World>Terrorism & Security
posted November 16, 2005 at 11:00 a.m.

Discovery of abused Iraqi prisoners sparks outrage

Sources say Iraqi PM and US forces had been told about 'torture cells' months ago.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

The Iraqi government has ordered an investigation into the alleged abuse and torture of 173 prisoners, most of them Sunni Arabs, in an Interior Ministry cell in Baghdad. The Guardian reports that the men were discovered during a raid by a US patrol as it was looking for a missing teenage boy. The US troops were stunned by what they found - many of the prisoners appeared to have been brutally beaten and most had been malnourished for weeks. There are also rumors of several dead bodies in the cell that showed signs of severe torture.

Earlier a deputy interior minister put the number of prisoners at 161 and said he was stunned by their treatment. "They were being treated in an inappropriate way ... they were being abused," Hussein Kamal told Reuters.
"I've never seen such a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad. This is the worst," he told CNN. "I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralysed and some had their skin peeled off."

"In order to search for one terrorist, they detain hundreds of innocent people and torture them brutally," said Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, a Sunni politician, according to The Daily Telegraph of London.


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The Associated Press reports, however, that the US raid may not have been accidental, and may have been aimed at "scoring points" with Sunni Arabs, whose participation in next month's general election is necessary if the US wants to be able to exit Iraq sometime in the next two years.

Sunni Arab politicians have complained for months about arbitrary arrests, torture and assassinations of Sunnis, allegedly at the hands of special commandoes of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, who are at the forefront of the battle against the largely Sunni insurgents ... One Sunni politician, Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, said he had personally told Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari about conditions at detention centers, including the one seized by American forces Sunday night. Other Sunni leaders who meet regularly with American officials have been outspoken in complaints about Interior Ministry forces.

But The Daily Telegraph also points out that "If true, the allegations could raise questions about the Shiite-led government's commitment to human rights and may prove embarrassing to the US military, which trained many of the Iraqi security forces." Ann Clwyd, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's human rights envoy to Iraq, Tuesday night told the BBC that a Sunni delegation had made allegations about abuse to her in May. The evidence was passed to the Iraqi president and Ms. Clwyd asked for an investigation.

"There is no human rights minister in Iraq, there is no independent organization which can investigate claims of this kind," she said. "There should be both those things."

The Independent reports that the discovery of the prisoners illustrates "how paramilitary units working for the government, and death squads allegedly linked to it, are waging a savage war in the shadows."

The paramilitaries are not held responsible for all the deaths – some are the work of insurgents murdering supposed informers or government officials, or killing for purely sectarian motives.
You very seldom see American soldiers on the streets of Baghdad now. The Iraqi police are in evidence outside, but so are increasing numbers of militias running their own checkpoints – men in balaclavas or wrap-around sunglasses and headbands, with leather mittens and an array of weapons. An American official acknowledged: "It is getting more and more like Mogadishu every day."

The BBC also reports that the US government is backing demands for an investigation into the discovery of the prisoners, as "the US is itself facing pressure to be more transparent about the treatment of its prisoners." The Independent also points out that "according to reports, $3bn (��1.7bn) out of an $87bn Iraq appropriation that Congress approved last year was earmarked for the creation of paramilitary units to fight the insurgency," often working with people who were in "senior intelligence" during the Hussein regime.

Meanwhile, two Iraqi businessmen who allege they were tortured by US troops in Iraq are suing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials in a federal court in Washington. The Washington Post reported Monday that the men alleged that US troops put them in a cage of lions, and at other times pretended to be executing them, and carried out other acts of torture during their months in US custody.

"They took me behind the cage, they were screaming at me, scaring me and beating me a lot," Thahe Mohammed Sabbar said in an interview. "One of the soldiers would open the door, and two soldiers would push me in. The lions came running toward me and they pulled me out and shut the door. I completely lost consciousness."

Mr. Rumsfeld said their accounts sounded "far-fetched" and said it was common for detainees to make up allegations of torture. However, the Army said it was looking into the claims.