Category Archives: Iraq Atrocities

As a parent of two boys, I cannot begin to tell you how horrible and disgusting I think it is that my government could act in this way:

GI: Boy mistreated to get dad to talk. [Link updated 6/11/04] A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers to break his father's resistance to interrogators.

The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.

Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.

…

Sgt. Samuel Provance, who maintained the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion's top-secret computer system at Abu Ghraib prison, gave the account of abuse of the teenager in a telephone interview from Germany, where he is now stationed. He said he also has described the incident to Army investigators.

Buck stops … where did you say?

The prison body count is increasing: Pentagon Records Show Five Brutal Interrogation Deaths. And the troops were routinely absuing people; even abusing reporters — how dumb and arrogant can you get? Interestingly, the reporter abuse claims got a complete white-wash. Meanwhile we read about cover ups … while the case for a policy and practice directed from the top just gets stronger every day. [Update: I forgot to link to the Army's apparent attempt to neuter Red Cross inspections]

People used to worry out loud about personal and national honor (while injustice and atrocitities went on around them). Are we just more honest now? Or is something valuable lost if we set our sights so low?

I complained yesterday that the Pentagon issued a non-denial denial about the New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh. Today we get a full-bodied denial: Pentagon: Hersh report 'journalist malpractice'.

Update: To ice the cake, the DoD changed the original press release.

In More on the Justice Department, the Pentagon, and the Supreme Court, Eric Muller is asking the right questions about whether the Justice Dept. misled the Supreme Court, either on purpose or (more likely) due to incompetence or manipulation.

Two months ago I would have been confident that of course no one in the SG's office would knowingly lie to the Supreme Court. I still think that's more likely than not. But when your government will torture people, everything has to be on the table.

The press, and most blogs, are playing this DoD News: Statement from DoD Spokesperson Mr. Lawrence Di Rita as a categorical denial of the latest Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker.

That's odd, because at least to a lawyer's eye it seems awfully cagey. Let's parse all five paragraphs of it to see if it's a real denial, or just a non-denial denial.

Update (5/17/04): DoD changed the original press release if you follow the link it will have additional text now. Plus they issued another denial

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