Street
Journal.
The Red Cross report says its delegates saw how detainees at Abu Ghraib were
kept "completely naked in totally empty concrete cells and in total
darkness." It said it found evidence supporting prisoners' allegations of
other forms of abuse during arrest, initial detention and interrogation.
Among the evidence were burns, bruises and other injuries consistent with
the abuse that prisoners alleged, it said.
The report cites abuses - some "tantamount to torture" - including
brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of "imminent execution."
"These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the
military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract
information and other forms of cooperation from persons who had been
arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an
'intelligence value."'
The agency said arrests allegedly tended to follow a pattern.
"Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down
doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members
into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and
further breaking doors, cabinets and other property," the report said.
"Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including
elderly, handicapped or sick people," it said. "Treatment often included
pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and
kicking and striking with rifles."
Pierre Kraehenbuehl, ICRC director of operations, said the report had been
given to U.S. officials in February, but it only summarized what the agency
had been telling U.S. officials in detail between March and November 2003
"either in direct face-to-face conversations or in written interventions."
Kraehenbuehl said the abuse of prisoners represents more than isolated acts,
and that the problems were not limited to Abu Ghraib.
"We were dealing here with a broad pattern, not individual acts. There was a
pattern and a system," he said, declining to give further details.
Kraehenbuehl said the ICRC regretted the publication and said it would have
preferred sticking to its policy of confidential discussions with coalition
authorities because the United States had been making progress toward
meeting its demands.
The report said the abuses were primarily during the interrogation stage by
military intelligence.
Once the detainees were moved to regular prison facilities, the abuses
typically stopped, it said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14011-2004May10.html
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A pattern of deception
A hard truth appears to have escaped the notice of the public and received
scant attention from the media: Bush is the first president in American
history to use deceptive propaganda as his main means of communications in
selling his policies. His pattern of deception continues unabated and in
direct conflict with the notion of the public's informed consent that is
central to American democracy.
Walter Williams is professor emeritus at the University of Washington's
Evans School of Public Affairs.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/6378746.htm
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