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Sunnis demand UN inquiry into Iraq ministry's torture chamber
Leading Sunni politicians in Iraq have demanded an international inquiry following the discovery that 173 people had been tortured and held captive in an interior ministry bunker.
They claim such abuse was regularly carried out by paramilitaries connected to the government and accuse US forces of giving it "the green light".
The call for an independent inquiry was backed by the United Nations' special investigator on torture. But the Badr Organisation, a Shia militia suspected of responsibility for the mistreatment of the mainly Sunni prisoners, has denied any involvement.
The organisation also said that a raid by American forces on the underground complex in central Baghdad which led to the prisoners being found was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and an attempt to gain favour with Sunnis ahead of the national elections.
The discovery of the prisoners, most of them starving, some allegedly flayed, is an embarrassment to the US administration, which has pledged to end abuse by the Iraqi government. Manfred Nowak, the UN special investigator on torture, backed the call for an independent investigation. He said: "What we hear is shocking, but we have received allegations of these secret places in Iraq for quite a long time. It only means that there is a need for an impartial and independent investigation."
A guard at the complex in Jadriyahdescribed how prisoners were brought there after being arrested. "We placed sacks over their heads and tied their hands behind their backs," said Seif Saad, an 18-year-old former labourer who has never received police training. "They were brought here for interrogations over bombings. Some were released, some were sent to prisons. They were brought here if they were suspected of terrorism, it didn't matter whether they were Sunnis, Shias or Kurds."
Hussein Kamal, the Deputy Interior Minister, who visited the bunker, said: "I never thought I would witness scenes like these. I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beatings, one or two detainees were paralysed and some had the skin peeled off parts of their bodies." He also revealed that "instruments of torture" were found in the building.
Read More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article327524.ece
The call for an independent inquiry was backed by the United Nations' special investigator on torture. But the Badr Organisation, a Shia militia suspected of responsibility for the mistreatment of the mainly Sunni prisoners, has denied any involvement.
The organisation also said that a raid by American forces on the underground complex in central Baghdad which led to the prisoners being found was a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and an attempt to gain favour with Sunnis ahead of the national elections.
The discovery of the prisoners, most of them starving, some allegedly flayed, is an embarrassment to the US administration, which has pledged to end abuse by the Iraqi government. Manfred Nowak, the UN special investigator on torture, backed the call for an independent investigation. He said: "What we hear is shocking, but we have received allegations of these secret places in Iraq for quite a long time. It only means that there is a need for an impartial and independent investigation."
A guard at the complex in Jadriyahdescribed how prisoners were brought there after being arrested. "We placed sacks over their heads and tied their hands behind their backs," said Seif Saad, an 18-year-old former labourer who has never received police training. "They were brought here for interrogations over bombings. Some were released, some were sent to prisons. They were brought here if they were suspected of terrorism, it didn't matter whether they were Sunnis, Shias or Kurds."
Hussein Kamal, the Deputy Interior Minister, who visited the bunker, said: "I never thought I would witness scenes like these. I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beatings, one or two detainees were paralysed and some had the skin peeled off parts of their bodies." He also revealed that "instruments of torture" were found in the building.
Read More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article327524.ece
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· Ministers launch inquiry after detainees found
· Shia paramilitaries now control force, say Sunnis
Ewen MacAskill and Rory McCarthy in Beirut Michael Howard
Thursday November 17, 2005
The Guardian
Seif Saad, an Iraqi guard, showed no remorse yesterday for the detention and alleged abuse of 173 prisoners in Baghdad. "We placed sacks on their heads and tied their hands behind their backs," he said of their arrests, but, as far as he was concerned, they were suspected terrorists.
He was standing in a watchtower overlooking the ministry of the interior building where the detainees were held. The cells were found at the weekend by US forces and the discovery of the prisoners - and the allegations of torture - have provoked an international outcry.
The Iraqi police force is now subject to intense scrutiny. The main charge is that the police have been infiltrated by Shia Muslim paramilitaries - in particular the Iranian-backed Badr Brigades - who have targeted Iraq's minority Sunni community, from which the insurgency arose.
Since a new Iraqi government was established in the spring, several accounts have emerged of arrests, abuse and extrajudicial killings by paramilitary forces linked to the ministry and dominated by Shia Muslims operating in squads with names such as the Scorpions and the Wolf Brigade. Almost all the incidents have had a sectarian edge.
Mr Saad, 18, a former labourer with no police training, denied the arrests were religiously motivated. He told a Reuters reporter the suspects had been brought in for questioning in connection with bombings, regardless of whether they were Sunni, Shia or Kurd. The reporter said Mr Saad wore a special forces uniform resembling that of a Shia paramilitary group.
US forces said they had been hunting for a missing youth when they uncovered the secret detention centre. The Iraqi government has launched an inquiry and promised an answer within a week.
Read More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1644333,00.html
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has ordered an investigation.
But the Islamic Party said Iraqi-led investigations into past cases of abuse had not produced results.
Washington is backing the Iraqi inquiry - but the US is itself facing pressure to be more transparent about the treatment of its prisoners.
The Iraqi abuse allegations came to light when prisoners, many malnourished and some showing signs of apparent torture, were found by US troops on Sunday.
Read More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4441568.stm
"I don't accept for any officer to even slap a prisoner," Interior Minister Bayan Baqir Solagh Jabir told a packed news conference on Thursday, his first public appearance since US forces found the bunker and scores of malnourished and badly beaten men on Sunday.
