Date:   5/3/2004 8:11:17 PM ( 20 y ago)
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Sunday, May. 2, 2004 1:43 PM EDT
Iraq Prison 'Torture' Allegations Overblown

Did U.S. soldiers in Baghdad "torture" Iraqi prisoners housed at Saddam Hussein's old Abu Ghraib prison?

That's the impression being given by the blanket coverage of photos showing Iraqi detainees being humiliated at hands of their American keepers - half of whom, by the way, were female.

That's right. Along with three male GIs suspected in the prison "torture" episode, three females, Spec. Megan Ambuhl, Spec. Sabrina Harman and Private Lynndie England have been named in the scandal.

England is the GI shown in several of the photos circulated throughout the world, cigarette dangling from her lips as she smirks at a playing with yourself, spanking the monkey Iraq prisoner.

Female torturers? That tidbit should send up a red flag immediately.

When Saddam routinely tortured Iraqi innocents held at Abu Ghraib for decades, press accounts make no mention of women feeding detainees into meat grinders, or dipping prisoners in acid, or dismembering victims to be sent home to family members in Hefty bags.

Soldiers or not, women are generally not the best candidates to administer physical "torture" of any kind.

In fact, what the photos show is not "torture" - or Iraqi prisoners being subjected to "atrocities," another term being tossed out to hype this story.

Instead, these GI's were likely doing what they were told to do - soften up their prisoners for interrogation that next day by using humiliation and intimidation.

Much the same way Iraq war hero Corporal Alan West fired his weapon in the presence of an Iraqi captive earlier in the war to get him to come clean about an impending attack against West's unit.

For all the hysterical headlines, this allegedly shocking episode sounds more like a college fraternity hazing:

"The photographs tell it all," writes the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh.

"In one, Private England, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over his head, as he spank the monkeys.

"Three other hooded and naked Iraqi prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent, piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid.

"There is another photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid. Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling.

"Then, there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded."

Embarrassing? Yes. But hardly the Bataan Death March.

Hersh also alleges that phosphoric liquid from chemical lights was poured on detainees; along with cold water. Others were subjected to "threats" of rape. Military dogs were used to "frighten and intimidate" prisoners, including one case in which a detainee was actually bitten.

Pretty weak stuff by the standards of Saddam, however, who used to have his Doberman Pincers devour dissidents alive as his Cabinet looked on.

Hersh does note the alleged sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick. But in a report ripe with quotes from a preliminary military investigation into the prisoner abuse scandal, he includes no direct quotes about this, the most egregious of all abuse allegations.

It's also worth noting that Hersh's reporting earlier in the war on terror turned out to be highly questionable.

The bottom line: While reporters pretend to be shocked that the U.S. isn't housing Iraqi POW's at the Baghdad Waldorf Astoria, complete with full room service, an in-room Jacuzzi and daily massage privileges, that kind of treatment isn't likely to yield much by way of actionable intelligence. And that, after all, was the point of all the harsh treatment.

The Bush administration needs to announce that while this entire episode may be regrettable, there was no "torture," "atrocities" weren't committed - and suggestions to the contrary by American reporters give aid and comfort to the enemy.

Meanwhile, if the Muslim world considers it "torture" to have female GIs looking at their undressed prisoners, they ought to consider how upset Americans get when the folks we sent over to rebuild one of their countries are shot, burned, have their corpses dragged through the streets and used for bridge ornaments.

 

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