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A Holiday story that will warm your heart, from Defend AmericaDoctors Give Iraqi Baby New Lease on Life Doctors at the Abu Ghraib hospital, and a very long-distance phone call, helped diagnose and treat a very sick four-month-old baby. By U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Carolanne Diggs Multinational Force-Iraq ABU GHRAIB, Iraq, Dec. 7, 2005 — Four-month-old Tabark Abdul Rahman, known as Tabitha to the Abu Ghraib medical staff, was given a grim prognosis on life. When she arrived at the Abu Ghraib hospital she was malnourished, dehydrated, in renal (kidney) distress, was suffering from diarrhea and had a bad...

Sen. John McCain, who pushed the White House to support a ban on torture, suggested Sunday that harsh treatment of a terrorism suspect who knew of an imminent attack would not violate international standards. The Arizona Republican said legislation before Congress would establish in U.S. law the international standard banning any treatment of prisoners that "shocks the conscience." That would include, McCain said, mock executions and "water boarding," in which a subject is made to think he is drowning. Asked on ABC's "This Week" whether such treatment of a terrorism suspect who could reveal information that could stop a terrorist...

FRONT PAGE More prison abuse found in Iraq - 13 of those at Interior Ministry site treated for torture so severe it broke bones By ELLEN KNICKMEYER Washington Post BAGHDAD, IRAQ - An Iraqi government search of a detention center in Baghdad operated by Interior Ministry special commandos found 13 prisoners who had suffered abuse serious enough to require medical treatment, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday night.

We have all heard the “horror” stories from the Left about Abu Ghraib. We have seen the prosecution of those responsible for the events that took place there. Finally we have all heard the charges of “torture” taking place at “Gitmo”. Now we get the stories of real torture in Iraq from one of the people who actually committed the acts, Saddam’s hangman. Recalling his time working at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, Abu Hussein [last name withheld] spoke to Reuters about his activities there. During his interview he gave a firsthand account of some of the torture techniques he...

When I lived abroad, Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. It was a chance to scrounge up a turkey, gather foreign and American friends, and celebrate what America represented to the world. I liked to give a sentimental toast when the turkey arrived at the table, and more than once I had my foreign guests in tears. They loved the American dream as much as I did. I don't think Americans realize how much we have tarnished those ideals in the eyes of the rest of the world these past few years. The public opinion polls tell us that America...

In a lengthy post about several different things, "Iraqi Bloggers Central" reveals something that I was completely unaware of.Salam Pax has posted about the US Army's discovery of an civilian bomb shelter devoted to Iraqi police abuse, torture, and apparent murder of prisoners. Salam naturally cannot bypass a shot at the US military:It is slightly ironic that Americans are trying to stop a case of prisoner abuse considering Abu Ghraib and all but I guess they already blocked that memory.Well, it's not exactly the same thing. US Army personnel reported the Abu Ghraib crimes, the US Army investigated those crimes,...

In a fight to the death, would you restrain from hitting your opponent in the groin? Or would you pull out all the dirty tricks - fishhooking, eye-gouging, pressure points, biting, ear-tearing, etc.? That is a question that I think one has to ask themselves in light if the article that is in the November 21st issue of Newsweek written by Senator John McCain. Don't get me wrong, he is absolutely right when he states that painful torture is an unreliable and ineffective way to extract information, as I learned when I spoke to an instructor of the U.S. Army's...

Democrats push prisoner abuse probe Leading GOP senator dismisses call for 9/11-style commission Monday, November 7, 2005; Posted: 11:24 p.m. EST (04:24 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Democrats stepped up their attacks on the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq with calls Monday for an independent probe into the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. Republicans fired back, accusing Democrats of trying to score political points off American losses in Iraq and of undermining support for U.S. troops. Leading Senate Democrats, arguing that the chamber's GOP leadership has not pursued investigations on those...

Already divided by attempts to keep tabs on the Bush administration, the Senate this week is expected to vote on a Democratic amendment to the FY06 defense authorization bill that would establish an independent commission to investigate abuse of detainees. The amendment, offered by Senate Armed Services ranking member Carl Levin, D-Mich., is one of 24 on tap as the Senate tries to finish debate on the $441.6 billion authorization bill, which was halted in late July after less than a week on the floor. Debate on the long-stalled bill resumed Friday after being held up for weeks by Republican...

