[Mb-civic] New Reports Surface About Detainee Abuse - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

New Reports Surface About Detainee Abuse
Mistreatment Was Routine, Soldiers Say

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 24, 2005; Page A01

Two soldiers and an officer with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division have 
told a human rights organization of systemic detainee abuse and human 
rights violations at U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, recounting 
beatings, forced physical exertion and psychological torture of 
prisoners, the group said.

A 30-page report by Human Rights Watch describes an Army captain's 
17-month effort to gain clear understanding of how U.S. soldiers were 
supposed to treat detainees, and depicts his frustration with what he 
saw as widespread abuse that the military's leadership failed to 
address. The Army officer made clear that he believes low-ranking 
soldiers have been held responsible for abuse to cover for officers who 
condoned it.

The report does not identify the two sergeants and a captain who gave 
the accounts, although Capt. Ian Fishback has presented some of his 
allegations in a letter to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Their statements included vivid allegations of violence against 
detainees held at Forward Operating Base Mercury, outside Fallujah, 
shortly before the notorious abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison began. The 
soldiers described incidents similar to those reported in other parts of 
Iraq -- such as putting detainees in stress positions, exercising them 
to the point of total exhaustion, and sleep deprivation.

They also detailed regular attacks that left detainees with broken bones 
-- including once when a detainee was hit with a metal bat -- and said 
that detainees were sometimes piled into pyramids, a tactic seen in 
photographs taken later at Abu Ghraib.

"Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a 
corner and then make them get in a pyramid," an unidentified sergeant 
who worked at the base from August 2003 to April 2004 told Human Rights 
Watch. "This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for 
amusement."

And like soldiers accused at Abu Ghraib, these troops said that military 
intelligence interrogators encouraged their actions, telling them to 
make sure the detainees did not sleep or were physically exhausted so as 
to get them to talk.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/23/AR2005092301897.html
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