Guardian: BREAKING - Iraq War Logs Secret Files Show How U.S. Ignored Torture

[Hissyspit]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture

• Massive leak reveals serial detainee abuse
• 15,000 unknown civilian deaths in war

Nick Davies, Jonathan Steele and David Leigh
guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 October 2010 21.26 BST

Insurgent suspects are led away by US forces. Some of those held in Iraqi custody suffered appalling abuse, the war logs reveal. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.

Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.

The new logs detail how:

• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.

• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.

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[Pavulon]

1. Interesting. 30,000 IED deaths 30,000 sectarian (more)

would be interesting to see all the docs to look at raw data.

[Motown_Johnny]

2. and what are the odds anyone will answer for any of this?

can't figure odds on a sure thing


nobody will ever answer for any of this

[Pavulon]

3. Nope, no one above E-3 will. Would be interesting to see the raw data, to be able to take

all the press BS out and form a conclusion.

[babsbunny]

4. Obama is just as guilty as Bush/Cheney

He is allowing them to walk free.

[Pavulon]

5. Please. He has no ability to "try" anyone. There is no evidence

so far to support trying him for anything. History will reflect poorly on the Iraq war and Bush's involvement, but there will be no great trial.

The real value of this presuming the raw information is released is more clarity will be out there in the casualty numbers.