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InvisibleAlex213
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Registered: 08/22/05
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Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam"
    #6114143 - 09/29/06 01:29 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

The republic of fear is born again. The state of terror now gripping Iraq is as bad as it was under Saddam Hussein. Torture in the country may even be worse than it was during his rule, the United Nation's special investigator on torture said yesterday.

"The situation as far as torture is concerned now in Iraq is totally out of hand," said Manfred Nowak. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it had been in the times of Saddam Hussein."

The report, from an even-handed senior UN official, is in sharp contrast with the hopes of George Bush and Tony Blair, when in 2003 they promised to bring democracy and respect for human rights to the people of Iraq. The brutal tortures committed in the prisons of the regime overthrown in 2003 are being emulated and surpassed in the detention centres of the present US- and British-backed Iraqi government. "Detainees' bodies show signs of beating using electric cables, wounds in different parts of their bodies including in the head and genitals, broken bones of legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns," the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq says in a new report.

The horrors of the torture chamber that led to Saddam Hussein's Iraq being labelled "The Republic of Fear", after the book of that title by Kanan Makiya, have again become commonplace. The bodies in Baghdad's morgue " often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances, missing skin, broken bones (back, hands and legs), missing eyes and wounds caused by power drills or nails", the UN report said. Those not killed by these abuses are shot in the head.

Human rights groups say torture is practised in prisons run by the US as well as those run by the Interior and Defence ministries and the numerous Sunni and Shia militias.

The pervasive use of torture is only one aspect of the utter breakdown of government across Iraq outside the three Kurdish provinces in the north. In July and August alone, 6,599 civilians were killed, the UN says.

Iraq is in a state of primal anarchy. Paradoxically, the final collapse of security this summer is masked from the outside world because the country is too dangerous for journalists to report what is happening. Some 134 journalists, mostly Iraqi, have been killed since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick09222006.html

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Alex213]
    #6114314 - 09/29/06 05:05 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

It is only worse because Bush leaves the victims alive to tell the tale while Saddam killed the victims when he was done. Dead men tell no tales, tortured or not.


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OfflineAldous
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Seuss]
    #6114333 - 09/29/06 05:31 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

Ah, all right then, sorry for mentioning it.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Aldous]
    #6114356 - 09/29/06 05:47 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

> Ah, all right then, sorry for mentioning it.

Eh? I know that sometimes I misread what you are saying, and make a fool of myself in return... but I think the shoe is on the other foot this time. I absolutely abhor the use of torture for any purpose at all. My statements above were meant to say that I see no real difference between Bush and Saddam, in Iraq, other than Saddam tended to kill the people when he got done torturing them rather than sending them back onto the battlefield the way Bush does.


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OfflineAldous
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Seuss]
    #6114365 - 09/29/06 06:00 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

OK, point taken. It's just that it seemed so neutral, like you implied that if Saddam tortured and killed, Bush sure was entitled to only torture without killing. My bad.

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InvisibleStroFun
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Registered: 07/11/06
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Aldous]
    #6114466 - 09/29/06 07:21 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

I'd like to go on the record to say that many news articles are showing that after the prisoners are tortured they are held in captivity for generally a long time. I believe read in an email that the heabus corpus right has been removed from prisoners, therefor i doubt there ever will be another POW that returns to the battle.

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: StroFun]
    #6114471 - 09/29/06 07:24 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

> many news articles are showing that after the prisoners are tortured they are held in captivity for generally a long time.

I don't know about the ones that are tortured, but in general, there has been a lot of disgust among the soldiers as they continue to catch the same people on the battlefield over and over and over only to have the politicians release them to fight some more.


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Offlinelonestar2004
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Alex213]
    #6114698 - 09/29/06 09:24 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Alex213 said:
The report, from an even-handed senior UN official....





The existence of the United Nations is becoming more Torture than I can bear.


--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"

We have "reckless fiscal policies"

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better

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InvisibleAlex213
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Seuss]
    #6115026 - 09/29/06 10:59 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
It is only worse because Bush leaves the victims alive to tell the tale while Saddam killed the victims when he was done. Dead men tell no tales, tortured or not.




I don't think so - according to the UN the torture is being found on bodies brought into the morgue.

Bodies found in the Baghdad morgue "often bear signs of severe torture", said the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq in a report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5368360.stm

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OfflineEconomist
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Re: Torture in Bush's Iraq "worse than under Saddam" [Re: Alex213]
    #6115718 - 09/29/06 02:06 PM (17 years, 7 months ago)

So, I think the counter-punch article is very slanted.

To get a better picture of the situation I suggest reading this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1878099,00.html

as well as the actual UNAMI report that gives the 6599 figure, available here:

http://www.uniraq.org/newsroom/articles.asp?pagename=pressreleases&category=P

(it's the 9/20/2006 report on human rights violations)

The conclusions are starkyl contrasting the counter-punch claims.

Infact, I'd question the counter-punch report on two specific points:

The first would be accuracy. They make it sound like the torture is taking place in US-run facilities, when that's just not the case. The guardian quotes Mr. Nowak as saying:

"It's not just torture by the government. There are much more brutal methods of torture you'll find by private militias." Which would suggest that the cases of extreme torture (cigarette burns, electrical burns, etc.) having nothing to do with the US at all. Furthermore, Mr. Nowak at no point blames any torture in Iraq on US or British forces, though the finger is clearly pointed at the Iraqi government itself.

The second point I'd question the report on is the suggestion that Mr. Nowak's report was at all even-handed. The Guardian points out that Mr. Nowak is a long standing critic of the US and has even gone so far as to suggest there is torture at Gitmo, despite a lack of evidence supporting this claim. Not what I would refer to as an "even-handed official" at all.

Furthermore, again quoting the Guardian:

"[Mr. Nowak] said a mission to Iraq to investigate torture was too dangerous, but he had gathered information from interviews with people in Amman, Jordan, and other sources."

I'd just like to remind everyone about the discrepancies in the UN reports on the situation in the Jenin refugee camp. During Israeli military operations, the UN couldn't get into the camp, but they questioned "sources" and issued a report of widespread massacre, thousands killed, etc. However, once they could get into the camp, and were able to see what actually happen, the nature of the report changed entirely, including the claims of "massacre". I'd be concerned about this happening again, especially since Mr. Nowak has admitted to wandering around Jordan asking questions about Iraq...

Nevertheless, this is obviously very concerning. I think we do need ot see major action on the part of the US military to try and make some serious changes.

It's time for upfront and open debate. The Bush administration needs to say "this is our new plan, this is why we think it will work" and be open to public comment. If similar debates could take place in Britain, that would also help. The time for "secret military operations" is over. We no longer have an organized enemy from whom we need to keep invasion plans secret. It's time for public discourse.

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