Army Investigation Reported Abuse, Possible Torture at Jail Near Mosul

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBNR5Q1R6E.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Army investigation found systematic abuse and possible torture of Iraqi prisoners at a base near Mosul just as top military officials became aware of abuse allegations at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, documents released Friday showed.

Records previously released by the Army have detailed abuses at Abu Ghraib and other sites in Iraq as well as at sites in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The documents released Friday were the first to reveal abuses at the jail in Mosul and are among the few to allege torture directly.

An officer found that detainees "were being systematically and intentionally mistreated" at the holding facility near Mosul in December 1993. The 311th Military Intelligence Battalion of the Army's 101st Airborne Division ran the lockup.

"There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or translators engaged in physical torture of the detainees," a memo from the investigator said. The January 2004 report said the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions were violated.

more

[teryang]

1. Interesting that the low impact torture techniques

...described are of the variety that have been used in US armed forces training for decades, for defensive/training purposes.

This proves that the regimen was no accident or impromptu response by angry troops, it had to have been planned at the command level.

[punpirate]

2. Fifteen months later...

... the story gets the Friday before Easter weekend dump treatment....

These guys are so predictable, it's almost painful to watch.

[lala_rawraw]

3. Just out from ACLU via Email (not sure if they posted it yet)

www.aclu.org

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today charged that the government is attempting to bury the torture scandal involving the U.S. military by failing to comply with a court order requiring release of documents to the ACLU. The documents the government does release are being issued in advance to the media in ways calculated to minimize coverage and public access, the ACLU said.

The reason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of documents was evident, the ACLU said, in the contents, which include reports of brutal beatings, “exercise until exhaustion” and sworn statements that soldiers were told to “beat the fuck out of” detainees. One file cites evidence that Military Intelligence personnel in Iraq “tortured” detainees held in their custody.

“These documents provide further evidence that the torture of detainees was much more widespread than the government has acknowledged,” said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. “At a minimum, the documents indicate a colossal failure of leadership.”

The documents were supposed to have been turned over to the ACLU on March 21, but were not released to the ACLU until late on a Friday of what for many is a holiday weekend. Select reporters received a CD-ROM with the documents before they were given to the ACLU. The ACLU’s practice has been to analyze the documents it receives and post them on its website, thus ensuring easy access to the media and the public.

The documents -- along with more than 30,000 to date -- were released in response to a federal court order that directed the Defense Department and other government agencies to comply with a year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case. The documents received to date have been posted at www.aclu.org/torturefoia.pdf

[Rose Siding]

4. 1993?

'sup?

[Moderator]

5. kick to combine

[chlamor]

U.S. Troops Tortured Iraqis in Mosul, Documents Show

U.S. Troops Tortured Iraqis in Mosul, Documents Show

By Andrew Marshall

03/26/05 - BAGHDAD (Reuters) - American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners at a military base in Mosul but nobody was court martialed over the abuse, U.S. army documents say.
The documents show that mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was not confined to the Abu Ghraib jail, where abuse and sexual humiliation of inmates caused worldwide outrage last year.

An investigation by a U.S. officer after an Iraqi prisoner's jaw was broken at the base in Mosul found that "detainees were being systematically and intentionally mistreated" in late 2003.Inmates were hit with water bottles, forced to do exhausting physical exercises until they collapsed, deprived of sleep and subjected to deafening noise, the investigation report found.

One prisoner died in December 2003 after four days of repeatedly having to do physical exercises as a punishment, according to the documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Mosul investigation began after 20-year-old Salah Salih Jassim had his jaw broken in detention. He was not suspected of any crime but had been arrested along with his father, an officer in Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8373.htm

[struggle4progress]

6. Abuse of Iraqis goes beyond Abu Ghraib: documents

The US Army's abuse of detainees in Iraq went beyond Abu Ghraib prison and included brutal beatings of suspects as well as forcing them to do physical exercises until exhaustion, US military documents made public say.

More than 1,200 pages of documents were released late on Friday in response to a court order that instructed the US Department of Defence to comply with a Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other human rights groups.

The documents include evidence that forced physical exertions may have caused the death of at least one detainee held by the US Army in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul.

There are also reports of brutal beatings and sworn statements that soldiers were told to "beat the f... out of" prisoners. <snip>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1332130.htm

[chlamor]

7. Sobering stuff

[VegasWolf]

8. Time long passed for the need for an International War Crimes Tribunal.n/t

[patrice]

9. Abuse in Iraq more widespread than MSM is telling us.

http://www.marinetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-748656.php

BTW, whatever happend to those discs with all of those other pictures on them? The ones that members of Congress were saying shocked them even after Abu Ghraib?