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LONDON (AP) - Iraqi security forces are arbitrarily arresting people and systematically torturing and abusing detainees, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Tuesday. With few exceptions, Iraqi authorities have not acted to stop such mistreatment, the report said. International police advisers, largely funded by the U.S. government, "have turned a blind eye to these rampant abuses," it said. "The Iraqi interim government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi ... appears to be actively taking part, or is at least complicit, in these grave violations of fundamental human rights. Nor has the United States, the United Kingdom or other...

Army personnel have admitted to beating or threatening to kill Iraqi detainees and stealing money from Iraqi civilians but have not been charged with criminal conduct, according to newly released Army documents. Only a handful of the 54 investigations of alleged detainee abuse and other illicit activities detailed in the documents led to recommended penalties as severe as a court-martial or discharge from military service. Most led to administrative fines or simply withered because investigators could not find victims or evidence. The documents, which date from mid-2003 to mid-2004 and were obtained by five nongovernmental organizations through a joint lawsuit,...

First Published 2003-05-16, Last Updated 2003-05-16 15:04:54POWs taken mostly in southern Iraq Iraqi POWs tortured by US, UK forces: Amnesty Mistreatment of POWs includes beating with fist, feet, weapons and electric shocks. LONDON - At least 20 Iraqi prisoners of war, including civilians, said they had been tortured by British and US troops in central and southern Iraq, a spokesman for International Human Rights group Amnesty International said Friday. "As of Wednesday we had interviewed 20 people," Amnesty researcher Said Boumedouha said, referring to prisoners of war who alleged they had been tortured by the British and US military...

This is on now and looks like your typical MSM BS

America's human rights abuses have provided a rallying cry for terrorists and set a bad example to regimes seeking to justify their own poor rights records, a leading independent watchdog said yesterday. The torture and degrading treatment of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay have undermined the credibility of the US as a defender of human rights and opponent of terrorism, the New York-based Human Rights Watch says in its annual report. "The US government is less and less able to push for justice abroad because it is unwilling to see justice done at home," says Kenneth Roth, the...

While most of his Democratic Senate colleagues say they will vote to confirm attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales despite their misgivings about his role in shaping Bush administration policies for treating terrorists, Sen. Edward Kennedy says he is "leaning against" confirmation. Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," the Massachusettes senator said he was dissatisfied with Gonzales's answers under questioning - that the administration will not tolerate torture while at the same time defending his claims that the protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to alleged terrorists, the Washington Post reported. "He had conversations with the Justice Department; he...

The Bush administration has been carrying out secret reconnaissance missions to learn about nuclear, chemical and missile sites in Iran in preparation for possible airstrikes there, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday. The effort has been under way at least since last summer, Hersh said on CNN's "Late Edition." In an interview on the same program, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the story was "riddled with inaccuracies." "I don't believe that some of the conclusions he's drawing are based on fact," Bartlett said. He said his information on Iran came from "inside" sources who divulged it in the hope...

Jan. 17 issue - Ibraham Al Qosi's stories seemed fairly outlandish when they first surfaced last fall. In a lawsuit, Al Qosi, a Sudanese accountant apprehended after 9/11 on suspicions of ties to Al Qaeda, charged that he and other detainees at Guantanamo Bay had been subjected to bizarre forms of humiliation and abuse by U.S. military inquisitors. Al Qosi claimed they were strapped to the floor in an interrogations center known as the Hell Room, wrapped in Israeli flags, taunted by female interrogators who rubbed their bodies against them in sexually suggestive ways, and left alone in refrigerated cells...

In a week in which it was burnt by at least one high-profile source, CBS News is being accused by another of having used and abandoned him. The Observer has learned that CBS News and Dan Rather made use of Jonathan (Jack) Idema, a former Green Beret, mercenary and rogue soldier, who was tried and sentenced on Sept. 15 to 10 years in an Afghan prison for operating a private jail and torturing civilians he claimed were Al Qaeda operatives. Mr. Idema is now accusing CBS News of abandoning him after having what appears to have been an ad hoc...

