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Soldier's video diary exposed
13/05/2004 10:03 - (SA)
Washington - The CBS television network Wednesday aired what it described as a video diary of a young woman soldier who was a guard at a US prison camp in Iraq recounting her displeasure and frustration.
The 20-year-old woman, not identified, was a guard at the Bucca detention facility in southern Iraq.
The video does not show abuse, but records the conditions in the prison and makes clear the soldier's dislike for the prisoners and commanding officers alike.
"This is a sand viper," she said in the video. "One bite will kill you in six hours. We've already had two prisoners die of it, but who cares? That's two less for me to worry about.
Throwing rocks at them
"They usually have three a week that break out and, of course, every time that I'm working they never do it. It's 'cause they are scared of me. I actually got in trouble the other day because I was throwing rocks at them.
"I hate it here," she said. "I want to come home. I want to be a civilian again. We actually shot two prisoners today. One got shot in the chest for swinging a pole against our people on the feed team. One got shot in the arm. We don't know if the one we shot in the chest is dead yet."
Two other soldiers at the Bucca camp tell in an interview with CBS how problems began with a breakdown in the chain of command, similar to that in place at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad at the time photos and videos documenting prisoner abuse there were shot.
CBS said the two had been accused of abusing prisoners as early as 2003 and were discharged, but not prosecuted, well before such abuse at the Abu Ghraib came to light.
Both soldiers, Tim Canjar and Lisa Girman, deny the accusations.
The network said those early incidents of abuse were "warning signs that something had gone terribly wrong" with the US-run prison system in Iraq.
Pictures of naked prisoners piled in sexually humiliating positions triggered a major scandal in the United States and provoked world-wide outrage.
- AFP
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