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June 16, 2004 -- THE video only lasts four minutes or so — grue some scenes of torture from the days when Saddam Hussein's thugs ruled Abu Ghraib prison. I couldn't bear to watch, so I walked out until it was over. Some who stayed wished they hadn't. They told of savage scenes of decapitation, fingers chopped off one by one, tongues hacked out with a razor blade — all while victims shriek in pain and the thugs chant Saddam's praises. Saddam's henchmen took the videos as newsreels to document their deeds in honor of their leader. But these awful...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier this month, National Review Online obtained a four-minute video of Saddam-era torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Many of us here who discussed the matter are ourselves unable to watch the whole video. Some could not get beyond the furious, ecstatic chanting of torturers as they raised swords, celebrating their own dementia in the depths of a man-made hell. What to do with the video was a matter of debate here. On principle this is newsworthy — and weighing heavily on our deliberations was the fact that a group of United States senators held a...

WASHINGTON D.C. - Yesterday the American Enterprise Institute showed a brief video on the torture abuses in the Iraqi prison system under Saddam Hussein. The video was roughly 4 minutes in length. Reports are confirming that minimal press turned out for the viewing. What it contained was enough to sicken many of those who did attend. The tape showed fingers being cut off of prisoners hands, tongues being lopped out of people's mouths with razor blades and prisoners being fed alive to Saddam's doberman pinchers as well as decapitation. The Saddam Thugs in the video chant the former dictator's name...

May 27, 2004 | Filmmaker Michael Moore filmed an interview with American Nicholas Berg in the course of producing his documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11" before Berg left for Iraq, where he was taken hostage and killed, Moore confirmed to Salon in a statement Thursday. The 20 minutes of footage does not appear in the final version of "Fahrenheit 911," according to the statement. Word of the footage reached Salon through a source unaffiliated with Moore or his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is reported to feature stark images of U.S. civilians and soldiers grappling with conditions in war-torn Iraq, as well...

Unit Says It Gave Earlier Warning of Abuse in IraqBy ANDREA ELLIOTT RANKFURT, June 13 — Beginning in November, a small unit of interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison began reporting allegations of prisoner abuse, including the beatings of five blindfolded Iraqi generals, in internal documents sent to senior officers, according to interviews with military personnel who worked in the prison.The disclosure of the documents raises new questions about whether senior officers in Iraq were alerted about serious abuses at the prison before January. Top military officials have said they only learned about abuses then, after a soldier came forward with...

As photographs of the atrocities began to circulate, there was no denying the horror they revealed. Members of an occupying force, which had come waving the banner of progress and commerce, were shown brutalizing helpless captives. All this happened a century ago, when an international human rights movement exposed the enslavement, maiming and killing of Africans in the Congo, then ruled by King Leopold II of Belgium. These events, newly resonant following the snapshots from Abu Ghraib, inspired the latest work by Ping Chong, a director and choreographer known for probing cultural tensions. "The timing is uncanny," said Mr. Chong,...

Iraq President Won't Destroy Abu Ghraib Prison June 13, 2004 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Interim Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar on Sunday said he had no plans to destroy the Abu Ghraib prison despite an offer by President Bush to tear down the jail where U.S. troops abused inmates. Asked if he would tear down the prison, Yawar told ABC's "This Week," "No. Why? It's a prison that we spent more than $100 million building." He acknowledged the prison was a symbol of the repressive regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but said it would be unwise and reactionary to...

WASHINGTON — Weeks before U.S. military investigators began uncovering evidence of mistreatment of detainees, commanders at the Abu Ghraib prison launched a crackdown on alcohol abuse and told intelligence troops that guards were suspected of soliciting sex from Iraqi prostitutes, according to soldiers and officers who worked at the compound.

A MAN linked to Al-Qaeda and believed to have helped to mastermind the Madrid train bombings was overheard last month describing a plot for a woman to carry out a chemical or germ attack in America that he said would “wipe out an entire neighbourhood”. The Italian warrant for the arrest of Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, 32, an Egyptian seized in a suburb of Milan last week, details transcripts of bugged conversations and telephone calls in which he not only boasted of his involvement in the Spanish attack of March 11 but also spoke of future plans. The Spanish government...

