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15 Years Ago Today; CBS News first reports on war crimes at Abu Ghraib (WARNING: GRAPHIC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
During the war in Iraq that began in March 2003, personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to widespread public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the soldiers received support from some conservative media within the United States.
The administration of George W. Bush asserted that these were isolated incidents, not indicative of general U.S. policy. This was disputed by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. These organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents, but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.[9] Several scholars stated that the abuses constituted state-sanctioned crimes.
The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, these soldiers were convicted in courts-martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner and PFC Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten and three years in prison, respectively. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted. It was reported that most inmates were innocent of the crimes they were accused of and were simply detained due to their being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Documents popularly known as the Torture Memos came to light a few years later. These documents, prepared shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain enhanced interrogation techniques, generally held to involve torture of foreign detainees. The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas. Several subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, and ruled that Geneva Conventions apply.
Many of the torture techniques used were developed at Guantánamo detention center, including prolonged isolation; the frequent flyer program, a sleep deprivation program whereby people were moved from cell to cell every few hours so they couldn't sleep for days, weeks, even months; short shackling in painful positions; nudity; extreme use of heat and cold; the use of loud music and noise and preying on phobias.
<snip>
Emergence of the scandal
Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a prisoner, known to the guards as "Gus"
Lynndie England pulls a leash attached to the neck of a prisoner, who is forced to crawl on the floor, while Megan Ambuhl watches.
In June 2003, Amnesty International published reports of human rights abuse by the U.S. military and its coalition partners at detention centers and prisons in Iraq. These included reports of brutal treatment at Abu Ghraib prison, which had once been used by the government of Saddam Hussein, and had been taken over by the United States after the invasion. On June 20, 2003, Abdel Salam Sidahmed, Deputy Director of AI's Middle East Program, described an uprising by the prisoners against the conditions of their detention, saying "The notorious Abu Ghraib Prison, centre of torture and mass executions under Saddam Hussein, is yet again a prison cut off from the outside world. On 13 June there was a protest in this prison against indefinite detention without trial. Troops from the occupying powers killed one person and wounded seven."
On July 23, 2003, Amnesty International issued a press release condemning widespread human rights abuses by U.S. and coalition forces. The release stated that prisoners had been exposed to extreme heat, not provided clothing, and forced to use open trenches for toilets. They had also been tortured, with the methods including denial of sleep for extended periods, exposure to bright lights and loud music, and being restrained in uncomfortable positions.
On November 1, 2003, the Associated Press presented a special report on the massive human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib. Their report began; "In Iraq's American detention camps, forbidden talk can earn a prisoner hours bound and stretched out in the sun, and detainees swinging tent poles rise up regularly against their jailers, according to recently released Iraqis." The report went on to describe abuse of the prisoners at the hands of their American captors: "'They confined us like sheep,' the newly freed Saad Naif, 38, said of the Americans. 'They hit people. They humiliated people.'" In response, U.S. Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, at the time in charge of all U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, claimed that prisoners were being treated "humanely and fairly." The AP report also stated that as of November 1, 2003, there were two legal cases pending against U.S. military personnel, one involving the beating of an Iraqi prisoner, the other about the death of a prisoner in custody.
Since the beginning of the invasion, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been allowed to oversee the prison, and submitted reports about the treatment of the prisoners. In response to an ICRC report, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who oversaw all US detention facilities in Iraq, stated that several of the prisoners were intelligence assets, and therefore not entitled to complete protection under the Geneva Conventions. The ICRC reports led to Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the Iraqi task force, appointing Major General Antonio Taguba to investigate the allegations on 1 January 2004. Taguba submitted his findings (the Taguba Report) in February 2004, stating that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force." The report stated that there was widespread evidence of this abuse, including photographic evidence. The report was not released publicly. The abuse was also perpetrated by three female military officers shown in the images on this page, where they received a wide range of attention and were convicted later on along with several other members.
The scandal came to widespread public attention In April 2004, when a 60 Minutes II news report was aired on April 28 by CBS News, describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel taunting naked prisoners. An article was published by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue), which also had a widespread impact. The photographs were subsequently reproduced in the press across the world.[17] The details of the Taguba report were made public in May 2004. Shortly afterwards, U.S. President George W. Bush stated that the individuals responsible would be "brought to justice," while United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan said that the effort to reconstruct a government in Iraq had been badly damaged.
