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'Everyone knew' of US torture
01/12/2004 15:00 - (SA)
Washington - One month before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, United States army generals were told that elite military units and CIA agents were abusing detainees and "making gratuitous enemies" in Iraq, The Washington Post said on Wednesday.
A confidential report by a retired colonel, sent to the generals in December 2003, said Task Force 121 - a joint Special Operations and CIA mission in Iraq - had been abusing detainees throughout Iraq, holding them at a secret interrogation facility to hide their activities.
"Detainees captured by TF 121 have shown injuries that caused examining medical personnel to note that 'detainee shows signs of having been beaten,'" Stuart Herrington said in his 13-page report recently obtained by The Washington Post.
"It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees," he concluded.
Abuse not confined to prison
The report, which seems to indicate that detainee abuse in Iraq was not confined to the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, comes a day after a New York Times article on a confidential Red Cross report alleging that prisoner abuse at the US military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was tantamount to torture.
The US government, which has been investigating the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, on Tuesday strongly denied the accusations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo.
In his report, Herrington said a US officer in charge of interrogation in Iraq told him that detainees brought in by TF 121 showed signs of having been beaten, and that when asked if he had informed his superiors was told: "Everyone knows about it."
Herrington also noted in his report that the abuse of detainees and the practice of arresting thousands of people with no connection to the Iraq war was not making friends of the Iraqis.
"Between the losers and dead end elements from the former regime and foreign fighters, there are enough people in Iraq who already don't like us," Herrington wrote.
"Adding to these numbers by conducting sweep operations ... is counterproductive to the Coalition's efforts to win the co-operation of the Iraqi citizenry.
"Similarly, mistreatment of captives as has been reported to me and our team is unacceptable, and bound to be known by the population."
Herrington also found that US soldiers sometimes arrested family members when a person targeted for detention was not at home.
The relatives were released when the suspect turned himself in, Herrington said adding that the practice "has a 'hostage' feel to it."
- AFP
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