New Details of Prison Abuse Emerge

Washington Post ^ | Friday, May 21, 2004; Page A01 | Scott Higham and Joe Stephens

[jjm2111]

Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets.

The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan, according to copies of the statements obtained by The Washington Post.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

In a related story, this just in: "John Kerry served in Vietnam!"

IIRC, wasn't he the first Hispanic Black Jew to serve in Nam?

[lonevoice]

Thank you for taking the time to help our voices be heard. Drop an email to support this idea to: jerrydoyle@talkradionetwork.com

[TexKat]

I've noticed lately that FR gained a stricking number of new members in the last month or so.

[Frank_Discussion]

Done ten minutes before your post, but thanks!

[MeekOneGOP]

bump !

[Humidston]

Thanks for the ping, Howlin.

And for anyone in the Houston area, BE ADVISED that Clear Channel is sponsoring a second Rally for America, in downtown Houston on Memorial Day.

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!

[Peach]

No one ever died of humiliation and in fact if a little strong arming or rough treatment will prevent another 9/11, I'm all for it. And nearly everyone I know feels the same exact way.

It's distasteful as can be what a few sadistic soldiers did, but this coverage is way over the top. Someone at the NYT opined today they think it's Bush's Watergate.

It's up to Freepers to let them know they are wrong.

[TexKat]

stricking = striking

[TexKat]

New Iraq prison abuse images show 'savage beatings'

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US military guards rode Iraqi prisoners like animals and forced them to scrape their food from toilets, according to testimony reported with the release of the first video images and more pictures of detainees being beaten and humiliated.

The Washington Post showed excerpts of videos and more pictures from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad showing "savage beatings" and of soldiers "appearing to delight in the abuses."

The newspaper published extracts from testimony by 13 inmates who said they were sexually fondled by female soldiers, made to masturbate, sodomized with a baton by male soldiers or forced to curse the Islamic religion.

The images and statements were collected by investigators for the courts martial of seven soldiers charged with abusing detainees, the Post said. One military police guard has already been jailed for a year.

US lawmakers have been shown pictures and video evidence collected as part of the inquiry into the abuse that has brought international condemnation. But none has been made public officially.

A picture on the front page of the Post showed a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit cowering in front of an unmuzzled dog being held back by a soldier.

Another showed a naked prisoner smeared with what appeared to be excrement being forced to walk in front of a baton-wielding guard.

In another, a US soldier is shown with his right fist braced as though he is about to strike one of a pile of bound and hooded prisoners on the ground.

Another picture shows a prisoner wearing a blanket and a hood, slumped over a railing to which he is handcuffed.

A sixth picture shows a prisoner in underwear, with cuffs around his hands and one ankle, stood on two boxes with his back to a wall.

One video put up on the Post website shows naked inmates being dragged across the floor. It said another showed a US soldier who "slaps the man across his left cheek so hard that the prisoner's knees buckle."

Sworn statements given to US army investigators by the detainees in January gave graphic detail of the abuse.

The detainees described being ridden like animals by prison guards, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve food from their toilets.

"They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees," said Hiadar Sabar Abed Miktub al-Aboodi, who was identified as detainee No. 13077.

"And we had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy.

"After that, they took us to our cells, took the mattresses out and dropped water on the floor and they made us sleep on our stomachs on the floor with the bags on our head and they took pictures of everything."

Many detainees said they were forced to strip naked on their arrival at the prison and remained naked for several days, with some forced to wear women's underwear.

One detainee said he witnessed a US Army translator having sex with a boy of between 15 and 18 at the prison.

Another detainee described how US Army Specialist Charles Graner and other US soldiers sodomized another detainee with a phosphorescent light. Graner was also accused of throwing detainees' meals into toilets and then saying "Eat it!"

The detainees provided the names of three US soldiers, two of whom -- Graner and Sergeant Javal Davis -- are among the US soldiers facing courts martial for the abuse of prisoners.

Another detainee said he was kept naked for five days, forced to kneel for four hours with a hood over his head, badly beaten, forced to crawl as he was spat upon, and finally sodomized by a US soldiers with a nightstick.

Another detainee described how US soldiers forced him and several other detainees to form a human pyramid.

Al-Zayiadi described how he was forced to stand on a box wearing a blanket and a hood with electric wires sticking out of his body, in what has become one of the iconic photographs of the scandal.

He said one soldier "came and put electrical wires on my fingers and toes and on my penis, and I had a bag over my head."