    Rumsfeld May Widen Scope of Iraq Abuse ProbeThu Jun 10, 2004 02:13 PM ET By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may widen the investigation into abuses of Iraqi prisoners to include top military ranks, and has also ordered that he be told about the death of any prisoner in U.S. military custody, officials said on Thursday. Under past practice, some military prison deaths were not even reported to the army medical examiner's office. Rumsfeld is also considering a request made this week by Central Command head Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S....

WASHINGTON — Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez (search), commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has asked investigators to take the Abu Ghraib (search) prison abuse probe to the top of the chain of command — and that means to Sanchez himself, senior Defense officials have told Fox News. Sanchez has asked the Pentagon to appoint a senior investigating general who outranks him, and thus would be authorized to push the probe to the highest rungs of the command ladder, according to the officials.

June 9, 2004 The Roots of Abu Ghraib n response to the outrages at Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration has repeatedly assured Americans that the president and his top officials did not say or do anything that could possibly be seen as approving the abuse or outright torture of prisoners. But disturbing disclosures keep coming. This week it's a legal argument by government lawyers who said the president was not bound by laws or treaties prohibiting torture.Each new revelation makes it more clear that the inhumanity at Abu Ghraib grew out of a morally dubious culture of legal expediency...

    Report: Justice Dept. Memo Offers Basis for TortureTue Jun 8, 2004 12:23 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department offered justification for the use of torture against al Qaeda detainees in an August 2002 memo to the White House, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The memo said if a government employee were to torture a suspect in captivity, "he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," the newspaper reported. The memo also said that arguments centering on "necessity and self-defense could...

With the things reaching the kind of fever pitch that they are, it should come as no suprise that I can remain silent no longer. No matter how unrelated I am to the MPs involved in the prison violence at Abu Gahrib, I am afraid I can't NOT comment on some of the insanity that I now find myself witnessing. Let me start this with a disclaimer: I feel no sympathy for the soldiers who are facing actions, what they did was straight up stupid. The commander of that prison is of course ultimatly responsible, but I can say from...

It is a testament to the perverse priorities of our politicians and journalists that the biggest American outcry over Abu Ghraib has been not about the gruesome decapitation of American Nicholas Berg by terrorists, but about the fact that many Arabs and Europeans are mad at us. "We are the most hated nation in the world," laments Ted Kennedy, "as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." The alleged solution to this alleged crisis of "world opinion" is to show more deference toward the rest of the world. Otherwise, we are told, the world's anger will bring more...

REPORT FROM GENEVAU.N. Rights Chief Says Prison Abuse May Be War CrimeBy WARREN HOGEPublished: June 5, 2004 NITED NATIONS, June 4 - The top human rights official for the United Nations said Friday that the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers could constitute a war crime, and he called for the immediate naming of an international figure to oversee the situation.The official, Bertrand Ramcharan, the acting high commissioner for human rights, acknowledged that the removal of Saddam Hussein represented "a major contribution to human rights in Iraq" and noted that the United States had condemned abusive conduct by its...

Shoplifting Charge Dogs Iraq General Military Sources: Gen. Karpinski Caught Stealing Perfume In 2002 Jun 3, 2004 5:45 am US/Central NEW YORK (CBS) An American general caught up in the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal is now at the center of a new controversy involving allegations about her past, but she's calling it a smear campaign. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who claims she has been made a scapegoat for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, is the subject of an investigation by the Army Inspector General involving an alleged shoplifting incident in October of 2002, one year before the abuses began, reports...

The billionaire shares his theories with liberal activists. Billionaire financier George Soros, the financial power behind a number of anti-Bush movements on the left, today directly compared the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq with the terrorist attacks of September 11.

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38774 Thursday, June 3, 2004 ELECTION 2004Soros: Abu Ghraib same as 9-11Bush 'converted us from victims into perpetrators' Posted: June 3, 20042:44 p.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com After an introduction by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, billionaire financier George Soros told left-wing activists at a Washington function today the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq is comparable to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. George Soros "The picture of torture in Saddam's prison was a moment of truth for us,"...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Christine Iverson202-863-8614 Washington, DC-RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie issued the following statement in response to comments made today by John Kerry supporter George Soros comparing prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison to the terror attacks on 9-11. “Abu Ghraib was bad and the soldiers involved are rightly being punished, but for Democrats to say that the abuse of Iraqi fighters is the moral equivalent of the slaughter of 3,000 innocent Americans is outrageous. Their hatred of the President is fueling a blame America first mentality that is troubling.”