From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Sat May 08 2004 - 14:46:33 MDT
[Blunderov] Skip this if you're bored with the subject but I notice that
Rumsfeld is trying it on with the 'few isolated instances' ploy. This seems
doubtful in view of the following.
Best Regards
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/83834/1/.html
<q>
GENEVA : The international Red Cross says the abuse it found in Iraq's
US-run prisons was systematic and amounted to torture, adding that it first
raised concerns with the United States more than a year ago.
At a quickly-arranged news conference, the International Committee of the
Red Cross' director of operations, Pierre Kraehenbuehl, said US authorities
had broken international laws and their transgressions had been documented
in an ICRC report.
"The elements we found were tantamount to torture... There were clearly
incidents of degrading and inhuman treatment," he told reporters.
"There are elements... which refer to actions that were contrary to
international humanitarian law very clearly in that report," Kraehenbuehl
said.
The document, which was submitted to the US government in February,
summarized the findings of ICRC officials who visited coalition-run
detention centres in Iraq between March 31 and October 24 last year to
observe and conduct private interviews with prisoners.
It said Iraqis deemed to be of intelligence value to the United States were
at high risk of being subjected to "a variety of harsh treatments" ranging
from insults, threats and humiliations to both physical and psychological
coercion, "which in some cases was tantamount to torture," in order to force
cooperation with their interrogators.
Iraqis confined to US-run detention centers were frequently subjected to
hooding, which made their breathing difficult, and painful handcuffing, the
report said.
They were paraded in front of other prisoners naked, sometimes with women's
underwear over their heads, exposed to loud noise and music, handcuffed to
cell bars for several hours in humiliating or uncomfortable positions.
Prisoners were also stripped naked and held in solitary confinement for days
in an empty and completely dark cell that included a latrine, according to
the report.
"These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the
military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract
information or other forms of cooperation from persons who had been arrested
in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an
'intelligence value,'" the document said.
Officials from the Geneva-based agency discussed their discoveries with US
overseer in Iraq Paul Bremer and the head of US forces in the country
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez on February 26, Kraehenbuehl said.
But the Red Cross said elements had been talked about far earlier.
At the same time, Kraehenbuehl insisted that some progress had been made in
the treatment of prisoners since the ICRC first raised the alarm.
"There were in our most recent visits indications that the material problems
that we had noted had been addressed," he said.
"That is not to say that all of the problems went away... There is still a
lot of work to be done."
The Red Cross also had concerns about British-run prisons in southern Iraq.
"We did refer comments and findings also to the British contingent of the
coalition forces," said Kraehenbuehl.
"We had also in those instances referred to concerns and made
recommendations but we will not deal with them here."
The comments came as the British army faced new allegations of abuse in Iraq
after a reservist came forward to say that he personally witnessed no less
than four brutal beatings.
The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions, commonly dubbed the
rules of war, and is charged with carrying out independent visits to check
on the conditions of detainees.
The four 1949 Conventions, which 191 countries including the United States
accept to apply, are aimed at protecting the sick or wounded combatants,
prisoners of war, and civilians in wartime or under occupation.
</q>
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