US troops 'condone torture'

The Pentagon has released a survey that paints a troubling picture of the mental health of its combat troops in Iraq.

It's the first time that the US military has taken a comphenesive look at both the mental effects of combat in Iraq and the ethics of its troops on the battlefield.

Fewer than half of Marines and a little more than half of Army soldiers said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian, according to the study.

More than 40 per cent supported the idea of torture in some cases and 10 per cent reported personally abusing Iraqi civilians, the Pentagon said today.

Units exposed to the most combat were chosen for the study, officials said.

"It is disappointing," said analyst John Pike of the Globalsecurity.org think tank.

Rumsfeld faces torture suit

An international group of lawyers will on Tuesday file a claim in Germany against outgoing US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his alleged role in sanctioning torture.

The suit is being brought on behalf of 11 former Iraqi detainees of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and one detainee of the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The complaint requests German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms to open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking US officials for authorising war crimes in the context of the war on terror.

Abu Ghraib officer pleads
21.8.2007

The only military officer accused in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal has pleaded not guilty to charges against him at the start of his court martial.

Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, 51, faces four charges including obstruction of justice and dereliction of duty stemming from the affair, which scandalised world opinion in 2004, a year after the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Jordan was officially responsible for the interrogation centre at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad and is accused of forcing Iraqi prisoners one night to strip naked, before threatening them with attack dogs.

It was not one of the incidents which were photographed and showed naked prisoners forced to form human pyramids or being led around on dog leashes by grinning US troops.

But the shocking images which spread around the world brought the abuse to light, and unleashed a wave of criticism against the United States for its degrading treatment of prisoners.

Jordan is charged with a failure to show leadership at the prison by failing to supervise the interrogations of Iraqi prisoners and leaving their US captors to their own devices.

He is also accused of discussing the scandal with other witnesses, even though he had been ordered not to communicate with them.

One charged dropped

Earlier, one of the major charges, that of lying to investigators by saying he had never witnessed any abuse at the jail, was dropped on a technicality.

The charge rested mainly on two depositions made by Jordan in early 2004 to General George Fay, who headed the investigation into the scandal.

But when General Fay re-read his notes, he realised he had forgotten to inform Jordan of his right to remain silent, an indispensable part of the US judicial process if the declarations are to be submitted to a court.

"As he prepared himself to testify this week, General Fay realised that he had not read Colonel Jordan his rights.

“He called a few days ago to inform us," prosecutor Colonel John Tracy told the hearing.

Colonel Tracy therefore asked for the charge to be dropped against Jordan, who now faces four other charges including obstruction of justice and failing in his duties.

Jordan now risks a total of 8.5 years in prison, the possible sentence having been cut in half without the lying charge.

’Not a referendum on Abu Ghraib’

The hearing started with the selection of the jury due to be made up of between five to 15 officers, all higher-ranking than the defendant.

The 19 possible jurors were all asked by Jordan's lawyer Captain Samuel Spitzberg if they could acknowledge that tribunal was "not a referendum on Abu Ghraib."

Only 11 soldiers have been convicted so far in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Most said they were simply obeying orders and received sentences ranging from a few hours of community work to 10 years behind bars.

Among the higher ranks, former general Janis Karpinski, prison commander in Iraq at the time of the scandal, was sanctioned with a demotion, but was never put on trial.

After shedding her uniform, Ms Karpinsky said in a book published in late 2005 that the Abu Ghraib abuses "were the result of conflicting orders and confused standards extending from the military commanders in Iraq all the way to the summit of civilian leadership in Washington."

US author Tara McKelvey, who wrote a book about Abu Ghraib, hopes the hearing will provide some answers as to why US soldiers felt compelled to hand out such humiliating treatment on their Iraqi prisoners.

SOURCE: AFP