Reply
Tue 15 Jun, 2004 12:26 am
Quote:Iraq abuse 'came from Guantanamo'
The US commander at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner scandal has blamed the abuse on the introduction of Guantanamo-style interrogation methods.
Brig Gen Janis Karpinski told the BBC the high-level decision meant prisoners had to be treated like dogs.
Top US commander for Iraq, Gen Ricardo Sanchez, should be asked what he knew about the abuse, she told BBC Radio 4's On The Ropes programme.
One soldier has been sentenced and six others are awaiting courts martial.
Gen Karpinski was in charge of the military police unit that ran Abu Ghraib and other jails when the abuses were committed. She has been suspended but not charged.
More details awaited
Photographs showing naked Iraqi detainees being humiliated and maltreated first started to surface in April, sparking shock and anger across the world.
Gen Karpinski said Military Intelligence took over part of the Abu Ghraib jail to "Gitmoize" their interrogations - make them more like what was happening in the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He said they are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them
General Karpinski
She said current Iraqi prisons chief Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller - who was in charge at Guantanamo Bay - visited her in Baghdad and said: "At Guantanamo Bay we learned that the prisoners have to earn every single thing that they have."
"He said they are like dogs and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them."
Gen Karpinski repeated that she knew nothing of the humiliation and torture of Iraq prisoners that was going on inside Abu Ghraib - she was made a scapegoat.
Top commander Ricardo Sanchez must be asked serious questions about what he knew about the abuse and when, she said.
A US general who has investigated the abuse has blamed the soldiers - and found no evidence "of a policy or a direct order given to these soldiers to conduct what they did".
But Gen Karpinski believes the soldiers had not taken the pictures of their own accord.
"I know that the MP [military police] unit that these soldiers belonged to hadn't been in Abu Ghraib long enough to be so confident that one night or early morning they were going to take detainees out of their cells, pile them up and photograph themselves in various positions with these detainees."
"How it happened or why those photographs came to the Criminal Investigation Division's attention in January I think will probably come out very clearly at each individual's court martial."
On The Ropes can be heard on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 15 June at 0900 and 2100 BST [20:00 GMT/UTC].
Source
This is the situation when strict adherence to laws may be harmful. The detainees possess information that may be crucial for preventing terror attacks and save lives of thousands of people that have no relation to the conflict (like those that perished in the WTC). There is no way to make them to cooperate with investigators using conventional interrogation techniques. They cannot be scared by the long-term imprisonment, since living conditions in the Western jails are tens times better than these they have being free people (at least, they have regular meals that include meat). Freedom? But the tribal rules of behavior restrict it much more than any of the Western penitentiary regulations. Even the death penalty is being performed in the Western world by relatively humane means that exclude excessive suffering of the perosn being executed. And at home such a person may be literally cut to pieces or have his throat cut if the tribal chief (sheik) considers that he behaves disrespectfully.
Therefore, any legally accepted punishments may be regarded by these people as a prize and not as penalty. There is only one way to coerce them to cooperate and to provide information, and it was employed in the detention facilities in Iraq, and allegedly, in Guantanamo.
BTW, I feel double standards in coverage. None of the global media has referred to treatment that the alleged assassins of the Chechen terror leader Yandarbiyev got in the Qatar prison. Their bodies bear signs of heavy physical impact, they were tortured by their interrogators. And I am almost sure that they did nothing, besides surveillance after Yandarbiyev. He was killed by the fellow Chechens on allegation that he has appropriated money belonging to the separatists. Qatar authorities know this, but they cannot either arrest real assassins or to avoid any action: this will make their country and themselves a target for Chechen terror attacks. So, they preferred to coerce Russian intelligence agents to confess in assassination... But qui licet Jovi, non licet bovi, what is permitted to the Arab regimes is being strictly condemned if performed by the U.S. or Israel.
steissd wrote:
BTW, I feel double standards in coverage. None of the global media has referred to treatment that the alleged assassins of the Chechen terror leader Yandarbiyev got in the Qatar prison. Their bodies bear signs of heavy physical impact, they were tortured by their interrogators. And I am almost sure that they did nothing, besides surveillance after Yandarbiyev. He was killed by the fellow Chechens on allegation that he has appropriated money belonging to the separatists. Qatar authorities know this, but they cannot either arrest real assassins or to avoid any action: this will make their country and themselves a target for Chechen terror attacks. So, they preferred to coerce Russian intelligence agents to confess in assassination... But qui licet Jovi, non licet bovi, what is permitted to the Arab regimes is being strictly condemned if performed by the U.S. or Israel.
Obviously, you know better and/or have better sources than e.g.:
Quote:Tuesday, March 16, 2004; Page A21
DOHA, Qatar -- The tough-guy tactics of Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime became clear here just over a month ago, when a team of Russian agents allegedly assassinated a former Chechen leader with a car bomb as he was returning home from Friday prayers at a mosque.
[...]
The two Russian officers are said to have confessed, and to have named several senior officers who sent them. The confessions apparently were obtained through clever interrogation, not strong-arm tactics. The explosives, it turned out, had been carried in a Russian diplomatic vehicle across the Saudi border about a month before the attack.
source:
Washington Post
Well, Russian intelligence used to practice assassinations abroad in 50-60-s but after defection of one of the officers (the one directly involved in assassination of the West Ukrainian Nazi collaborationist Stepan Bandera (that was granted political asylum in one of the European countries), I have forgotten surname of this officer) such practices were ceased.
Chechens had more reasons to kill Yandarbiyev than Russians had. After having appropriated money, Yandarbiyev gave up political activities and made accent on his private life, he became non-dangerous for Russia. From the other side, the fact of stealing money caused retaliation action from his former accomplices' side.
One more thing: if the explosives were smuggled by diplomats, the direct performers of the action should know nothing about ways of its transportation. Russian intellligence never permits low-rank agents to be well informed. But when the needles are being stuck under nails, people may invent details and make different statements their torturers want to hear.
So, you have different/better sources or just guess?
I have Russian sources, but I cannot quote them here, since these appear in Russian.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace