Iraqi prisoners held by coalition forces were subjected to treatment so bad that it was “tantamount to torture,” according to a report outlined yesterday by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The abuse was so widespread, the report said, that it may have been condoned by U.S.-led forces.
Breaking its usual vow of silence, the Geneva-based humanitarian organization said visits to coalition detention centers in Iraq, carried out between March and November 2003, had shown infringements of international treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war.
The worst abuses occurred at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison – once the notorious gulag where Saddam Hussein tortured his victims, but more recently the scene of the sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by their grinning American jailers.
“Our findings do not allow us to conclude that what we were dealing with at Abu Ghraib were isolated acts of individual members of coalition forces,” said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of ICRC operations, at a news conference in Geneva to outline the report’s findings.
“What we have observed are situations from a human point of view that are degrading in treatment and in some incidents tantamount to torture,” he said.
Excerpts from the report had previously been leaked to the Wall Street Journal. The paper quoted the report as saying that abuse by coalition forces “went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered a practice tolerated.”
The excerpts cited “handcuff[s] so tight that they caused skin lesions and nerve damage; beating with pistols and rifles; threats of reprisals against family members; and stripping detainees naked for several days in solitary confinement in a completely dark cell.” WithPost Wire Services