GOP senator criticizes White House torture stance Bill would ban inhumane treatment of detainees Sunday, November 6, 2005; Posted: 2:17 p.m. EST (19:17 GMT) WASHINGTON (AP) -- A leading Republican senator said Sunday that the Bush administration is making "a terrible mistake" in opposing a congressional ban on torture and other inhuman treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. Sen. Chuck Hagel, considered a potential presidential candidate in 2008, said many Republican senators support the ban proposed by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. The ban was approved by a 90-9 vote last month in...

by Mark Finkelstein November 2, 2005 - 07:22. Ah, Abu Ghraib! Good old days for the MSM, when for months on end they could justify displaying salacious photos, confident that every time they did, Pres. Bush took a hit. Is there hope for Abu Ghraib redux? The Today Show is clearly doing its best to promote the notion. In its coverage of revelations in the Washington Post that the CIA maintains secret prisons around the world to confine top Al-Qaida members, Today at least twice displayed an Abu Ghraib photo. This despite the absence of any allegations that the US...

Five hundred prisoners walked free from the US military's Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq on Tuesday, released in a goodwill gesture to mark the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The detainees were presented with a Koran and USD 25 on their release which marked Eid al-Fitr celebrations. Their release was in addition to 1,000 prisoners set free in October at the start of the month of fasting. All 1,500, who also received traditional white shirts, were released after their cases went before an Iraqi-led review board and were found not to have committed serious or violent crimes,...

FRANCE'S prisons are the worst in Europe and their cells are akin to dungeons in the Middle Ages, according to a watchdog's report yesterday. Hygiene is "deplorable", with inmates crowded into filthy, rat-infested cells, leading to an explosion in the number of prisoners with infectious diseases, the International Observatory of Prisons (IOP) said. It described conditions as "catastrophic" and condemned the French government for failing to improve matters. "The situation is totally unworthy of our level of civilisation. Conditions of detention are close to those of the Middle Ages," the Paris-based IOP said. It blamed the government's tougher sentencing polices...

The information in the story below was collected from the popular Iraqi web blog, IraqTheModel. This Iraqi blog creator, Omar, met and interviewed in December of 2003 one of the survivors personally affected by Sadddam’s crime against the people of Al-Dijail. Omar writes in his most recent October 18th, 2005 blog that he hopes this story will help you the reader understand this town and its' story; and turns back the clock to the early days of his blog when he interviewed a survivor who as a child lived in Al-Dijaile. Omar's entitled his blog report: "War and Peace" and...

In the uncertain weeks following September 11, an internal power struggle was underway deep inside the Bush administration. Waged between partisans at the highest levels of the government, that battle -- captured in a series of blunt memos -- exemplifies the struggle to create a legal framework to give the president authority to aggressively interrogate enemy fighters in the war on terror. On October 18, FRONTLINE goes behind closed doors to investigate the struggle over how and when to use what was called "coercive interrogation." The film begins with a policy born out of fear and anger and tracks how...

NEW REVELATIONS BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS OF ABUSE IN IRAQ FRONTLINE Presents “THE TORTURE QUESTION” Tuesday, October 18, 2005, from 9 to 10:30 P.M. ET on PBS Boston, MA -- Another American soldier has come forward to reveal abusive interrogation techniques by military personnel in Iraq. Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib and member of a special intelligence team in Iraq, has given FRONTLINE a firsthand account of his involvement in the harsh treatment of prisoners. “It’s all over Iraq,” Lagouranis told FRONTLINE. “The infantry units are torturing people in their homes. They would smash people’s feet with...

The former commanding general of prisons in Iraq says she was not in charge of the Abu Ghraib detention facility at the time of the detainee abuse scandal there. "How could (the military) hold me accountable when I had no direct access?" Col. Janis Karpinski told The (Hilton Head) Island Packet. "How come they didn't hold (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld accountable? How is that possible?" Karpinski was relieved of command and demoted from brigadier general to colonel after allegations that dereliction of duty led to prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. Karpinski said she was the commanding general of the reserve...

Not a week goes by that some part of the Left does not hurt America. But in the past two weeks, three examples stood out for the degree of such harm. The first example involved the ACLU, which has threatened Southwest Airlines with a lawsuit. Southwest ordered a passenger off a flight after she refused to cover her T-shirt on which was printed an expletive -- "Fu--ers" -- referring to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The ACLU position is not surprising. That organization had once defended a high school student whose...

It's hardly a secret that Private First Class Lynndie England was sentenced this past week for her role as "leash girl" in the infamous abuses photographed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003. But it was also noticeable that the denouement of this spectacular story was relegated to the innards of newspapers that had once given it weeks of front-page treatment. That's almost surely because the trial of the last of the Maryland Army Reservists to face justice -- like those of the others that came before her -- offered no evidence to support claims that the abuses were...

WASHINGTON - A U.S. soldier convicted of humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners said, in remarks made public late Sunday, she knew of "worse things" happening at Abu Ghraib and insisted military commanders were fully aware of what was going on in Iraq's infamous jail. The comments, made by Private First Class Lynndie England in her first post-court marshal interview, contradicted assertions by top Pentagon officials that a small group of out-of-control soldiers were responsible for abuse at Abu Ghraib, and that however repulsive that mistreatment was, it did not amount to torture. England, who became the face of the scandal...