ICITAP and Abu Ghraib torture (naming names)

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/

The Masterminds of Torture, Humiliation and Abuse
From Supermax to Abu Ghraib

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In May 2003, Ashcroft appointed an envoy of mostly American prison officials to help "restore law and order in Iraq" by chipping away at Hussein's much feared torture chambers until they resembled something closer to American prisons. For six months, the envoy would take on the monumental task of preparing preexisting Iraqi prisons for prisoners. Through the International Criminal Investigative Training Program (ICITAP), these officials would decide details such as the number of bunks per prison and the training of Iraqi prison guards.

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Typically, ICITAP serves to prop up the police and prison systems of American client states. It is a successor to the police training program run by the Agency for International Development. That program was halted in the mid-70's after the Watergate scandal when it became public knowledge that U.S. AID officials were training police and prison officials around the world in techniques of murder and torture, mostly for use against leftist insurgencies. The activities of ICITAP are not new, only the name is.

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ICITAP has had a continuous role in Haiti. ICITAP has been sent to train the Haitian police force and restore the criminal justice system. After millions of dollars in funding, the Haitian police force was still deemed "largely ineffective" and accused of serving only "a small segment of the population," according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

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Terry Stewart accepted his invitation to participate in the ICITAP mission to Iraq. Like the others serving on the team, Stewart had numerous years of experience in prisons, both as former director of the Arizona Department of Corrections (1995-2002) and as a consultant for the private prison firm Advanced Correctional Management.

Donna Hamm, founder and Executive Director of Middle Ground Prison Reform, witnessed Stewart in action in Arizona, where he accumulated many accusations of human rights violations. She said, "Twenty years of credentials is just one year repeated 20 times. There's no change."

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the other names are: Gary DeLand, John J. Armstrong, Lane McCotter

the torture is still going on