Whistleblower! - US Interrogator Confirms Routine Iraq Torture [View All]

[EuroObserver]

Original post by Levity, Dailykos.com – November 28, 2005

Here's a story that will disappear until bloggers start talking about it. Only PBS Frontline and Democracy Now! have dared to interview U.S. interrogator Tony Lagouranis, who reports widespread torture and abuse throughout Iraq.

He admits:
- frustrated US soldiers torture Iraqi families at length in their homes - including flesh burning, bone breaking, and ax attacks - with impunity
- no matter how obvious their innocence, detainees are always treated as guilty and sent to Abu Ghraib
- officers filed unfounded reports to bolster the claim that Fallujah dead were foreigners
- actually the Fallujah corpses included numerous women and children
- Lagouranis's multiple official abuse reports, ignored by CID and commanders for over a year, were suddenly re-filed after he appeared on Frontline
- torture has produced no useful intelligence, and efforts to legalize it are "the worst thing we could do"

This confirms not just detainee reports and Abu Ghraib evidence, but reports from U.S. soldiers like Sgt. Greg Ford and Capt. Ian Fishback, the West Point graduate who complained of murder and abuse condoned in Iraq - ignored by commanders, Senator Bill Frist, and many others for 17 months until he went public to Human Rights Watch. Fishback's letter was read by Dick Durbin and John McCain in the Senate the day the Anti-Torture Amendment passed 90-9.

Let's link, recommend, report, and hold the media accountable until every citizen knows what Lagouranis, Fishback, and our bravest soldiers are saying: we can't win this war of hearts and minds because in Iraq they know the truth - that our commanders have decided torture is OK.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/11/28/151943/75