US/UK Soldiers

[Jeebus]

also from the bbc.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3677311.stm

Sources close to the army have questioned the authenticity of photographs appearing to show British soldiers torturing an Iraqi prisoner.
An investigation has begun into claims British troops assaulted the prisoner before throwing him from a lorry.

The claims were made in the Daily Mirror which carried photos allegedly taken during the man's ordeal.

Tony Blair says that if the photos are authentic this is "completely and totally unacceptable".

The pictures show a hooded man being urinated on, a boot placed on his head, and a rifle butt in his groin.

However the BBC's defence correspondent Paul Adams says sources close to The Queen's Lancashire Regiment believe many aspects of the photographs are suspicious.

He says they believe the pictures may not have even been taken in Iraq.

[AlanG]

yeah sorry I had been having this discussion on like three other boards so had lost track of which articles had been placed where. There is actually a point by point response to these claims but even without that if you remember that when being sent to Iraq all the troops were complaining about not having the correct gear then it doesnt seem like a strong enough attack.

Every MoD dept shuffling away from responsibility seems weird too if its not true, normally one would say "we run this here and do that but never do this" but everyones chucking around the blame like a hot potato.

response in Mirror to claims of fakery:

CLAIM: The man's T-shirt was too clean and not of a type worn in that part of Iraq.

REALITY: Soldier B: "We saw dozens of Iraqis wearing exactly those T-shirts." Soldier A: "The man was wearing some sort of Arab dress over his T-shirt and it was ripped off during his arrest."

CLAIM: The man's legs are not in a foetal position as they would have been if he had been attacked in a sensitive region.

REALITY: Soldier A: "That's how he was. I can't say why they aren't. His arms were tied behind him."

It appears the victim, who had a sack over his head, would not have been prepared for the blow.

CLAIM: The webbing and pouches worn by the soldier pictured urinating on the victim aren't very full or even well used.

REALITY: Soldier A: "On raids, kit wasn't the issue. We had also returned to our compound, the soldier might have removed stuff."

CLAIM: Rarely did QLR troops wear floppy jungle hats in Iraq. Though all had them, they were encouraged to wear either berets or helmets.

REALITY: Soldier B: "We wore floppy hats all the time. A beret was too hot, helmets cumbersome."

The Mirror has seen pictures of QLR troops, including themselves, in Basra in floppy hats.

CLAIM: No divisional mark is visible below the Union flag on the rifle-butting soldier's left arm. If he was in Iraq, he should have also had a divisional marking, a triangle.

REALITY: Soldier A: "We weren't going around sewing badges on. I might have had one shirt with the correct badges which I'd get out if I was on parade. The others had no badges. Perhaps just a Union flag."

CLAIM: The truck, the soldiers' uniforms and boots, and the Iraqi are too clean.

REALITY: Soldier A: "That's the way it was."

CLAIM: The SA80 in the picture is allegedly a Mark One. All troops in Iraq had Mark IIs. The rifle in the pics has no shoulder strap - unusual for troops in Iraq.

REALITY: Soldier A: "I was carrying an SA80-A2. I think the one in the picture is that model as well. I can't explain why it may not be.

"Some soldiers wore rifle slings, many others didn't.

"Some found that in a situation where you might have to open fire a sling made moving the weapon to the firing position very awkward."

CLAIM: A rifle in the picture was too clean, with no scratches or marks.

REALITY: Soldier A: "We cleaned our rifles all the time. It could have been cleaned that afternoon."

CLAIM: The truck appears to be a Bedford model, rather than a Leyland, which was the type the QLR had in Iraq.

REALITY: Soldier A: "It was a four-ton truck, I'm not sure what make. We always used that sort of truck when we were on raids as did other units. It was standard practice."

CLAIM: The sandbag on the Iraqi's head is too clean and looks almost ironed. Sandbags used as hoods by troops were kept crumpled up in their pockets or pouches for quick use as necessary.

REPLY: Soldier A: "I can't answer that. That was the hood the man had on."

The Mirror has seen another picture of one of the soldiers with another arrested Iraqi - the sandbag appears identical.

CLAIM: The troops' uniforms and equipment are too neat and not dirty.

The Mirror has been shown another picture of an arrest in which the soldiers' uniforms appear exactly the same.

CLAIM: There are no visible bruises or marks on the Iraqi.

REPLY: Soldier A: "I can't explain that."

CLAIM: Boots were not laced in the correct fashion.

