contributions

"My first reaction was, ’Wow, there [are] a lot of nude people here’... I, myself, have never been in a prison... So I had no experience at all as far as a warden or that type of thing."
Army Captain Donald J. Reese, a reservist and salesman in civilian life, installed in October 2003 as warden of the hard site at Abu Ghraib
The most comprehensive view yet of what went wrong at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, based on a review of all 106 classified annexes to the report of Major General (…)

by David DeBatto
A U.S. Army counterintelligence agent who accused fellow National Guardsmen of abusing Iraqi detainees says that his own commander coerced an Army psychiatrist into diagnosing him as "delusional." According to Sergeant Greg Ford, his commanding officer confronted psychiatrist Angelina Madera, a captain with the 30th Medical Support Element, after she had initially assessed Ford to be mentally stable.
Sgt. Ford says Captain Victor Artiga, the commander of the 223rd (…)

U.S. soldier Lynndie England, one of seven military police officers implicated in the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, was accused yesterday of indecent acts with another soldier and indecent exposure.
The new charges came four days before she’s due to appear at a preliminary court hearing at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Sources said the five modified counts stem from activity seen on numerous digital photographs seized during the abuse probe. An Army official said none of the (…)

An influential member of Kuwait’s ruling family and former minister yesterday expressed concern the United States may coerce the emirate into making territorial concessions to Iraq as part of a new regional order.
"I am afraid that Iraq’s new order may be arranged at our expense. The Americans may impose it on us," former Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Nasser Al-Sabah told Al-Seyassah daily in an interview.
"I am afraid that someone may come tomorrow to say that the issue of Umm Qasr (port) (…)

A former Army reservist who returned to civilian life in December, only to be recalled five months later, filed a lawsuit Thursday to avoid duty in Iraq.
Todd Parrish, 30, served four years of active duty and another four years in the reserves, a commitment he believed expired Dec. 19. The Army maintains he will be in a voluntary reserve status until he’s 50.
The Army says Parrish never formally resigned his commission as a lieutenant, making him eligible for involuntary recall to duty. (…)

In a grim milestone, the number of deaths in the American-led coalition in Iraq surpassed 1,000 this week.
The latest reported deaths include a U.S. soldier who died from wounds in fighting Thursday in Baghdad, an American soldier killed in a Samarra attack Wednesday and another who died in a nonbattle-related incident Thursday.
The deaths bring multinational fatalities — both in combat and "nonhostile" situations — to 1,002 since the start of the war in March 2003. U.S. military deaths (…)

By Stephen C. Pelletiere The New York Times, Jan. 31, 2003
MECHANICSBURG, Pa. - It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq’s weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."
The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons (…)

by Jon Elmer
Further evidence of the presence of Israeli operatives in Iraq arose this weekend when the general formerly in charge of the US-run Iraqi prison system, herself considered partly responsible for torture at Abu Ghraib and other prisons under her command, told the BBC that she met an Israeli interrogator working in a US-run "intelligence center" in Baghdad. Brigadier General Janet Karpinski told BBC Radio in an interview on Saturday that she met with a man who claimed to be (…)

Two US soldiers pleading for asylum in Canada after walking out on their units over fierce objections to the Iraq war have appeared in a Toronto courtroom.
Jeremy Hinzman, 25, attended a technical pre-hearing at Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) in Toronto on Wednesday, supported by another fugitive American soldier Brandon Hughey.
The IRB set a refugee status hearing for 20, 21 and 22 October for Hinzman, said board spokesman Charles Hawkins.
No court date has yet been set (…)

By Omar al-Faris JUS
Details surrounding the downing of two American helicopters in Iraq early this week are now in and tell a totally different story than published by mainstream press.
The "official" US version of the story went like this. Earlier on Monday, the US military claimed that Iraqi Resistance fighters had attacked a US military medevac helicopter with automatic weapons and launched rocket-propelled grenades on Monday. The pilot and co-pilot of the aircraft were wounded in (…)