WASHINGTON – Two soldiers and an officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division have told a human rights organization of systemic detainee abuse and human rights violations at U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, recounting beatings, forced physical exertion and psychological torture of prisoners, the group said.
A 30-page report by Human Rights Watch describes an Army captain’s 17-month effort to gain clear understanding of how U.S. soldiers were supposed to treat detainees, and depicts his frustration with what he saw as widespread abuse that the military’s leadership failed to address. The Army officer made clear that he believes low-ranking soldiers have been held responsible for abuses to cover for officers who condoned it.
The report does not identify the two sergeants and a captain who gave the accounts, although one of them, Capt. Ian Fishback, has presented some of his allegations in a letter to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Their statements included vivid allegations of violence against detainees held at Forward Operating Base Mercury, outside Fallujah, shortly before the notorious abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison began. The soldiers described incidents similar to those reported in other parts of Iraq – such as putting detainees in stress positions, exercising them to the point of total exhaustion, and sleep deprivation.
They also detailed regular attacks that left detainees with broken bones – including once when a detainee was hit with a metal bat – and said that detainees were sometimes piled into pyramids, a tactic seen in photographs taken later at Abu Ghraib.
“Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid,” an unidentified sergeant who worked at the base from August 2003 to April 2004 told Human Rights Watch. “This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement.”
And like soldiers accused at Abu Ghraib, these troops claimed military intelligence interrogators encouraged their actions, telling them to make sure the detainees did not sleep or were physically exhausted so as to get them to talk.
Army and Pentagon officials said on Friday they are investigating the allegations as criminal cases and that they learned of the incidents just weeks ago when the Fort Bragg captain’s concerns surfaced.
Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman, severely criticized the report and emphasized that the military has taken incidents of detainee abuse extremely seriously since the Abu Ghraib scandal, changing policies and procedures to prevent such mistreatment.
“This is another predictable report by an organization trying to advance an agenda through the use of distortions and errors in fact,” Skinner said. “It’s a shame they refuse to convey how seriously the military has investigated all known credible allegations of detainee abuse and how we’ve looked at all aspects of detention operations under a microscope. … Humane treatment has always been the standard no matter how much certain organizations want people to believe otherwise.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
