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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Rolling Stone Publishes Extracts from Taguba Report's Secret Annexes |
| 2004-08-01 |
| From Rolling Stone magazine, an article by Osha Gray Davidson ... The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside. ... In the files, prisoner after prisoner at Abu Ghraib describes acts of torture that Taguba found "credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses." The abuses took place at the Hard Site, a two-story cinder-block unit at the sprawling prison that housed Iraqi criminals and insurgents, not members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said. |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #13 Let's btw have a few more sarcastic references to "panties on heads" so as to imply that nothing worse than that ever happened. I hear the prisoners prefer Hanes Her Way to any other brand of women's panties 3 to 1 in tests. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-08-02 7:33:11 AM |
| #12 It just does not seem credible to me that this beast Graner and his gang could have done all this without at least a fair degree of acquiesance from the chain of command. Graner and England, for example, could not have had anything to do with the bad food and miserable living conditions. Brig. General Karpinski, imho, is arm-pit deep in this. My impression of her, drawn from her interviews and the statements in the Taguba report, is of a sinister and destructive person rather than simply a naive bungler operating out of her element. In civilian life, Karpinski is in the business of conducting "motivational training" seminars for junior exectives. These reportedly involve "stressing" the trainees in ways that would qualify as hazing, if not unlawful abuse, under other circumstances. This kind of behavior has a fair number of apologists and advocates in the business community. Finally, it is worth noting that a high percentage of the worst offenders are reservists who work as prison guards in civilian life. This leads me to wonder just what the hell is going on in the prisons of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-08-02 3:17:34 AM |
| #11 What pure bullshit, Aris, and what wasted, pointless "outrage." (BTW, do you, for your part, have *proof* of anal rape and/or real torture at Abu Ghraib? Because I haven't seen any.) Don't you have anything better to do with your time? This trumped-up "issue" was dealt with weeks, if not months, ago, and you and Mike Sylwester are the only ones keeping it alive over here at RB like Frankenstein. Even the Leftist press left it like a turd in the punch bowl and have moved on. |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-08-02 12:56:34 AM |
| #10 Aris, enough talk about whatever happened in the Iraqi prison. The morons in question are being charged and tried while the radical Islamic enemy continues butchering innocents people world-wide. What about the Islamists blowing up churches and slaughtering Iraqi's by the hundreds? The bad guys are even lurking in your nation awaiting orders .....let's hope it's not where you reside. |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-08-02 12:52:55 AM |
| #9 "All this concern over terrorists." No, all this concern over people bungled in Abu Ghraib, and which we mostly don't have a clue whether they were guilty or innocent. But thanks for making my exact point. "and I note that none of them died nor were they permanently injured" Some would say that anal rapes do count for more than temporary injury. Some would even call them "torture". "As for the prisoners, these are not choirboys we are talking about - they are rapists, murderers and others that Saddam dumped on society in his attempt at Gotterdammerung." The twilight of the gods? I'm not sure how you feel Nordic mythology fits into Saddam's attempts. And do you have actual proof that no single innocent was tortured? Because I only have your unsubstantiated claim that they were all rapists and murderers. And Ari, if you think this makes us the bad guys Which "us" is that? The apologists of torture? Yeah, I think it makes you bad guys. I think it makes you twisted blackhearted villains, prime examples of Nazi foot-soldiers. Too willing to accept the subhumanity of those that is convenient for your consciences to view as subhuman, too willing to presume their guilt without any real evidence I've seen that indeed all of them are guilty. Too willing to deny, then to excuse. If by "us" you mean a wider "you", perhaps encompassing your whole nation, that's your mere imagination that's talking. I would need to be a nationalist in order to blame your whole nation for the actions at Abu Ghraib. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-08-02 12:35:40 AM |
| #8 And might I add that I'm sick of our resident Lefties (you know who you are!) using the Abu Ghraib abuses as a stick to beat the rest of us that support what we're doing over there! |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-08-02 12:02:03 AM |
| #7 That being said, Old Spook, Aris and his pals on the Left like the Dimocrats and the EUroweenies need to know that these few soldiers who stepped out of line at Abu Ghraib represent a small and virtually lone instance of malfeasance in a War where we, as embodied by our troops, have done much good and been a benevolent influence for positive change in Iraq and Afghanistan! |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-08-01 11:59:54 PM |
| #6 Criminal behavior is criminal behavior. Period. And all evidence points to Graner and his gang, not to systematic abuse, nor to the chain of commande - excepting that the chain of command was neglegent and shoudl be forced to resign for allowing this kind of crap to happen on thier watch. As for the prisoners, these are not choirboys we are talking about - they are rapists, murderers and others that Saddam dumped on society in his attempt at Gotterdammerung. And Ari, if you think this makes us the bad guys, whom do you think the Iraqis would prefer - us, who are prosecuting these criminal guards (and I note that none of them died nor were they permanently injured), or Saddam and his sons, who would have fed these mooks to the shredders, after he was done with electrocuting their gentials, amputating tongues and ears, etc? |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2004-08-01 11:54:55 PM |
| #5 All this concern over terrorists. Where was the outcry for the butchered and burned Americans some of which just might have been 'liberals' although the enemy could care less only when it comes to altering national elections (Spain) and soon the USA. |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-08-01 11:42:02 PM |
| #4 Do you have any solid proof that something worse than that ever happened? |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-08-01 11:38:53 PM |
| #3 No worries. According to most Rantburg participants, none of this is *really* torture, it's merely "hazing". Whoever disapproves of it must *clearly* be a terrorist-sympathizer. To call what happened at Abu Ghraib "torture" also firmly puts you in the terrorist-sympathizer category. Let's btw have a few more sarcastic references to "panties on heads" so as to imply that nothing worse than that ever happened. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-08-01 11:35:31 PM |
| #2 I think you're probably right, Robert, but I am still waiting for the guards' testimony at the trials. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-08-01 11:22:57 PM |
| #1 It still keeps coming back to Graner and his circle. The officers, from what we know, failed to maintain control and stop what was happening, but they don't appear to have ordered or approved what was happening. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-08-01 9:24:58 PM |