New front in Iraq detainee abuse scandal? (New investigation at airport)

[arcos]

New front in Iraq detainee abuse scandal?

BAGHDAD - With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon Inspector General investigation into abuse against detainees.

The target is a top secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos.

According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists – but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards.

These sources say the prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug them, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation.

<snip>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5024068/

[arcane1]

1. is this the airport Bush went to for the thanksgiving PR stunt?

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I keep saying this

IT GROWS

[Politicub]

12. It was a policy decision that led to this

Bush is trying to spin it as only a few isolated incidents, but it was military policy to skirt the Geneva conventions.

Darn right it's going to grow. And if the photos never had surfaced, we would have never found out the evil being perpetrated in our name.

[Spazito]

3. Finally! There have been some references to torture there...

but they have been within articles covering another torture story. It goes well beyond just the prison, it is at all the detainee camps as well, I have NO doubt.

[corriger]

4. it obviously extends

across their entire gulag.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. Yep...everywhere from Gitmo to Iraq.

[Kool Kitty]

23. Dang, those "six or seven

rogue soldiers" sure got around!

[maddezmom]

5. but it's not widespread or systemic

yeah whatever bush*...:eyes:

[acmavm]

6. And those damn Iraqis don't understand what a compassionate

people we are, how we only have their best interests (and their oil) at heart. Damn ingrates.

[ElementaryPenguin]

7. Bushler and the Bush Crime Administration now getting busted left and righ

If the dam is truly starting give way on these shameless monsters - and they are continually held under a microscope like this, perhaps they'll be disuaded from LIHOPing or MIHOPing us again! Some of 'em might actually decide they would rather not BE HUNG FOR FUCKING TREASON!!

:puke:
:argh:
:mad:

[Just Me]

8. Go figure. It's widespread,...just as Hersch said. Deal with it. n/t

[Jacobin]

10. These monsters belong at the Hague

They are commiting war crimes.

It's just that simple. If I hear "abuse" or "mistreatment" one more time I'm going to scream. This is TORTURE. Say it out loud. Call it for what it is.

Send for the Hague and put smirky and company in chains and give them their war crimes trial.

This is beyond the pale. Completely beyond the pale.

[daleo]

11. This months Harper's has an article in their "Readings"

The article is based on reports from prisoners captured in Afghanistan, and focuses on the use of drugging as torture. I only skimmed it late last night, but it backs up the drugging charges.

Out of Mind
dispatches from Guantánamo

I think it is only in the printed magazine, not on-line.

[Beetwasher]

13. This Is a Pretty Big Story! Another SECRET TORTURE PRISON!!

Kickaroo!

[happynewyear]

14. Delta Force soldiers routinely drug them

I wonder who else they have drugged? Lynndie England perhaps? Look at her eyes if you dare.

TORTUREGATE HATH JUST BEGUN!

:dem: :kick:

[riverwalker]

15. they hate us for our freedom n/t

[VolcanoJen]

16. Kick... it just keeps piling on.

This, and we're in the midst of a brewing Chalabi scandal that will once again bring to light our motives for going to war.

It's times like these, I almost start to feel sorry for the ol' Texan, in a political sense.

Almost.

[TacticalPeek]

17. Kick. n/t

[wishlist]

18. Good journalism by NBC/ Campbell Brown to expose this story that

shows once again the disconnect between reality of what's going on in Iraq and what U.S. military authorities are saying- they wouldn't even confirm that the facility exists!

[freeforall]

19. This whole thing is a total fuck-up

It's bad enough that thinking people did not want the war. That the US went in and totally screwed up Iraq is absolutely reprehensible. It will be a loooooooong time before the US gains any respect from foreign nations.

God help America if Bush gets in for another four years. I can already see the rest of the world closing ranks against the US if that happens.

[Tinoire]

20. Kick. Bush is going down. n/t

[yellowcanine]

21. Isn't that also where some of the deaths occured?

Stands to reason, if people are being suffocated or held underneath the water someone is going to have a heart attack and die. Rumsfield apparently approved of some of these techniques. If so, he is a war criminal and should be tried as such.

[0007]

22. Today they said thirty two deaths occurred in Iraqi prisons

and five in Afghanistan.

That sounds very low for Afghanistan.

[MGKrebs]

24. U.S. admits to secret interrogation site in Baghdad

"...a senior U.S. official Friday confirmed that a previously undisclosed U.S. military interrogation facility at or near Baghdad International Airport does indeed exist.

The official said the site was run in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and all detainees were afforded their rights under that international document."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/21/iraq.main/index.html

So I'm no expert, but does even HAVING secret detention sites comply with the Geneva Conventions? What would be the point of it being secret? Avoiding scrutiny leaps to mind. The Red Cross is probably not happy about this.

edited: because I care.

[Disturbed]

25. Insane lies.

"The official said the site was run in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and all detainees were afforded their rights under that international document."

"They hate us for our freedom." GW Bush