TROOPS 'SWAPPED HUNDREDS OF ABUSE PICTURES'

Hundreds of photographs have been taken of British servicemen mistreating Iraqi civilians, it was claimed tonight.

Troops serving in southern Iraq have been swapping the pictures among themselves, said the unnamed soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment who sparked furore over the weekend by releasing photos apparently showing UK personnel abusing an Iraqi prisoner.

The potentially explosive claims, if proven, would contradict Prime Minister Tony Blair's assurance that any misconduct in British ranks was "exceptional" and limited to a handful of servicemen.

Doubts were cast today on the authenticity of the photos, published in the Daily Mirror yesterday, which appeared to show the hooded man being struck with a rifle butt, urinated on and having a gun held to his head.

Sources close to the regiment claimed the rifle, hats and truck seen in the pictures did not match those issued to men in Iraq, and queried why there was no sign of sweat, dirt or injuries on the body of the victim of the alleged assault.

But tonight the soldiers who made the pictures public told the Mirror: "We stand by every single word of our story.

The Royal Military Police is carrying out an urgent inquiry into claims that the man was subjected to an eight-hour ordeal after being picked up in Iraq for suspected theft last year.

It was claimed that he had his jaw broken and teeth smashed before being dumped from a moving vehicle.

In tomorrow's edition of the Mirror, the soldiers detail other alleged incidents of brutality towards local people, including a baton attack which left a prisoner with a compound fracture to his arm.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the soldiers said: "Maybe the officers don't know what is going on - but everybody else does. I have seen literally hundreds of pictures."

Many of the pictures were destroyed last September when the soldiers' luggage was searched as they left Iraq, they said.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the authorities were not aware of other photos of prisoners being mistreated or of a culture of trading pictures.

"If people have got evidence of such activity, then they should bring it to the attention of the Army authorities. We won't stand for activity like that," he said.

"To: DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
Sources close to the regiment claimed the rifle, hats and truck seen in the pictures did not match those issued to men in Iraq, and queried why there was no sign of sweat, dirt or injuries on the body of the victim of the alleged assault.
What's your take??

This story gets odder and odder"

Mol, my take on this being odder and odder, IS BECAUSE there apparently MUCH confusion. Which is odd to me, because I've been following the stories quite closely.

When you say "Sources close to the regiment claimed the rifle, hats and truck seen in the pictures did not match those issued to men in Iraq, and queried why there was no sign of sweat, dirt or injuries on the body of the victim of the alleged assault."

IS BECAUSE it's not about the US, this is from reports from the UK!

The photos are different from what's been so widespread recently. The photos the report you mention are in B&W - different story, altogether. Freqently intermingled/interchanged all over the place.

Before WW I, Churchill was a cavalry officer, and served in Afghanistan, Sudan, and South Africa. After the Boer war, he was elected to Parliament and resigned his commission. During WW I, Churchill was in the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty - like the secretary of the navy over here. He was forced from that office after the Dardenelles invasion attempt failed. He promptly volunteered from the western front, where he rose to command an infantry brigade by the end of the war. In the interwar years he had some government posts in the 20s, but spent the 30s as a backbencher. Then the war he had long predicted broke out, and he was invited into the government. He was minister of war early in WW II, then became Prime Minister when Chamberlain resigned after the fall of France. Churchill signed his cables to FDR "former naval person".

Orbat.com analysis: There is a subtle subtext here and we wonder if the media realizes it. You cannot break a prisoner in a few hours by beating him. Motivated men can hold out for days or even weeks against such treatment. Certainly beating him can provide a promising start to the real pressure. US intel agencies specialize in breaking the mind of prisoners rather than their bodies, for obvious reasons. They have considerable expertise and their tactic is to use psychological profiles based specifically on the prisoner's background, region, nationality and so on. An American prisoner chained naked to a post and forced to wear women's panties or be forced to stimulate sex acts with other prisoners would not react the same way an Iraqi male would. For an Iraqi, the humiliation will be so extreme that he will break quickly.

That the prisoners involved were of interest to MI is no accident. MI needs up to date information and fast. In a conventional battle situation, the typical prisoner is just a cog in a giant machine and little will be learned by torture. In a guerilla war situation, the individual, no matter insignificant, can yield critical information - for example - about the next attack. The prisoners concerned, incidentally, had been captured while attacking US forces. These methods are used because they are needed to save lives. All armies use them. The problem becomes to apply the minimum force required to get the information. Persons involved in torturing others can with dismaying and frightening speed fall into enjoying something they previously might have thought revolting. They can, then, inflict gratuitous violence and humiliation. The looser the standard of training, the greater the problem. Its already clear the MP unit involved was inadequately trained for POW duty. For the MP general to blame US military intelligence is futile: you can break a prisoner and still avoid the thrills of taking pictures while you smile away and pantomime disgusting actions. That the MPs assumed they could do this and boast about it shows a serious laxity on the part of the overall commander. To our mind, the crime is not the interrogation techniques. It is wholly unsoldierly actions of the MPs after their work is done.

many of them are pows.

and im finding it hard to define them as terorrists here anyway... are they members of a terrorist organisation? there are times where terrorism as a definition is very clear cut, but this isnt one of them. even for more recent captures its hard to define someone who is fighting an army (even using urban guerilla tactics) as terrorists. if you start diluting that term too much it will lose all its meaning.

or is the new definition for terrorist: 'arab'?

...finding it hard to define them as terorrists here anyway

With due respect, I don't have much difficulty defining them as terrorists. One who commits a terrorist act is a terrorist. I don't care if he is a card-carrying member of a terrorist organization or not. In the case of Iraq, many of the terrorists are ad hoc bands, but terrorists nonetheless. As to what constututes terrorist acts in the Iraq context,I don't have much difficulty with that either. Example: shooting of Iraqis headed to work; blowing up Iraqis waiting for work; blowing up civilian convoys of supplies and food that would benefit Iraqis as well as the coalition; blowing up water lines; attacking oil facilities, etc. I don't even dignify them as guerillas since the motives of trying to liberate Iraq from the American-led coalition is not their goal. Instead, if they succeeded in forcing an American retreat, they would impose another oppressive dictatorship of as-yet undefined composition as well as turn Iraq into a terrorist-harboring center ala Afghanistan.

This entire bruhaha looks phoney to me. These photos could easily have been shot on a typical saturday night on any campus fraternity row in the US or any night of the week on capital hill. The hoods are probably to conceal the identities of congressmen and senators many of whom are right now pointing the finger of accusation and shouting the loudest in protest over this alleged abuse.

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