contributions

Behind the demands for Rumsfeld to resign: White House prepares a fallback position to continue Iraq atrocities
Patrick Martin, WSWS
7 May 2004 - The American media and Washington political circles have suddenly begun a discussion of whether Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should resign, taking responsibility for the savage mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by military police and US intelligence operatives.
The calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation emanating from the (…)

Jennifer Sym, PA News
May 7, 2004 - A fourth soldier has come forward claiming to have further evidence about British troops abusing Iraqi prisoners - including more allegations that "trophy photos" were taken.
The Daily Mirror newspaper will tomorrow carry a front page picture allegedly provided by a soldier from the troubled Queen’s Lancashire Regiment.
The picture allegedly shows a soldier photographing a bound captive with bloodied teeth in the back of an armoured personnel (…)

Cahal Milmo, The Independent
08 May 2004 - An Iraqi prisoner has described how he was allegedly subjected to vicious beatings by laughing British soldiers during interrogation sessions which left another man dead.
In a witness statement obtained by The Independent, Kifah Talah, 44, an engineer, claims he was hooded and beaten about the neck, chest and genitals by soldiers during three days before being made to dance in front of his tormentors.
The first witness account of torture at (…)

The road to Abu Ghraib began, in some ways, in 2002 at Guantánamo Bay. It was there that the Bush administration began building up a worldwide military detention system, deliberately located on bases outside American soil and sheltered from public visibility and judicial review. The administration shunned the scrutiny of independent rights monitors like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. It presumed that suspected agents of terrorism did not deserve normal legal protections, and (…)

ITV
Fri May 7 2004 - The US military has said it will investigate claims by a former inmate of Abu Ghraib prison that a girl as young as 12 was stripped and beaten by military personnel.
Suhaib al-Baz, a journalist for the al-Jazeera television network, claims to have been tortured at the prison, based west of Baghdad, while held there for 54 days.
Mr al-Baz was arrested when reporting clashes between insurgents and coalition forces in November.
He said: "They brought a 12-year-old (…)

Adam Tanner
ANTIOCH, California, Thu May 6, 2004 - Three U.S. military policemen who served at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison said on Thursday they had witnessed unreported cases of prisoner abuse and that the practice against Iraqis was commonplace.
"It is a common thing to abuse prisoners," said Sgt. Mike Sindar, 25, a National Guardsman with the 870th Military Police Company based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I saw beatings all the time.
"A lot of people had so much pent-up anger, (…)

Andrea Mitchell, NBC News
May 06, 2004 - As the investigation expands, officials tell NBC News that special operations forces, including both Delta Force and Navy SEALs, were possibly also involved in abusing prisoners in Iraq.
In fact, one prisoner, Mon Adel al Jamadi, died while being interrogated in Abu Ghraib by a CIA officer last November, shortly after being captured by Navy SEALs. Al Jamadi was being questioned about a plot to attack U.S. forces with plastic explosives.
An (…)

Iraqi families sue MoD over alleged killings
Richard Norton-Taylor, David Pallister and Steven Morris
The Red Cross last year expressed concern to British commanders about the treatment of prisoners held in southern Iraq, it was revealed yesterday.
The disclosure was made by Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross, after the Wall Street Journal published a leaked copy of a confidential report drawn up by the ICRC last year.
It (…)

The Associated Press
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS Associated Press Writer
GENEVA
The International Red Cross report on prison abuse that was given to the top American administrators in Iraq is a confidential document and was not intended to be given to the U.S. Congress, the organization’s chief spokeswoman said Friday.
"The report is strictly confidential and intended only for the authorities to which it is presented," Antonella Notari, chief spokeswoman of the International Committee of (…)

Ben Aris in Berlin
Seven of Germany’s 16 states were revealed to be hosting secret trials of genetically modified crops after environmental activists destroyed a field of corn in Saxony-Anhalt, in the east of the country.
Saxony-Anhalt, which, with Bavaria, is one of two states to admit funding GM crop trials, said five other states were holding trials in 29 secret locations.
Saxony-Anhalt’s economics minister, Horst Rehberger, said GM corn, which will be fed to cattle, was also being (…)