Skeptic
17th December 2004, 19:57
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-abuse15dec15,0,6501029.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
ABUSE UPDATE: THE IRAQI PEOPLE HAVE GONE FROM THE TORTURE CHAMBERS OF
SADDAM HUSSEIN TO THE SAME TORTURE CHAMBERS BUT THIS TIME RUN BY THE
AMERICAN "LIBERATORS," THE U.S. MARINES! IRAQIS ARE NO BETTER OFF UNDER
U.S. "LIBERATION" EFORTS THAN THEY WERE UNDER HUSSEIN! –
By Richard A. Serrano,
L.A. Times Staff Writer,
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
FLASH: Lurid, gory details of Marines Mistreating Prisoners in Iraq Are
Revealed which include mock executions of minors, burning and torturing
detainees with electrical shocks (right from Hussein's playbook),
setting others on fire, and then stopped U.S. doctors from treating
prisoners!
WASHINGTON — Marines in Iraq conducted mock executions of juvenile
prisoners last year, burned and tortured other detainees with electrical
shocks, and warned a Navy corpsman they would kill him if he treated any
injured Iraqis, according to military documents made public Tuesday.
The latest revelations of prisoner abuse cases, obtained by the American
Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against the government, involved
previously unknown incidents in which 11 Marines were punished for
abusing detainees. Military officials indicated that they had
investigated 13 other cases, but deemed them unsubstantiated. Four
investigations are pending. Military superiors handed down sentences of
up to a year in confinement after finding Marines guilty of offenses
ranging from assault to "cruelty and mistreatment," the documents show.
The new documents are the latest in a series of reports, e-mails and
other records that the ACLU has obtained to bolster its contention that
THE ABUSE OF PRISONERS GOES FAR BEYOND THE HANDFUL OF SOLDIERS charged
with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American
troops at the prison shocked the world in April. The scandal involved
abuse by reservists and members of the Army and National Guard; the
latest cases elaborated for the first time on numerous allegations of
abuse by Marines.
The mistreatment occurred as early as May 2003, months before the first
allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib were recorded. And the most recent
case involving prisoner abuse by the Marines occurred in June, two
months AFTER the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU in New York, placed
responsibility for the abuse on the Pentagon. "This kind of widespread
abuse could not have taken place without a leadership failure of the
highest order," he said.
Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said he could not
comment on the latest cases because he was unfamiliar with them. The
documents described Navy criminal investigators scrambling to keep pace
in June with an "EXPLODING" number of abuse cases.
"Heads up," an assistant special agent in charge of the Navy's
investigative field office in the Middle East wrote to his superiors in
a 6 a.m. e-mail June 14, pleading for more investigators. "Case load is
exploding, high visibility cases are on the rise," he warned. "We have
scrubbed all of our personnel and have no other trained personnel
available to deploy."
Cases involving prisoner abuse continue to tarnish the U.S. military's
involvement in Iraq. Since the Abu Ghraib scandal, revelations have
surfaced of other detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the prison
for terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Authorities have charged eight prison guards for beating and sexually
humiliating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad last fall.
At least two prisoners at Abu Ghraib died in custody.
In all, about three dozen prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan are believed
to have died in U.S. custody. The cases are in various stages of
investigation or prosecution. The Pentagon confirmed this week that four
soldiers were accused of killing a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002, but
charges against three of them were dropped.
In the case that drew the stiffest punishment, a one-year prison
sentence for the Marine, a detainee at Mahmoudiya was shocked with an
electric transformer. Wires were held against his shoulders, and "the
detainee danced as he was shocked," the documents state. The new records
— which blacked out the names of soldiers — also show that a Marine
was convicted of ordering four juvenile Iraqi looters to kneel down
beside two shallow holes in Diwaniya. Then, "a pistol was discharged to
conduct a mock execution." The Marine was sentenced to 30 days
imprisonment with hard labor.
Other Marines were punished for physically abusing prisoners. In
Karbala, a Marine held a 9-millimeter PISTOL TO THE BACK OF A DETAINEE's
HEAD
while another Marine snapped a picture. A glass of water then was poured
on the prisoner's head, and he was photographed with an American flag
draped over his body.
A detainee in Mahmoudiya suffered second-degree burns and blisters on
the back of his hands when "a Marine guard squirted alcohol-based
sanitizer" on him.
A match was lighted, IGNITING THE PRISONER.
Navy investigators found other allegations unsubstantiated, including
sexual abuse cases alleging that a detainee's testicles had been
squeezed and another prisoner had been sodomized with a rifle muzzle.
