A Disturbing Night in Iraq: Witnessing the Abuse of 'Insurgent' Prisoners

[BlueJessamine]

A Disturbing Night in Iraq: Witnessing the Abuse of 'Insurgent' Prisoners

by Tim King Salem-News.com

December 12, 2008

U.S. contractors, bound to no legal accountability, are continuing to administer highly questionable treatment of prisoners in Iraq. This is an eyewitness account.

(FALLUJAH, Iraq) - This story was written in the early days of September, 2008; about the night that I encountered questionable treatment of Iraqi prisoners, while flying in a U.S. Army CH-47 helicopter from Fallujah, to Balad, Iraq.


One of the only images to makeit through that night; the MarineV-22 Osprey I flew aboard before the helicopter carrying insurgentsI have delayed publishing it, but more revelations today about the authorized torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq by Bush Administration officials caused us to make the decision to release this today.


The LA Times and other media groups today published articles about a bipartisan Senate report linking decisions made by the former Defense secretary with the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war.


This report released Thursday, concludes that the decisions of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, were a "direct cause" of widespread detainee abuses. The report says other Bush administration officials were to blame for creating a legal and moral climate that contributed to inhumane treatment.


The following is my first-hand account of what I experienced one harrowing night in Iraq.

FLASHBACK... September 9th, 2008:


If a dog were to be subjected to the type of treatment Iraqi prisoners receive at the hands of some U.S. contractors, the people responsible would be arrested. I was witness to this on a very personal level and ultimately, forced to erase the video footage from my television camera.


I didn't feel like I was watching the actions of Americans, instead I thought of groups like the former KGB in the Soviet Union who were known torturers and sadistic government agents free of things like laws and court inquiries.


The fact that I had to erase the video footage in my opinion, amounts simply to a purging of evidence.


Exactly where the lines of humanity and decency are drawn in this country, appear to be largely unknown.


Here in Iraq, millions of dollars are doled out to our former enemies, and lessons learned from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal appear to be a thing of the past- that is if they were ever learned in the first place.

Terror Flight Out of Fallujah


I boarded an Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter three nights ago from the Marine Corp's Camp Fallujah, for a flight back to my home base, the Balad Air Station, a place under the control of the U.S. Air Force and still largely staffed by Army soldiers and a handful of Marines and sailors.


What I saw upon boarding that helicopter was shocking; I did not expect to see a row of prisoners in what looked like white night gowns, bound with a flat rope to the side of the aircraft.


The night was hot; the type of heat that demands a plentiful amount of water to sustain any level of comfort. Each man was hooded with a neon type of light attached to the hood and hanging from his head. They were cuffed with their arms behind their backs, and were made to sit cross legged. The aircraft had two pilots, two side door gunners and a rear gunner. Also aboard the CH-47 were several Army soldiers and two contractors in military style clothing.


The prisoners drew the anger of these contractors repeatedly, continually, and most of the time it was difficult to tell what raised their tempers. The prisoners were sitting on the floor in a row on the right side of the aircraft while the rest of us sat in the jump seats on the left side.


What I witnessed is not something I will soon forget. Most of the men were made to sit in the row, but two men at the rear of the helicopter were forced to squash together in a clearly demeaning fashion, with one sitting immediately in front of the other.

The article continues here:

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december122008/insurgent_abuse_iraq_12-12-08.php