CPTnet
May 4, 2004
IRAQ: The Iraqi prisoner photos--patterns of abuse and responsibility
by Sheila Provencher
[Note: the following was condensed from a 1600-word article. People wishing
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By now, most of you have seen the horrifying pictures of Iraqi prisoners
being abused and ridiculed by U.S. and British soldiers. Looking at these
pictures, most Americans ask "How could young American men and women do such
horrible things?" The gut response is "It must be an aberration. A few bad
people."
However, the sheer number of allegations of mistreatment, many of which I
have heard personally, suggests that the problem is not just a matter of a
few "bad people."
CPT has been documenting abuses within the detention system for nearly a
year, and these photos, tragically, were not a surprise to me. For months
now, we have communicated grave concerns about the detention system in
several meetings with U.S. military and Coalition Provisional Authority
(CPA) officials in Iraq, and with representatives in Congress.
Does this mean that most soldiers are sadistic abusers, whose crimes equal
those of Saddam? Of course not. Every case I heard about abuse also
included testimony about good and honorable soldiers. Dr. Ali, a professor
at Baghdad University, was held without charges for thirty-eight days last
winter. Before taking him to prison, soldiers kept him in the Green Zone in
a cage meant for animals, under the open sky, for three days and nights.
But when he was at the airport prison, his guard befriended him and said, "I
hope you will be freed." X, an elderly man from Baquba, was taken in a
house raid last August and held for four months. He described numerous
abuses: soldiers threatened him with attack dogs, made him stand for hours
in the sun with water bottles a tantalizing distance away, and forced him to
sleep on the bare ground. But he also told of a soldier who finally asked,
"What crazy person imprisoned this old man?" One female officer at Bucca
prison camp in Um Qasr showed great compassion when CPT members talked with
her about their concerns for prisoners held without charge. This officer
personally intervened on behalf of an innocent prisoner who tried to commit
suicide because of his despair.
However, most of the abuse we have documented-- for which no soldiers will
ever be court-martialed--is perpetrated by GOOD young men and women. These
soldiers have somehow become dehumanized enough by training, combat stress,
and neglect, to deprive people of food, water and toilet facilities, to beat
them and humiliate them. We need to ask, "How did this happen?"
I see several sources for the patterns of abuse. First, consider the
incredible stress of warfare. Soldiers are constantly under attack by
armed groups and this stress leads too many soldiers to express their anger,
fear, and frustration with abusive behavior.
The military ideology that separates the world into "good guys" and "bad
guys" (I constantly hear this language) sees all security detainees as
potential "bad guys." If a soldier who has watched his or her friends die
and must take out his or her anger on someone, it is all too easy to abuse
the closest "bad guy" although that "bad guy" might very well be a
fifteen-year-old boy scooped up in a house raid because his uncle was a
suspected Baathist.
Finally, the military's hierarchical structure encourages fierce loyalty and
deference to superiors. During an interview with 60 Minutes II, one of the
soldiers charged with abuse at Abu Ghraib said that higher officers
encouraged his abusive methods of interrogation.
Many Iraqis ARE guilty of terrible violence. One only has to watch the
daily news to hear of regular, lethal attacks on young soldiers. But by
their own admission, military officials have chosen to cast a wide net when
hunting for insurgents. A CPA official said to a CPT colleague: "There are
thousands of Iraqis in prison who should be at home right now." In order to
capture one suspect, the Coalition forces arrest all of the male members of
a household, during chaotic midnight raids that terrify entire families and
sometimes end in the injury or death of women and children.
And the devastation to Iraqis is only part of the suffering. What about the
psychological and spiritual devastation to the soldiers who witness and
perpetrate acts of violence upon Iraqi detainees?
The number of soldiers who are becoming dehumanized by a system based on
violent force is not negligible. We are all responsible for them. We are
all responsible for these actions. And so we must all be part of the
healing.
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