Sat, 24 Sep 2005 11:35:07 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [earth2025] Tales of abuse.
By Will Dunham
2 hours, 10 minutes ago



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army captain and two sergeants recounted in a Human Rights Watch report on Friday how Iraqi inmates near Falluja were beaten with a baseball bat, stacked clothed in pyramids, deprived of food and water and put in painful positions until they fainted.

The abuse often occurred under orders or with the consent of superior officers, said the captain, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also described U.S. forces abusing prisoners in Afghanistan, including sleep deprivation.

The captain said he sought for 17 months to raise concerns about detainee abuse through his military chain of command and to receive clearer guidance on treatment of detainees. He said superiors told him to look the other way and that his efforts could damage his career.

The three, not identified by name in the report or by the Army, said soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division at a forward operating base near Falluja carried out the prisoner abuse.

U.S. Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Army criminal investigators had spoken to the captain, whom he described as an unidentified officer, and opened a probe into the allegations he made "that he may have witnessed or heard about acts of detainee abuse during his military service in Iraq and Afghanistan."

This account of incidents that took place at the base from summer 2003 to spring 2004 was similar to abuse occurring at about the same time at Abu Ghraib jail on the outskirts of Baghdad.

"We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day," said one sergeant in a statement in the report.

"Leadership failed to provide clear guidance so we just developed it. ... We heard rumors of (prisoners) dying so we were careful. We kept it to broken arms and legs..."

"In retrospect what we did was wrong, but at the time we did what we had to do. Everything we did was accepted, everyone turned their heads," the sergeant said.

UNDER ORDERS

"I witnessed violations of the Geneva Conventions that I knew were violations of the Geneva Conventions when they happened but I was under the impression that that was U.S. policy at the time," the captain said in the report.

Human Rights Watch identified the captain as a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, who served in the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan from August 2002 to February 2003 and in Iraq from September 2003 to March 2004. He commanded a rifle company in Falluja and is now at Special Forces school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

"He is the epitome of an honorable officer trying to do the right thing," said Human Rights Watch's Tom Malinowski.

Asked whether the captain would be punished by the Army for going public, Boyce said, "Lord, no." But Boyce said he could face potential punishment "if he were implicated in acts of detainee abuse that he committed." Boyce said the Army did not know the identities of the sergeants.

"This is another predictable report by an organization trying to advance an agenda through the use of distortions and errors in fact. It's a shame they refuse to convey how seriously the military has investigated all credible allegations of detainee abuse and how we've looked at all aspects of detention operations under a microscope," said Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman on detainee issues.

The accounts given in the report, Human Rights Watch said, contradicted claims by the Bush administration that detainee abuse by U.S. forces was not systemic or a matter of policy.
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"The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching." Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC



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