It was disgusting

[JoFerret]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/World/abu_ghraib_prisoner_040503-1.html

Freed prisoners recount horrors
....

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=46249

Day and night lost meaning shortly after Muwafaq Sami Abbas, a lawyer by training, arrived at Baghdad airport for an unexpected stay. In March, he was seized from his bed by US troops, he said, along with the rest of the men in his house, and taken to a prison on the airport grounds.

The black sack on his head was removed only briefly during the next nine days of interrogation, conducted by US officials. He was forced to do knee bends until he collapsed, he recalled, and black marks still ring his wrists from the pinch of plastic handcuffs.

Rest was made impossible by loudspeakers blaring, the Beastie Boys’ rap anthem . The forced exercise was even harder for his 57-year-old father, a former Army general who held a signed certificate from the US occupation authority vouching for his ‘‘high level of cooperation and assistance’’ in the days after the war. Father and son are now free but Abbas’ three brothers are still inside Abu Ghraib prison, he said.




‘‘The savagery the Americans have practiced against the Iraqis, well, now we have seen it, touched it and felt it,’’ Abbas said. ‘‘These types of actions will grow more hostile forces against the coalition, and this is the reason for the resistance.’’ The photographs of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners have reinforced the long-held view here that the US occupation is intent on humiliating the Iraqi people.

Former prisoners say lengthy interrogation sessions, employing sleep deprivation, severe isolation, fear and humiliation, and physical duress, were regular features of their daily regimen and remain so for the estimated 2,500 to 7,000 people inside the jails. The system comprises 16 prisons, four of which hold prisoners accused of being part of the anti-occupation insurgency. But there are countless other holding cells on US bases, many once used by former president Saddam Hussein’s government, where young Iraqis spend their first fearful hours in captivity. ‘‘We have to get to the bottom of it,’’ coalition spokesman Daniel Senor said on CNN’s Late Edition.

Abdullah Mohammed Abdulrazzaq, 19, was held for six months in several prisons around Iraq. ‘‘How can we not hate the Americans after the treatment we have received,’’ he said.

<more>

[Dookus]

1. please...

post at least the lead paragraph or two (up to four) so we have some idea what the article's about. Thanks!

[yardwork]

2. This is awful.

The American-run prison is now considered by many to be as notorious as it was when it was known as "Saddam's Torture Central."

"They have treated us worse than the pictures shown on TV," said former prisoner Ala al-Duleimi. "They beat us, humiliated us. I can't repeat what they did to us."

.....

On Tuesday, another group of prisoners will be released from Abu Ghraib. No one doubts lots of people will want to hear their stories.

[natrat]

5. how could they be so lax

nothing like brunning a tight ship ...idiots

[Tellurian]

3. This is like a scene out of a movie...

Bush has high tailed it out on a Bus Trip..

Not Good..Something is definately out of kilter!

[bobbieinok]

6. 'veddy interesting' - W on bus; unavailable for comment

[Tellurian]

8. Yup, looks like it might be Bunker Time...

I'll bet you there's going to be some catastropic event serving as a distraction. Could be the prelude to Martial law or worse?

Bush is going to ground...stay tuned over the next several days and see if Cheney drops out too!

[yardwork]

4. Rubber bullets and psychological torture....

Shakir said US interrogators used his relationship with his brother to try and extract a confession. On three occasions following extended sessions, he said, they were taken to the desert. There, he said, they were buried up to their necks in the sand. ‘‘I couldn’t see my brother,’’ he said.

‘‘Then I heard shots fired. They came back and told me my brother was dead.’’ But his brother had not been killed, and the interrogators sometimes fired near his head to frighten him. The only time he was shot, Shakir said, was by rubber bullets used by guards if prisoners were outside the tent after 9 pm, even to use the bathroom. He has two dark, dime-size scars on his right bicep.

[not systems]

7. An international legal inquiry should be called for...

all prisoners should be interviewed by international
human rights workers.

Evidence should be collected by non US parties.

[snippy]

9. The Bush torture chambers and the Bush rape rooms aren't being

welcomed with floral program related activities? Has God told Bush about this yet?

[JoFerret]

10. At least he won't be able to roll out that

......trite irrelevant mantra any more.
Seymour Hersch was excellent on the Lehrer NewsHour tonight.