Thank you Osha Gray Davidson for your work (Rolling Stone Magazine)
Published on August 9, 2004 By MichaelProteus In Politics
It has been months since the now-infamous photographs from Abu Ghraib revealed that American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners-yet the Bush administration has failed to get to the bottom of the abuses. "There are some serious unanswered questions," says Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee. The Pentagon is stalling on several investigations, and congressional inquiries have ground to a halt. The footdragging is astonishing, given that Congress has access to classified documents detailing the abuses outlined by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib.

The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened in Abu Ghraib- Including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files-106 "Annexes" that the Defense Department withheld the Taguba report last Spring- Include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors, and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly morter attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside.

The files make clear that responsibility for what Taguba called "Sadistic, Blatant and Wonton" abuses extend to several high ranking officers still serving in command positions. Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who is now in charge of all military prisons in Iraq, was dispatched to Abu Ghraib by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last August. In a report marked "Secret", Miller recommended that military police at the prison be "Actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees." After his plan was adopted, guards began depriving prisoners of sleep and food, subjecting them to painful "Stress Positions" and terrorizing them with dogs. A former Army Intelligence Officer tells Rolling Stone that the intent of Millers report was clear to everyone involved: "It means treat the detainees like shit until they will sell their mother for a blanket, some food without bugs in it and some sleep."

In the files, prisoner after prisoner at Abu Ghraib describe acts of torture that Taguba found "Credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses." The abuses took place at the hard site, a two-story cinder-block unit at the sprawling prison that housed Iraqi criminals and insurgents, not members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kids ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said.

During the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, Hilas saw SPC. Charles Graner Jr and an unnamed "Helper" tie a detainee to a bed around midnight. "They...inserted the phosphoric light in his ass, and he was yelling for God's help," the prisoner testified. Again the same female soldier photographed the torture.

Another prisoner, Abb Alwhab Youss, was punished after guards accused him of plotting to attack an MP guard with a broken toothbrush. Guards took Youss into a closed room, poured cold water on him, pushed his head into urine and beat him with a broom. Then the guards "Pressed my ass with a broom and spit on it," Youss said.


***To read the rest of the article pick up a copy of Rolling Stone Magazine, issue 955, August 19, 2004***

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