Posted on 11/19/2005 7:19:52 PM PST by blam
Relatives vow revenge on Iraqi torturers
By Aqeel Hussein in Baghdad and Colin Freeman
(Filed: 20/11/2005)
The epitaph written on the mourning banners for Dhia al-Duleimi's funeral service spoke of his death with defiant pride: "Martyred in action while fighting for the glorious Iraqi resistance, Fallujah, August 2005."
Last week, his grieving family learnt that he might be alive after all - although what they heard made them cry with anger rather than joy. Mr Duleimi, 32, is thought to be among more than 170 Sunni prisoners found in a wretched condition during a raid by United States troops last week at a secret jail underneath Baghdad's interior ministry.
Many are thought to have been beaten, starved and tortured by their keepers, who are widely suspected to have been members of the Badr Brigade militia, which is loyal to Iraq's Shia-led government.
While his family have not yet been allowed to see him, they claim to have been told that he has suffered extensive scalding after being doused with boiling water - an act they now plan to avenge with outrages of their own.
"We admit my brother was a member of the mujahideen, and I am proud of that," said his brother, Jabar, 35. "But to torture him in that way with hot water, just because he fights against the government - what is that?
"They said Saddam Hussein is a bad man, but what is the difference between him and these people?
"All my cousins and all my relatives will fight the Badr Brigade now, I tell you - before we fight the occupation." With its grim echoes of life in Saddam's Iraq, the appalling treatment of prison inmates represents one of the greatest crises of legitimacy for Iraq's new government since it took power in the spring.
It has also proved a big embarrassment to the US government, which promised that human rights would be respected in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.
While coalition officials and Iraqi government ministers have promised an urgent inquiry into the circumstances, ordinary Iraqis have been understandably sceptical of claims that the jail was being run without government knowledge.
The scandal is likely to damage the ruling Shia bloc's performance in next month's elections, which rival Sunni parties are expected to contest in earnest for the first time.
But it also threatens to cause yet more sectarian bloodshed between the country's two main religious groups, who have been pitted against each other by the violence that has followed Saddam's fall.
While Iraqi Sunnis provide most of the country's insurgents, the pro-government Shia militias do much of the "dirty work" in hunting them down.
Mr Duleimi would have matched the Shia militias' profile of the typical guerrilla fighter perfectly: born in the fiercely Sunni town of Fallujah, he served as a soldier in Saddam's army, which many Shia remember as their chief tormentor.
The last time his family heard of him was via a message of condolence three months ago from fellow resistance fighters, who said he had been shot in the leg during a gunfight with troops from the Shia-dominated Iraqi army in Fallujah.
Although he was thought only to have been injured, the family held out little hope that he was still alive: Sunni resistance fighters claim that most of their brethren are executed on the spot if caught by the Iraqi army.
A few weeks after his disappearance, a funeral service was held for him in Fallujah, along with about 30 other fallen resistance fighters. However, his brother still made occasional calls to US and Iraqi-run jails to check that he was not there. The search proved fruitless - until he made inquiries about those being held in the clandestine detention centre.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, a mainstream Sunni political group that has been lobbying the government on behalf of families who believe their relatives are being illegally held, told him that his brother was among those found at the prison. "We asked the Iraqi army, the Iraqi special forces and US army offices many times, but we could not find my brother's name anywhere," said Jabar.
"How come nobody knew anything, unless this jail was being kept deliberately secret?"
So far, neither his brother nor any of the other 173 detainees have been released. The Iraqi government has said they have either been taken to secure hospitals for treatment for torture injuries or transferred to more humane jails.
It insists that many of them are hardened terrorists who cannot simply be freed.
But that has only served to anger Jabar, who believes that the government is now attempting a blatant cover-up. "It is nothing to do with security," he said. "They just don't want any of the prisoners telling the world what happened to them and who did it."
It is okay for the terrorists to torture and behead, but when the government acts the same way, it is an atrocity...
I don't condone this kind of activity. I think it hurts rather than helps the overall mission. Killing terrorists is the easy part, making terrorists unwelcome is the hard part. Acting like the terrorists only makes the latter tougher.
I've always thought that our presence in Iraq is the only thing moderating the country and keeping it from taking indiscriminate vengeance.
That doesn't mean I'm against the use of coerced interrogation methods, even the harsher methods. The use of such methods must serve the overall mission. Indiscriminate use of such methods is sadistic, pointless, and only undermines the mission.
I'd really like to say they deserve better treatment ~
We find this and free the people.
And we still get accused of wrongdoing.
They're well on their way to becoming Democrats.
I agree with you. I have to wonder how much of info used to roll up other terrorists came from these guys.
The ironic thing is once the fight is turned over to the Iraqi army the "insurgents" may long for the day when the US forces were there to restrain them.
At the moment "W" is the only thing standing between these guys having some level of national independence and their turning into a glass parking lot.
Other than motive and magnitude, I can't think of much difference.
I believe you are quite correct about this, and that it will come to pass. It has been just 32 months since we first invaded. Our side has at least 38 remaining months, no matter how public opinion waxes or wanes, to get the new Iraqi defense forces adequately trained and motivated, after which the UN, the liberals and traitors here at home, Amnesty Internationl, et al, can all take a long hike!
Based on the three (count 'em ... THREE!) votes last night in the HR in favor of the resolution for immediate withdrawal, I think GW and Company will have enough of a free hand to shepherd this dramatic and historic process through to final victory. Which will sadden faces all over the blue states.
You live by the sword you die by boiling water. Savvy?
As I have said before, when the Iraqi government comes into it's own, the terr perps will look upon the American confinement time period of non-torture as the HAPPY TIMES.
As you have said before, and as I haven't disagreed before.
So, to be clear --- it is okay for their brother to kill other Muslims and himself but he better not be tortured? Not sure of the logic on this.
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