Images depicting the torture of Iraqi detainees are just one aspect of the occupation forces' daily war crimes. Amira Howeidy monitors Western 'democracy' on the ground Photographs of US military personnel torturing and sexually abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, south of Baghdad, have been scrutinised by millions across the world as they filled TV screens and newspapers. These pictures of American soldiers gloating at the sight of hooded and naked Iraqi male prisoners constitute a complete violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The 1949 Geneva Convention relating to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, to which the occupation forces in Iraq are party, clearly prohibits in Article 3 "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture" and "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment". Human rights groups were keen to remind the United States of these provisions following CBS's release of the photos on 28 March. Apparently "some" members of the 800th Military Police Brigade involved in Abu Ghraib pictures "did not see a copy of the Geneva Convention rules for handling prisoners of war" until after they were charged for abuse last month. In other words, these American soldiers didn�t know that torture of Iraqi prisoners -- that also involved sodomy, electrocution, forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time and placing a dog chain around a naked detainee's neck among other creative American torture methods -- is a serious breach of international law. A similar story of British human rights abuses followed the Abu Ghraib scandal. Now, both stories are snowballing by the day. Suddenly, human rights violations, abuses, breaches of international humanitarian law (IHL) by the occupation forces -- mainly by the US and British military -- have caught the attention of Western media and politicians. As heavy criticism mounted on the Bush administration from the US and the Arab world for its lukewarm reaction to the serious violations committed by the American army in Iraq, the US announced on Tuesday night that it had launched investigations into the deaths of 23 detainees and the murder of two others. A US military official said that seven senior officers have received reprimands following investigations. They are not accused of committing any abuse. Six other soldiers face criminal charges in connection with committing abuses. The situation was equally bad for the British government which admitted that 33 cases of civilian deaths, injuries or ill- treatment in its custody have been looked into. The announcement came in the aftermath of the Daily Mirror 's publishing last week of pictures it said showed a British officer abusing a young Iraqi prisoner who was accused of theft. The paper said two British soldiers had handed over the pictures and offered information on the abuses that one of these soldiers had been involved in. Despite efforts by military experts to contest the authenticity of these pictures, the tabloid paper refused to reveal the identities of the soldiers in order to protect them. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press on Wednesday, US President George W Bush was due to give two interviews to the US-funded Al-Hurra TV station and the Saudi-funded, Dubai-based Al- Arabiya News station, in a bid to improve his country's image in the Arab world. But sentiments here are unsurprisingly hostile. America's "image" and "credibility" -- if editorials and commentaries are a viewed as reflective of public feeling -- is shattered and gone. Despite US and British official statements asserting that the reported incidents do not represent Western values or "what we stand for" but rather are the actions of a "handful", the gravity of the human rights situation in Iraq says otherwise. On Tuesday, Senator Edward Kennedy emerged from a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee saying he believed the allegations made public were only "the beginning rather than the end" of the abuse accusations. "This does not appear to be an isolated incident," he said. This is not news. Throughout the past year, international human rights groups have been issuing reports based on testimonies of former Iraqi prisoners or their relatives consistently testifying to human rights violations and wanton killings of civilians. "Our extensive research in Iraq suggests that this is not an isolated incident. It is not enough for the USA to react only once images have hit the television screens," Amnesty International said this week. The human rights organisation "has received frequent reports of torture or other ill-treatment by coalition forces during the past year. Detainees have reported being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during arrest and detention. Many have told Amnesty International that they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods often reported include prolonged sleep deprivation; beatings; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding; and exposure to bright lights." Virtually none of the allegations of torture or ill-treatment have been adequately investigated by the authorities, it said. Commenting on the pictures, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that there are indications that the Abu Ghraib abuses were ordered from higher-ranking US military officers. "The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselves, snapping photographs and flashing the 'thumbs-up' sign as they abused prisoners, suggests they felt they had nothing to hide from their superiors," said HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth. "Their superiors should be closely scrutinised to see whether they created an atmosphere of impunity that fostered this abuse." On 3 May, HRW released a public letter addressed to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice stipulating nine demands. They included the launch of an investigation into interrogation practices wherever detainees are held around the world and to make the results public. More importantly the letter addressed the controversial role of private contractors who, according to the surfacing testimonies, were hired by the Central Intelligence Agency or the US army, to fill some security roles in Abu Ghraib. The Bush administration, it said, should ensure that contractors working for the US operate "under a clear legal regime so that they can be [held] criminally responsible for complicity in illegal acts". The letter demanded making public information about who is detained by occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and videotape all interrogations and interaction with detainees. "The US should not be operating [in] undisclosed detention facilities to which no independent monitors have no access." But such demands and others made by rights groups appear to be falling on deaf ears. In an attempt to improve prison conditions in Abu Ghraib, all the US could do was announce plans to reduce by half the number of detainees held at the prison which it says amounts to 7,000 prisoners. Major General Geoffrey Miller was quoted as saying that he had ordered military intelligence officers to stop putting hoods over detainees' heads as an interrogation tactic. However, rights activists find glaring hypocrisy in this stand, arguing that the breaches of international law by the occupation forces are "systematic and institutionalised". According to Alaa Shalabi, a spokesperson for the Arab Organisation for Human Rights who was part of a fact-finding committee that visited Iraq last month, "Torture, which is deliberately racist in nature, is the policy of the occupation forces in dealing with the Iraqis with the aim of humiliating them," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. The delegation's request to visit Abu Ghraib was turned down by the occupation forces, but Shalabi painted a very grim picture of the human rights situation based on interviews with former prisoners and relatives of imprisoned or killed Iraqis. He contested the accuracy of the figures released by the occupation forces. "The prison easily has 40,000 to 50,000 prisoners that are crammed in subhuman conditions in four wards. This figure includes some 10,000 prisoners who are held in an open air field inside the prison without shelter. Based on the testimonies of former prisoners, only one out of the four wards is for criminal prisoners while the other three are for those held for security purposes," he said. "Security prisoners should have prisoner of war status under the Geneva Convention," Shalabi explained. "But of course this is not happening and this constitutes only part of a larger scale of IHL breaches committed by the occupation forces." According to IHL, state parties to the Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute who violate international law should be persecuted up to the highest chain of command, explained Shalabi. "This translates to persecuting Bush and Blair," he said with a cynical chuckle, "which of course is not realistic." The situation in the Krober detention camp in Baghdad airport which is reserved for high-ranking officials of the former Iraqi regime is equally bad, he said. "We are not surprised by the Abu Ghraib pictures," commented Shalabi. "Reality is much worse and what the media is debating now is only a sliver of what's going on in Iraq."
