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REUTERS REPORTS 3 JOURNALISTS AMONG ABUSED IRAQIS
18 May 2004 The Reuters News Agency is reporting that 3 Iraqi journalists working for the agency were beaten and sexually abused when they were detained in January, while covering the story of a downed helicopter. The abuses occurred not at Abu Ghraib prison, but at the Volturno Forward Operating Base, near Fallujah. Reuters latest publication of the story is due to the fact that the Pentagon has not responded to requests for a review of an initial military report that found no torture had occurred (issued long before the Abu Ghraib photos had become public). It is not clear why the journalists were detained, and whether any intelligence or evidence of any kind was used to hold them. Nevertheless, they were allegedly told they would be shipped to Guantánamo Bay, reserved for high-level terrorism suspects. According to Reuters, an NBC staff member was held with the others and reported being hooded, being forced to perform strenuous physical acts, being denied sleep and being kicked and beaten. The report of 28 January, regarding a limited investigation into the allegations, appears to be based almost solely on testimony from the soldiers alleged to have committed the abuses. In a feat of hairsplitting, the report also admits that the journalists "were purposefully and carefully put under stress, to include sleep deprivation" but that the treatment did not constitute torture. Though the stress and sleep-deprivation aspects of the journalists' claims are in fact corroborated by the Army inquiry, there does not appear to have been an attempt to verify the more severe aspects of their allegations, nor is their a clear definition of "stress". [For more: Reuters]
GENERAL KARPINSKI ALLEGES TORTURE ORDERED FROM TOP Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski has told the press that she is being made a "convenient scapegoat" by compromised authorities. She alleged specifically that she was told, while in command at Abu Ghraib, that all prisoners should be treated like dogs. She says that Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, now in charge of Iraqi prisons, then in charge of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, told her that any hint that detainees were anything more than dogs would lead to breakdown of her authority. [Full Story] 400 WEAPONS INSPECTORS TO QUIT IRAQ Some 400 weapons experts and search specialists are to be leaving Iraq, though an inspection force does remain, including specialists in the disposal of chemical and biological agents. A Washington Post report noted that there was intelligence to indicate that Iraq may have destroyed its stockpiles as early as 1991. The New York Times also reported that a pattern of deceit within the weapons programs themselves may be responsible for inflated expectations on the part of outside observers... [For more: FT] |
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