"The talk about this has been inaccurate," he said, adding that he was commenting on the issue only because his aides had put pressure on him to do so.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said earlier this week that 173 men and teenage boys were discovered at the prison near the Interior Ministry, and said there was evidence that many of them had been tortured. He has ordered an investigation.
Jabir, raising his voice in anger as he dismissed several of the allegations being made, said only a handful of people showed any sign of being beaten, and they were all detained for suspected militant activity after arrest warrants were issued.
Discrepancy
"There were only five, or at most seven, who showed signs of having been beaten," he said. The deputy interior minister said earlier this week that the number was closer to 160.
Political leaders from Iraq's once-dominant Sunni Arab minority have demanded an international investigation into allegations that Shia militias linked to the Interior Ministry were responsible for the torture and abuse.
The head of the main Shia militia, the Badr Organisation, which has close ties to the Interior Ministry and to the most powerful Shia political party in the government, on Wednesday denied any involvement with, or link to, the detention bunker.
The discovery is likely to fuel sectarian tension between Iraq's Sunni Arab minority and al-Jaafari's Shia and Kurdish-led government in the run-up to 15 December parliamentary elections.
Most of those found inside were Sunni Arabs, officials said.
Local and international media published gruesome accounts on Thursday of how some of the detainees were treated.
Mohammad Duham, the head of a group that works to protect prisoners and detainees, told Reuters torture implements had been found in the bunker, including saws to cut detainees' limbs and razors to peel off their skin.
Unacceptable
"This is unacceptable and claims we used things to carve people's limbs are absurd," Jabir said.
He said Iraq abided by the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of prisoners of war and invited non-government organisations and the media to inspect any prison run by the Interior Ministry.
He denied that Sunnis had been targeted by the ministry and said Shia were among the detainees, who were overseen by 29 officers assigned to the building, a concrete structure half below ground and half above.
All those detained had been the subject of arrest warrants,
he said. "They were all dangerous terrorists . ... They will get
their justice through the judicial system," he said.
The abuse scandal has drawn local and international condemnation.
Call for probe
Speaking to Aljazeera from Baghdad, Iraqi Islamic Party member Iyad al-Izzi said: "We call for at least an international investigation to probe the abuse as we have not seen any interest from the Iraqi government in dealing with this issue."
"We have no confidence in this government after the disappointing performance we have seen recently", he said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who visited Iraq at the weekend for the first time since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003, expressed concern but welcomed al-Jaafari's statement that such practices were contrary to government policy.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6216F713-E69D-4D26-A06B-295EF6A60597.htm
At a news conference in Baghdad, Mr Jabr disputed reports that 170 detainees were mistreated at the compound and said there had been only a few cases.
Flanked by his top security officers from the ministry, Mr Jabr was very defensive.
He accused the media and his critics of blowing things out of proportion.
But the most remarkable thing about the event was how reminiscent it was of news conferences in one party-states, or, in this case, from the era of Saddam Hussein.
Pinning blame
Mr Jabr began the conference by listing the great advances in security he said the ministry had achieved under his stewardship.
His senior officers sitting next to him praised him.
One by one they all said the minister had always emphasised the importance of respecting human rights.
A strange assertion in view of what has just been found in the ministry's detention centre.
Mr Jabr looked like a beleaguered man, making up his defence as he went along.
Waving a bunch of foreign passports, Mr Jabr said some of the detainees were Arab terrorists who had killed many Iraqis.
Then he blamed the abuse on officers who had once served in Saddam Hussein's army and promised to get rid of them.
Both the detention centre and Mr Jabr's defence at the news conference illustrate very clearly the difficulties involved in transforming Iraq from a one-party state to a country run by a transparent and accountable government.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4446204.stm
The debate over the use of white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah took a new twist when it emerged the US Army teaches senior officers it is against the "laws of war" to fire the incendiary weapon at human targets.
A section from an instruction manual used by the US Army Command and General Staff School (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, makes clear that white phosphorus (WP) can be used to produce a smoke screen. But it adds: "It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets."
The row has raged since last year when US troops cleared the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah during a two-week operation that resulted in the deaths of 50 US Marines and more than 1,200 insurgents. Though the US at first denied it had used WP, the Pentagon has admitted using the weapon against insurgent targets. It insists the use of incendiary weapons against military targets is permitted.
But military specialists said the "laws of land warfare" taught at the CGSC are the guidelines that the US Army teaches as general principles. The GCSC generally teaches officers of senior rank such as major and colonel. John Pike, of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "These are the general principles about proportionality, doctrine and so on and so forth."
The Pentagon said it could not account for the discrepancy between its admission that WP was used at Fallujah and the guidance in the teaching manual. A Pentagon spokesman, Lt-Col Barry Venable, said: "For starters, the handbook doesn't say it's banned ... It's also important to remember that WP was used in Fallujah to help dislodge insurgent fighters from prepared defensive positions so that they could then be targeted with high-explosives ammunition."
He also quoted the Army Field Manual, which states: "The use of weapons which employ fire ... is not violative of international law. They should not, however, be employed in such a way as to cause unnecessary suffering to individuals."
The 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits use of incendiaries against civilians and demands that forces using them against military targets take all available steps to avoid civilian casualties.
Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, said: "The evidence available suggests that that may not have been done."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article327926.ece