REALITY: Soldier A: "I never even noticed that. I think people lace the boots the way they are most comfortable with."

so the only real unexplained part is rifles, and ive seen no one put the two models side by side along with the one in the picture to see the difference so am not really sure about that.

All the other ones are pretty meh:
guy doesnt have bruising visible. Well if they wanted to cover upa beating surely theyd make sure it was all either internal or under clothing at least?

[Jeebus]

I fucking hate Piers Morgan though he's a total wanker.

Real or fake this guy knows the score:

Colonel Stewart said whether the photos were proven to be real or fake the damage done to Iraqi and Arab opinion was "like a cork out of a bottle", acting as a recruiting sergeant for the insurgents.

[AlanG]

the guardians report is even more horrifying

Torture commonplace, say inmates' families
Monday May 3, 2004
The Guardian

For the families standing in the dusty car park of Abu Ghraib prison yesterday, the revelations of torture and abuse came as no surprise. Every morning, relatives of Iraqi detainees inside the US prison, just west of Baghdad, gather in the hope that their loved ones might be released. They rarely are.

The photos of US soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqi detainees may have provoked outrage across the world. But for Hiyam Abbas they merely confirmed what she already knew - that US guards had tortured her 22-year-old son Hassan.

Breaking down in tears, Mrs Abbas said US guards had refused to let her in. She had so far only managed to see Hassan once - two months ago - following his arrest last November.

"He told me: 'Mum, they are taking our clothes off. We are nude all the time. They are getting dogs to smell our arses. They are also beating us with cables.'

"It's completely humiliating," Mrs Abbas said. "My son is sick and suffering from hypertension. During the interview the American soldiers were standing so close to us. My son was crying."

Her son had been detained in the Baghdad suburb of Al-Dora, after a gang broke into their house. What did she think of the Americans now?

"They are rubbish," she said. "Saddam Hussein may have oppressed us but he was better than the Americans. They are garbage."

Yesterday other Iraqis gave similar accounts of what goes on inside Abu Ghraib, once a centre of torture and execution under Saddam.

The US military last week claimed that "no more than 20" US soldiers had been involved in abusing and humiliating inmates. The vast majority of US guards were not involved, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt suggested.

Yesterday, however, Abu Salem, who spent six months inside Abu Ghraib between August and February, said abuse by US guards went on all the time.

Mr Salem, 41, said he had also known about the practice of US soldiers posing for pictures with Iraqi prisoners for five months. "This didn't take place in the general camp but in individual cells," he said.

Naked

Mr Salem said he had been in the jail shortly before a visit from the International Red Cross in January. Until then, detainees in the prison wing had been kept naked.

"The night before the Red Cross arrived, the American soldiers gave them some new clothes. They told us that if we complained to the Red Cross about our treatment we would be kept in prison forever. They said they would never let us out."

Mr Salem said he had come to the jail, a short drive from the town's chaotic vegetable market, to try to find out what had happened to his three brothers. They were still inside the prison, he said, behind its outer fence and a vast razor wire- topped inner wall.

Generally, detainees were only tortured in the days immediately after their arrest, during interrogation, he added.

Many of the allegations made by Mr Salem and other former detainees yesterday correspond with the damning internal US army report into Abu Ghraib obtained by the Guardian and the New Yorker magazine.

Yesterday the mother of one detainee, Samira Hassan, said the latest allegations were horribly familiar.

Her 22-year-old son Abbas had been arrested three months ago while walking past a US military base in the Baghdad suburb of Amariya.

She finally managed to see him in prison two weeks ago. "He told me they are using electric shocks against the prisoners and taking off their clothes. He also told me something I can hardly talk about - that the Americans are raping the Iraqi men.

"This is terrible," Mrs Hassan said. "This is shame for us. We have a different culture and different religion. They should not do that.

"We are not talking about one case but of thousands of cases," she said. "The Americans said they would bring us freedom. Is this what they mean?"

Not all the detainees inside Abu Ghraib were young men, it emerged yesterday, or even very plausible resistance fighters. Several relatives wearing flowing white dish-dashes had turned up to try to visit Qahta al-Salim, a prominent 70-year-old sheikh from the Sunni town of Samarra.

Mr al-Salim had been in American custody for four months, his son, Mutashar Qahtan, said. US soldiers arrested him at his home after a neighbour claimed he supported the resistance.