Meanwhile, a private contract translator at Abu Ghraib prison has been accused of sexually humiliating prisoners, The Wall Street Journal said.

The man helped hold down three detainees who were "nude, handcuffed to each other and placed in sexual positions," a US official who reviewed a classified portion of an army investigation told the daily.

The employee of Titan Corp, based in California, was not identified and it was unclear if he is the same translator that one inmate at Abu Ghraib said he saw having sex with a teenage detainee, the daily said.

[TexKat]

A giant banner of a hooded and abused Iraqi prisoner is displayed during a rally in Beirut, May 21, 2004. Tens of thousands of Lebanese Shi'ites in white shrouds marched in Beirut Friday in a collective show of their willingness to die in defense of holy shrines in U.S.-occupied Iraq. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Lebanese Shiites in mass rally vow to defend Iraqi holy sites

BEIRUT (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Shiite Muslims vowed in a street demonstration to help protect holy sites in Iraq (news - web sites), where a radical young cleric is engaged in a bloody insurgency against US-led forces.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for the march in the latest sign of the close ties developing between Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr, who is in control of the holy Iraqi city of Najaf, and the Lebanese Shiite fundamentalist group.

Organizers said 500,000 people took to the streets of southern Beirut but the size of the crowd, including men and women from all over the country, was not confirmed by independent witnesses.

Protesters, some wearing shrouds symbolising their willingness to die for Islam, shouted "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" during the march, which Nasrallah called as a "symbolic message to the Americans".

"The Americans must understand that your presence in shrouds is not about spectacle, but means the renewal of your engagement in the struggle for the just cause until victory," Nasrallah told the crowd.

He said the protesters "displayed our determination to defend our holy places, which no one will dare to touch".

The Hezbollah chief also linked the fighting between Sadr's militia and US-led forces in Iraq to the Palestinians' struggle against the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip.

More than 40 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza town of Rafah this week during a major Israeli military incursion.

Hezbollah guerrillas were instrumental in driving Israel out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending a 22-year occupation. They continue to harass Israeli troops occupying a bit of land claimed by Lebanon and occasionally fire on northern Israel.

Nasrallah said there was a "sole enemy: the American-Israeli camp, linked by Zionism".

During his Friday sermon near Najaf, south of Baghdad, Sadr personally thanked Nasrallah for his help and called on "other Arabs" to back his cause.

But the young cleric has not won the backing of Iraqi's top Shiite authority, the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, whose supporters protested for peace Friday and demanded Sadr's forces leave the holy city of Karbala.

[F.J. Mitchell]

And we should believe everything the terrorists, (aka detainee's in the language of the liberal, pro-whoever is our enemy, media) say, just like it's the gospel, because who ever heard of a radical,murderous, muslim extremist lying?

Our media has become the Manuredia.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Well I'll be damn, Kerry served in Vietnam?

He was a chef ? Did the chow hounds like what he served?

[RedBloodedAmerican]

His Iron Chef name was "Sum Yung Gui", specialty was "chicken rat flee soup"

[F.J. Mitchell]

He must have come from a long line of Mess Hall Chefs. That sounds like some of the delacies served during my trips to the Mess hall, during the fifties and sixties-no doubt creations by some of his ancestors.

[billhilly]

Prisoners sexually attacked? Don't ask, don't tell. Females walking prisoners on leashes. NOW and the compliant left, including most major media, wanted women in combat. I guess that is what they meant by combat. We have all read those stories.

[talleyman]

IIRC, wasn't he the first Hispanic Black Jew to serve in Nam?

LOL! Yes, he was - also the second and the third!

[TheLion]

Yeah, like I am sure the terrorists are going to tell us they were treated nicely when these idiots are out there trying to dig up dirt.

[maica]

So, if our soldiers had not 'humiliated' these scumbags, but instead had cut off hands, applied electric probes to various body parts like sodom, the stealth-commie, mainstream media would pass on the story?

^^^^^


There was a brief report on Fox this morning about 7, IIRC, Iraqis who are getting state-of-the-art prosthetic right hands to replace the ones that Saddam had chopped off. Those men can talk about torture.

Why is this not a news story on every network!!! Only if Americans commit "torture" is it newsworthy?

[ExtremeUnction]

You do live up to your name.

I'm so sorry to hear you're sick.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

I'm so sorry to hear you're sick.

Okay, I'll play along...

"Most Democrats are. Check that; all Democrats are"