Navy investigators also interviewed a group of corpsmen from Washington
state who were dispatched to Iraq last year. Two of them spoke about
being intimidated by Marines there. One corpsman said he was cautioned
not to talk to others about prisoner abuse.
"There was a lot of peer pressure to keep one's mouth shut," he said.
Another corpsman said, "We were told not to exhaust our resources on the
Iraqis. Several Marines told me that if I provided medical services to
any Iraqi military or civilian personnel, that they [the Marines] would
kill me."
However, the corpsman later said that "there was a wounded Iraqi POW who
needed his dressings changed" and that some Marines "actually called my
attention to him to make sure he received treatment."
He also recalled seeing Marines force detainees' heads into the dirt,
"which was a cultural insult to them," and said that he saw a Marine
striking a prisoner with an empty, 5-gallon plastic water jug.
The records discuss the deaths of several detainees, but they do not
identify them or say how the cases were resolved. One prisoner, who had
attempted 20 escapes, reportedly died after breaking free of his
restraints and jumping from a window, "landing on his head," the
documents state. The examining Marine officer "surmised that the
detainee died from internal cranial bleeding from the fall that was slow
to kill him."
Another prisoner was "ziplocked" — a military term for being
handcuffed — and then died in custody. "Preliminary information is
that the detainee died from an apparent heart attack," the reports
state.
In other cases, there was spirited debate, in reports and e-mails, about
the corpses of prisoners. One dead Iraqi could not be found, and an
e-mail ordered, "Try to find that body; we'll exhume if possible." In
another e-mail exchange, military officials discussed whether autopsies
should be conducted in Iraq, at military bases in Germany or in the
United States.
"Personally," responded one military officer, "I suspect that remains
should probably NOT be brought to the U.S. for legal reasons." He did
not elaborate.
Two Marines were disciplined for claiming to have done things they
didn't do. One was convicted of lying to a Las Vegas newspaper that he
"personally executed two Iraqis." He forfeited a month's pay.
The other Marine told a military surgeon that he broke his hand
"punching an EPW [enemy prisoner of war] in the face" and told an
officer that he broke it "punching an EPW in the back of the head." Back
in the U.S., "he recanted, stating he punched the ground," the reports
said. He lost two months' pay.
-----------------------------------------
Times staff writer Mark Mazzetti contributed to this report.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at:
www.latimes.com/archives/
© Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
ABUSE UPDATE: THE IRAQI PEOPLE HAVE GONE FROM THE TORTURE CHAMBERS OF
SADDAM HUSSEIN TO THE SAME TORTURE CHAMBERS BUT THIS TIME RUN BY THE
AMERICAN "LIBERATORS," THE U.S. MARINES! IRAQIS ARE NO BETTER OFF UNDER
U.S. "LIBERATION" EFORTS THAN THEY WERE UNDER HUSSEIN! –
By Richard A. Serrano,
L.A. Times Staff Writer,
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
FLASH: Lurid, gory details of Marines Mistreating Prisoners in Iraq Are
Revealed which include mock executions of minors, burning and torturing
detainees with electrical shocks (right from Hussein's playbook),
setting others on fire, and then stopped U.S. doctors from treating
prisoners!
WASHINGTON — Marines in Iraq conducted mock executions of juvenile
prisoners last year, burned and tortured other detainees with electrical
shocks, and warned a Navy corpsman they would kill him if he treated any
injured Iraqis, according to military documents made public Tuesday.
The latest revelations of prisoner abuse cases, obtained by the American
Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against the government, involved
previously unknown incidents in which 11 Marines were punished for
abusing detainees. Military officials indicated that they had
investigated 13 other cases, but deemed them unsubstantiated. Four
investigations are pending. Military superiors handed down sentences of
up to a year in confinement after finding Marines guilty of offenses
ranging from assault to "cruelty and mistreatment," the documents show.
The new documents are the latest in a series of reports, e-mails and
other records that the ACLU has obtained to bolster its contention that
THE ABUSE OF PRISONERS GOES FAR BEYOND THE HANDFUL OF SOLDIERS charged
with abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American
troops at the prison shocked the world in April. The scandal involved
abuse by reservists and members of the Army and National Guard; the
latest cases elaborated for the first time on numerous allegations of
abuse by Marines.
The mistreatment occurred as early as May 2003, months before the first
allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib were recorded. And the most recent
case involving prisoner abuse by the Marines occurred in June, two
months AFTER the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU in New York, placed
responsibility for the abuse on the Pentagon. "This kind of widespread
abuse could not have taken place without a leadership failure of the
highest order," he said.
Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said he could not
comment on the latest cases because he was unfamiliar with them. The
documents described Navy criminal investigators scrambling to keep pace
in June with an "EXPLODING" number of abuse cases.
"Heads up," an assistant special agent in charge of the Navy's
investigative field office in the Middle East wrote to his superiors in
a 6 a.m. e-mail June 14, pleading for more investigators. "Case load is
exploding, high visibility cases are on the rise," he warned. "We have
scrubbed all of our personnel and have no other trained personnel
available to deploy."
Cases involving prisoner abuse continue to tarnish the U.S. military's
involvement in Iraq. Since the Abu Ghraib scandal, revelations have
surfaced of other detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the prison
for terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Authorities have charged eight prison guards for beating and sexually
humiliating prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad last fall.
At least two prisoners at Abu Ghraib died in custody.
In all, about three dozen prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan are believed
to have died in U.S. custody. The cases are in various stages of
investigation or prosecution. The Pentagon confirmed this week that four
soldiers were accused of killing a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002, but
charges against three of them were dropped.
In the case that drew the stiffest punishment, a one-year prison
sentence for the Marine, a detainee at Mahmoudiya was shocked with an
electric transformer. Wires were held against his shoulders, and "the
detainee danced as he was shocked," the documents state. The new records
— which blacked out the names of soldiers — also show that a Marine
was convicted of ordering four juvenile Iraqi looters to kneel down
beside two shallow holes in Diwaniya. Then, "a pistol was discharged to
conduct a mock execution." The Marine was sentenced to 30 days
imprisonment with hard labor.
Other Marines were punished for physically abusing prisoners. In
Karbala, a Marine held a 9-millimeter PISTOL TO THE BACK OF A DETAINEE's
HEAD
while another Marine snapped a picture. A glass of water then was poured
on the prisoner's head, and he was photographed with an American flag
draped over his body.
A detainee in Mahmoudiya suffered second-degree burns and blisters on
the back of his hands when "a Marine guard squirted alcohol-based
sanitizer" on him.
A match was lighted, IGNITING THE PRISONER.
Navy investigators found other allegations unsubstantiated, including
sexual abuse cases alleging that a detainee's testicles had been
squeezed and another prisoner had been sodomized with a rifle muzzle.
Navy investigators also interviewed a group of corpsmen from Washington
state who were dispatched to Iraq last year. Two of them spoke about
being intimidated by Marines there. One corpsman said he was cautioned
not to talk to others about prisoner abuse.
"There was a lot of peer pressure to keep one's mouth shut," he said.
Another corpsman said, "We were told not to exhaust our resources on the
Iraqis. Several Marines told me that if I provided medical services to
any Iraqi military or civilian personnel, that they [the Marines] would
kill me."
However, the corpsman later said that "there was a wounded Iraqi POW who
needed his dressings changed" and that some Marines "actually called my
attention to him to make sure he received treatment."
He also recalled seeing Marines force detainees' heads into the dirt,
"which was a cultural insult to them," and said that he saw a Marine
striking a prisoner with an empty, 5-gallon plastic water jug.
The records discuss the deaths of several detainees, but they do not
identify them or say how the cases were resolved. One prisoner, who had
attempted 20 escapes, reportedly died after breaking free of his
restraints and jumping from a window, "landing on his head," the
documents state. The examining Marine officer "surmised that the
detainee died from internal cranial bleeding from the fall that was slow
to kill him."
Another prisoner was "ziplocked" — a military term for being
handcuffed — and then died in custody. "Preliminary information is
that the detainee died from an apparent heart attack," the reports
state.
In other cases, there was spirited debate, in reports and e-mails, about
the corpses of prisoners. One dead Iraqi could not be found, and an
e-mail ordered, "Try to find that body; we'll exhume if possible." In
another e-mail exchange, military officials discussed whether autopsies
should be conducted in Iraq, at military bases in Germany or in the
United States.
"Personally," responded one military officer, "I suspect that remains
should probably NOT be brought to the U.S. for legal reasons." He did
not elaborate.
Two Marines were disciplined for claiming to have done things they
didn't do. One was convicted of lying to a Las Vegas newspaper that he
"personally executed two Iraqis." He forfeited a month's pay.
The other Marine told a military surgeon that he broke his hand
"punching an EPW [enemy prisoner of war] in the face" and told an
officer that he broke it "punching an EPW in the back of the head." Back
in the U.S., "he recanted, stating he punched the ground," the reports
said. He lost two months' pay.
-----------------------------------------
Times staff writer Mark Mazzetti contributed to this report.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at:
www.latimes.com/archives/
© Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times