"My father is an old man. He has a heart complaint. The first thing they did was to make him stand up for 12 hours," he complained. "They then took him to Tikrit and finally to here."

Mr Qahtan said the allegations of abuse by US soldiers were "nothing new". He said he spent 47 days last year in US custody in Tikrit. "Personally they didn't do anything wrong to me," he said. "But I saw for myself what they did to others. They forced a group of prisoners to stand naked on the roof for seven days. They also told us that all Iraqis were shit."

There are around 8,000 Iraqi prisoners in US custody, held in camps across Iraq without trial or access to a lawyer. A tiny minority of those detained are high-ranking members of the former regime.

Victims

Relatives, however, insist that the majority of "security detainees" are innocent, and claim they are often victims of random arrest following attacks on coalition forces. Either way, the images of torture and humiliation would merely serve to fuel the armed struggle against US occupation, Majid al-Salim, the brother of the imprisoned sheikh, said.

"The Americans are driving people into the arms of the Maqawama [resistance]," he said. "We now look back at Saddam's era with nostalgia," he added. "He was a good leader. There was security. We hope he comes back."

winning the hearts and minds eh?
When you have citizens looking back noistalgically at Saddam Hussein you know theres something went seriously wrong.

[Jeebus]

Yeah but the report is from The Guardian. Not that I would accuse them of shit-stirring.

[AlanG]

true but all of our newspapers have their own political agenda.

For example the states favourite mouthpiece the Telegraph on Saddams iraq:

Straw to disclose dossier of tyranny
By George Jones and Anton La Guardia
(Filed: 02/12/2002)

The Government is taking on critics of its tough line on Iraq by issuing a stark dossier on torture, rape and other human rights abuses by Saddam Hussein's regime.

After months of debate over United Nations weapons inspections, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, will today try to focus public attention on the tyranny of the Iraqi regime.

The dossier will contain first-hand accounts by Iraqi victims of the regime's human rights abuses, as well as intelligence material and evidence from aid charities working in Iraq.

Later in the day, Tony Blair will meet a group of Iraqi women to emphasise the Government's concern with Iraqi human rights. The Foreign Office dossier will claim that the abuses are carried out as a deliberate act of policy by the Iraqi dictator.

Last night, Mr Straw said: "By disarming Iraq, we not only help those countries in the region which are subject to Iraqi threats and intimidation, we also deprive Saddam of his most powerful tools for keeping the Iraqi people living in fear and subjugation."

and then later on in 2003

He said war crimes had been committed against civilians opposed to the regime, particularly in Basra. British troops on the ground around Basra had been "appalled" by the "range of horror" deployed by the regime's "thugs" - torture, rape and execution - in seeking to maintain their grip on the city.

so you would think they would be taking these revelations very seriously wouldnt you?

[curlupanddie]

that bitch that has been in the paper a few times, ".... England(maybe lyndzey)", i want to fuckin shoot her. in the picture where shes pointing to the POWs genitals, she just looks so fucking smug about herself an what they are doin. she wouldnae be so smug if seh had a fucking gun pointed at her. theyre all fucking sick, and fucking weird. whats gettin them all naked an pissin on them gonna fucking do??

[alien_syndm]

Pictures are fake, look.......

[browneyedboy00]

Isnt there some kinda law or breach of human rights thing we can smack these soldiers in the face with?

Cruel and Unusual Punishment?

And I mean a something with a REAL punishment. None of this "we MAY just have to ask you to leave the army" crap.

[FashionWhore]

(British Soldiers) Ther is all kind of stuff kicking about, are the pictures real? or arnt they etc etc

i think that the mirrors pics are fake and they've been taken for a ride BUT i think they probably represent actual events or crimes...

in all seriousness, i dont blame the soldiers, no one says they are angels, and the circumstances they hav to deal with must be soul destroying

HOWEVER the biggest issue here is the effect the pictures will have on soldier - iraqi relations... publishing those pictures has seriously effected the safety of the british soldiers in iraq. all i can hope is that the editor of the mirror got the story he wanted.

[My First Kev]

I read in the paper yesterday that the photos may be fakes

what does everyone think about this?

it was Military officials who made the fake claims, but some of the evidence they have presented seems quite interesting.

e.g. the clothes worn by the soldier seem to be striaght off the hanger and hardly worn, the trucks in some of the photos are no longer used in Iraq and that the gun in one fo the pictures is the wrong model and has no strap.

[AlanG]

^^^

US/UK Soldiers