As the days go by, we are hearing more and more about appalling human rights abuses by coalition troops in Iraq, both American and British. (Whether the Mirror pictures are genuine or not is pretty much irrelevant, so far as I'm concerned. The pictures themselves may well be fakes, but abuse certainly took place.)
Now, clearly, there is no excuse for the perpretrators of this kind of thing. They should feel at least partly responsible for the killing of Nick Berg. Nevertheless, I think it's important to establish whether this abuse is just the result of a rogue element being poorly managed as General Taguba claims, or whether it was encouraged from the top.
I suspect the latter. The US turned its back on the Geneva Convention some time ago, as their treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay shows. And Geoffrey Miller, the man who ran Guantanamo, now runs Abu Ghraib prison.
Update: Only following orders - I've heard that before. Probably true, but no defence.
Posted to The Big Room by Simon Brunning at May 12, 2004 12:53 PMI think that it was probably encouraged from somewhere in the middle, or at least tolerated, but we've seen the problem of guards abusing prisoners time and time again in prisons, not just in Iraq. Part of what allows guards to get away with abuse is the fact that they have a captive population with limited access to any advocacy. The layer of military secrecy surrounding the Iraqi prisoners only exacerbates the problem. Prisons need to be transparent, prisoners need access to advocates who can bring charges against guards, guards need to be held accountable for their abuse, and wardnes need to be held accountable for patterns of abuse.
It's hard to believe that it's not from the top. And it's a sad, sick world when prisoners are clearly being terrified by their captors, whose leaders trot out cliches about fight a "war on terror".
Posted by: Keith Pitty on May 13, 2004 02:18 AM