US Abu-Gharaib Torture Coverup
Posted by USHOSTAGE1 at 10/11/2007 12:27 PM 
Categories: MI6,Lawyer,FBI,ATTORNEY,Pentagon,centcom,DUI,AIPAC,San Diego Police
Categories: MI6,Lawyer,FBI,ATTORNEY,Pentagon,centcom,DUI,AIPAC,San Diego Police
| This time people aren't taking pictures! Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:36:23 Daryoush Bavar, Press TV, Tehran | |
Instead, he was found guilty of breaking an order to keep silent about the abuse investigation. But prosecutors simply reprimanded him, sparing him a prison term. The torture and abuse case at the US army-run prison came to light with the release of shocking pictures of American soldiers treating detainees in painful and humiliating positions at the prison. The pictures of the scandal shocked the entire world. They showed Iraqi prisoners being tortured, sexually assaulted and humiliated by their American jailers . The court ruling left the burden of guilt for the tortures to fall on only 11 low-ranking soldiers some of whom appeared in infamous photos. Now, over three years since the photographs were first published, the only US officer who was likely to be held accountable for the case has been let off simply with a reprimand. Despite the lack of convictions among the senior ranks, serious questions linger as to their role in the abusive interrogations and whether they were part of a wider policy of condoning or encouraging torture and abuse. The suspicion becomes more vivid in the light of revelations of similar interrogation techniques at another notorious US-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The New York Times wrote in a recent editorial that the verdict had swept the Abu Ghraib scandal under the carpet. "The verdict was a remix of the denial of reality and avoidance of accountability that the government has used all along to avoid the bitter truth behind Abu Ghraib: The abuse grew out of President Bush's decision to ignore the Geneva Conventions and American law in handling prisoners after Sept. 11, 2001." And Hina Shamsi, deputy director of Human Rights First in New York, has spoken of an "accountability gap" which remained between the convicted low-ranking soldiers and senior military and government officials who sanctioned the harsh interrogation techniques. "None of the cases brought to date has given the systemic accounting of what happened, why and how far up the chain of command responsibility lies," Shamsi believes. Such comments suggest the trend of using torture at the US-run prisons goes all the way to the top in the chain of command indicating that higher ranking US defense and intelligence officials authorized or at least were aware of and simply condoned the techniques used on prisoners. Senior US officials have been saying the abuses were not systemic suggesting they were the disconnected acts committed by a small number of rogue soldiers. Some analysts, however, believe prisoner abuse grew out of President Bush's decision to ignore the Geneva Conventions in handling prisoners after Sept. 11, 2001. And many tend to share the idea raised by American writer Tara McKelvey, the author of the book 'Monstering: Inside Americas Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War' who believes the abuses were widespread and systemic and what happened in Abu Ghraib was only the tip of the iceberg in the US 'ghost prisons'. "It's true you can say the scandal exists because of the photographs, but what you saw on the pictures was really only a fraction of the abuse that was taking place. And certainly not the worst of it." Before the announcement of Jordan's acquittal, Sam Provance, who was an Army intelligence analyst at the Abu Ghraib prison, had predicted "No US Army officer or defense official is likely to be held accountable for the torture, "ghost" prisoners, and other abuses at Abu Ghraib." Provance has good reasons for his skepticism that justice would be done. "Since my own attempts to stop the torture and identify those responsible were repeatedly rebuffed." But the skepticism about White House's sincerity that the tortures were an isolated act carried out by a small number of unruly soliders in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo is very deep-seated. The mistrust is best reflected in the words of Tara McKelvey that "I think the sad truth is that these things are still taking place but the difference between now and April-May 2004 is that people aren't taking pictures." |
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