Evidence of US Soldiers Raping Women & Children
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The Bush administration was bracing itself last night for the release
of new pictures and video footage from Abu Ghraib which show US soldiers
having sex with an Iraqi woman prisoner, troops almost beating a prisoner to
death, and the rape of young boys by Iraqi guards at the jail.
Senior officials have warned that the new images and details of the
abuse and torture at the prison west of Baghdad will be even more shocking
than those already released. They will undoubtedly place even more pressure
on President George Bush and his beleaguered Defence Secretary, Donald
Rumsfeld, as they desperately try to limit the political damage from the
growing scandal.
NBC News has quoted military officials as saying that the new
photographsalso show US soldiers “acting inappropriately with a dead body”.
This may refer to a picture, which The Washington Post described but did not
publish, of Sabrina Harman, one of seven reservists charged with abuses,
posing with thumbs up next to a decaying corpse.
NBC also reported that the rape of young boys by Iraqi guards,
apparently in a special section of the prison, had been filmed by US
soldiers.
There are even suggestions that the murder of a prisoner has been
recorded. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina questioned
Mr Rumsfeld on Friday about why the abuse had not been detected earlier.
“The American public needs to understand we’re talking about rape and murder
here. We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience.”
The new images will further rock the Bush administration, suffering
its worst crisis yet after photographs showing US army reservists abusing
and sexually humiliating prisoners caused international revulsion and
outrage. But the knowledge that the abuse was much more widespread, and that
there are more shocking images to come, is threatening even more problems
for Mr Bush as he prepares to hand over sovereignty to an Iraqi government
on 30 June.
Further evidence emerged, meanwhile, that the abuse of prisoners by
military police reservists was ordered by military intelligence officers,
CIA operatives or even by privately hired civilian interrogators. Ms Harman
said they were told to break the prisoners down in preparation for
questioning.
“They would bring in one or several prisoners at a time already hooded
and cuffed. The job of the MP [military police] was to keep them awake, make
it hell so they would talk,” Ms Harman, 26, from northern Virginia, told The
Washington Post. “The person who brought them in would set the standards on
whether or not to ‘be nice’.”
A total of seven reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company
based in Cumberland, Maryland, have now been charged over the abuse,
including Lynndie England, 21, who was photographed with a prisoner on a
leash. Seven other soldiers have been reprimanded, and several relieved of
command.
Rumours of the existence of more pictures have been circulating in
Washington for days and were confirmed on Friday by Mr Rumsfeld, who said
they were “sadistic, cruel and inhuman”.
The investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who revealed the extent of
the abuse, warned earlier last week: “It’s going to get much worse. This
kind of stuff was much more widespread.
“There are videotapes of stuff that you wouldn’t want to mention on
national television … There were things done to young boys.”
US soldiers were last night accused of abusing children as young as 12
who were held as prisoners.
A former Iraqi inmate told ITV News he had seen the children beaten
and humiliated while US soldiers took pictures to use as computer
screensavers.
The atrocities allegedly took place in the Abu Grahib prison in Tikrit
where al-Jazeera journalist Suhaib Beder Al-Deen Al-Baz says he was
tortured.
He claimed he saw a naked girl of 12 beaten and a boy of 15 made to
run with cans of water and hit with a stick.
The boy’s father was also forced to wear a bra and a pair of knickers
while his captors laughed.
He told ITV: “I saw many cases of torturing. The Americans were
enjoying taking photos of it.”
More torture pictures:
http://www.fromallangles.com/iraq-war/files/torture-images.htm
http://www.thenausea.com/usa-iraq.html
http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/prison/abu-ghraib/