</snip>
During the war in Iraq that began in March 2003, personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to widespread public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the soldiers received support from some conservative media within the United States.
The administration of George W. Bush asserted that these were isolated incidents, not indicative of general U.S. policy. This was disputed by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. These organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents, but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.[9] Several scholars stated that the abuses constituted state-sanctioned crimes.
The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, these soldiers were convicted in courts-martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner and PFC Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten and three years in prison, respectively. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted. It was reported that most inmates were innocent of the crimes they were accused of and were simply detained due to their being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Documents popularly known as the Torture Memos came to light a few years later. These documents, prepared shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain enhanced interrogation techniques, generally held to involve torture of foreign detainees. The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas. Several subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, and ruled that Geneva Conventions apply.
Many of the torture techniques used were developed at Guantánamo detention center, including prolonged isolation; the frequent flyer program, a sleep deprivation program whereby people were moved from cell to cell every few hours so they couldn't sleep for days, weeks, even months; short shackling in painful positions; nudity; extreme use of heat and cold; the use of loud music and noise and preying on phobias.
<snip>
Emergence of the scandal
Lynndie England holding a leash attached to a prisoner, known to the guards as "Gus"
Lynndie England pulls a leash attached to the neck of a prisoner, who is forced to crawl on the floor, while Megan Ambuhl watches.
In June 2003, Amnesty International published reports of human rights abuse by the U.S. military and its coalition partners at detention centers and prisons in Iraq. These included reports of brutal treatment at Abu Ghraib prison, which had once been used by the government of Saddam Hussein, and had been taken over by the United States after the invasion. On June 20, 2003, Abdel Salam Sidahmed, Deputy Director of AI's Middle East Program, described an uprising by the prisoners against the conditions of their detention, saying "The notorious Abu Ghraib Prison, centre of torture and mass executions under Saddam Hussein, is yet again a prison cut off from the outside world. On 13 June there was a protest in this prison against indefinite detention without trial. Troops from the occupying powers killed one person and wounded seven."
On July 23, 2003, Amnesty International issued a press release condemning widespread human rights abuses by U.S. and coalition forces. The release stated that prisoners had been exposed to extreme heat, not provided clothing, and forced to use open trenches for toilets. They had also been tortured, with the methods including denial of sleep for extended periods, exposure to bright lights and loud music, and being restrained in uncomfortable positions.
On November 1, 2003, the Associated Press presented a special report on the massive human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib. Their report began; "In Iraq's American detention camps, forbidden talk can earn a prisoner hours bound and stretched out in the sun, and detainees swinging tent poles rise up regularly against their jailers, according to recently released Iraqis." The report went on to describe abuse of the prisoners at the hands of their American captors: "'They confined us like sheep,' the newly freed Saad Naif, 38, said of the Americans. 'They hit people. They humiliated people.'" In response, U.S. Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, at the time in charge of all U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, claimed that prisoners were being treated "humanely and fairly." The AP report also stated that as of November 1, 2003, there were two legal cases pending against U.S. military personnel, one involving the beating of an Iraqi prisoner, the other about the death of a prisoner in custody.
Since the beginning of the invasion, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been allowed to oversee the prison, and submitted reports about the treatment of the prisoners. In response to an ICRC report, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who oversaw all US detention facilities in Iraq, stated that several of the prisoners were intelligence assets, and therefore not entitled to complete protection under the Geneva Conventions. The ICRC reports led to Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the Iraqi task force, appointing Major General Antonio Taguba to investigate the allegations on 1 January 2004. Taguba submitted his findings (the Taguba Report) in February 2004, stating that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force." The report stated that there was widespread evidence of this abuse, including photographic evidence. The report was not released publicly. The abuse was also perpetrated by three female military officers shown in the images on this page, where they received a wide range of attention and were convicted later on along with several other members.
The scandal came to widespread public attention In April 2004, when a 60 Minutes II news report was aired on April 28 by CBS News, describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel taunting naked prisoners. An article was published by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue), which also had a widespread impact. The photographs were subsequently reproduced in the press across the world.[17] The details of the Taguba report were made public in May 2004. Shortly afterwards, U.S. President George W. Bush stated that the individuals responsible would be "brought to justice," while United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan said that the effort to reconstruct a government in Iraq had been badly damaged.
</snip>
There is more on the Wikipedia page - I just couldn't stomach looking at it, let alone posting it.
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