Afghan forces arrested three Americans, including a purported former Green Beret, after raiding a jail they were allegedly running in the Afghan capital and finding prisoners hanging from their feet, officials said Thursday. The U.S. military, facing a widening inquiry into prisoner abuse, quickly distanced itself from the three, who had been posing as American agents before being detained Monday. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday "the U.S. government does not employ or sponsor these men." Afghan officials also dismissed claims by the apparent ringleader, Jonathan K. Idema, that he was a "special adviser" to their security forces, saying...

<p>WASHINGTON — The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by chief executives and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers.</p>

Six Navy SEALs filed a lawsuit against the Associated Press and one of its reporters yesterday, saying the news organization revealed their identities, compromised their security and invaded their privacy by publishing personal photographs in a Dec. 4 story.     The complaint says AP reporter Seth Hettena used about 40 images from the personal photo-storage Web site of a Navy SEAL wife. [snip] The images were picked up by the Arab press, including Al Jazeera, and have made their way onto a billboard outside U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where detainees from the war on terror are being kept. The...

JAMES CASON, head of the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba (the United States has no embassy there) has ignited a marvelous little propaganda war between the United States and Cuba, and Cuba is losing. Decrepit old dictator Fidel Castro has imprisoned 75 Cubans this year for political disobedience. Cason decided to use Christmas to remind the world of this crime. His office set up an outdoor Christmas display complete with white lights, candy canes, a Santa Claus and a large, red 75. As soon as the display was up, Fidel demanded the Americans take it down. Cason refused, and he...

The people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals.George W. BushAnd so they should be. That video footage of U.S. soldiers being subjected to a humiliating public display and harsh interrogation -- possibly after beatings -- was disgusting. Iraqi soldiers should respect long-standing norms for treatment of prisoners of war, even though we know better than to expect the same from Saddam Hussein.But nothing George Bush says on the subject of Geneva Conventions and international legal standards is likely to convince anyone. He has unleashed the greatest onslaught against international law of any U.S. president in living...

The American Civil Liberties Union is claiming President Bush issued an executive order authorizing the "torture" of terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay. But evidence to back the allegation was missing a few key components - such as an actual copy of the so-called Bush directive, or any documentation that might indicate when it was issued. The Los Angeles Times reports that evidence obtained by the criminal-friendly group included e-mails from FBI agents referring to the new Bush order on prisoner treatment, which permitted interrogation tactics that went beyond FBI practice. The so-called White House-approved "torture" tactics include "sleep...

Today's NY Times has a special section, a ten page layout entitled, "2004 THE YEAR IN PICTURES. In full color. Imagine my surprise, then disgust, and now loathing of that paper, when I see that the front page pic..all 22" x 13" of it.what the editors have chose as the the picture that best depicts the year is..well..in their own words.. "ON THE COVER: An Iraqi man captured by American forces during fighting in the Sunni enclave of Falluja sits bound and hooded near a heavily armed marine.."

The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by CEOs and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers....In this case, the agency is flying captured terrorist suspects from one country to another for detention and interrogation....

Administration lawyers concluded in a policy paper last year that a president can legally order interrogators to torture terrorist suspects. The lawyers, who were not identified by name, were part of a working group writing a policy governing interrogation techniques to be used at the prison for terrorist suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Monday that the final set of interrogation methods adopted for use at Guantanamo in April 2003 are humane, legal and useful - and more restrictive than the methods some had proposed.

Bush claims no recall of Iraq torture memo The Associated Press 6/10/2004, 4:24 p.m. ET SEA ISLAND, Ga. (AP) ? Addressing advice the White House got suggesting torture might be allowed for some terrorist interrogations, President Bush said Friday he ordered U.S. officials to act consistent with law and international treaties. "What I authorized was staying within U.S. law," Bush said at the conclusion of the G-8 summit meeting here. The president said he doesn't recall seeing Justice Department advice about the conditions for such torture. Asked repeatedly about it, Bush sidestepped a question about whether he thought torture was...

NEW YORK, June 7 (Reuters) - A Pentagon report last year concluded President George W. Bush was not bound by laws prohibiting torture and U.S. agents who might torture prisoners at his direction could not be prosecuted by the Justice Department, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The findings were part of a classified report on interrogation methods prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by top civilian and uniformed military lawyers who also consulted with other agencies, the newspaper said. The report was compiled after commanders at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained in late 2002 that they were not getting...