IRAQ: 'You better confess in order to save your life'

November 17, 1993
Issue 

Rohan Pearce

On March 22, US Army Sergeant Michael Smith was sentenced to six months' jail for his part in the torture of Iraq prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. The real scandal, however, is not that his pathetic sentence is such a slap in the face for the Iraqi prisoners who have suffered torture at the hands of the US-led occupation forces and the (for the most part US-controlled) Iraqi security forces. It's that Smith was just the latest patsy to take the fall for Washington's torture policy, while those responsible for drawing it up and overseeing its implementation continue to walk free.

Associated Press reported that prosecutors said Smith, a dog handler "let his unmuzzled black Belgian shepherd bark and lunge at cowering Iraqis for his own amusement. The defense argued that Smith believed he was following orders to soften up prisoners for interrogation." Smith told the court he wished he had got his orders in writing.

The harshest sentence handed out for the torture of prisoners in Iraq has been 10 years' prison, given to US Army Specialist Charles Graner, who appeared in some of the first round of Abu Ghraib photos that surfaced in April 2004. Human Rights Watch's World Report 2006, released on January 18, revealed that the US military had "prosecuted only about forty cases of abuse or prisoner mistreatment. Although a few tough sentences have been handed down, most prosecutions have resulted in relatively light sentences — confinement for less than one year. Virtually all of those prosecuted have been lower-ranking military personnel, not officers.

"With civilians implicated in prisoner abuse, the record is even worse: despite extensive evidence that CIA personnel and civilian contractors were involved in several homicides, the [justice department] has not prosecuted a single agent in a federal court for abuse, except for one CIA contractor, who was charged with assault in connection with a homicide committed in Afghanistan in 2003."

A statement accompanying the report's release claimed new evidence indicated "that torture and mistreatment have been a deliberate part of the Bush administration's counterterrorism strategy".

On March 6, Amnesty International released a new report into the torture of Iraqi prisoners, Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq. The report states that it "is particularly worrying" that "despite reports of torture or ill-treatment by US and UK forces and the Iraqi authorities, for thousands of detainees access to the outside world continues to be restricted or delayed".

The report cites the case study of Karim R, a 47-year-old imam who had the misfortune to be detained twice — in 2003 by US forces and in 2005 by Iraqi forces under the command of the Iraqi government's interior ministry. In 2003, the report states, he was "insulted, blindfolded, beaten and subjected to electric shocks from a stun gun (taser) by US troops at a detention facility in the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad". He was released without charge after seven days.

In May 2005 he was detained by Iraqi forces for 16 days. He told Amnesty: "They tied my hands to the back with a cable. There was an instrument with a chain which was attached to the ceiling. When they switched it on the chain pulled me up to the ceiling. Because the hands are tied to the back this is even more painful ... Afterwards they threw water over me and they used electric shocks. They connected the current to my legs and also to other parts of my body ...

"The first time they subjected me to electric shocks I fainted for 40 seconds or one minute. It felt like falling from a building. I had a headache and was not able to walk. The interrogator said: You better confess to terrorist activities, in order to save your life. I responded that I was not involved in these activities and that I had a heart condition ... Later they forced me to confess on camera. They asked questions claiming that I was a terrorist but they did not even give me the chance to reply."

According to Amnesty, thousands of people continued to be detained in Iraq without charge or trial, classed by the occupation forces as "security internees".

From Green Left Weekly, April 5, 2006.
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