Friday, May 07, 2004

International Red Cross contradicts U.S. claims that the Abu Ghraib incidents were isolated and Karpinski's claims that she knew nothing

The international Red Cross said Friday that the abuse it found in Iraq's U.S.-run prisons was systematic and amounted to torture. It added that it had first raised concerns with the United States more than a year ago.

"The elements we found were tantamount to torture," said the director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Pierre Kraehenbuehl. "There were clearly incidents of degrading and inhuman treatment.

"...It is clear that our findings do not allow [us] to conclude that what we were dealing with here in the case of Abu Ghraib was isolated acts of individual members of the coalition forces", he said. "What we have described amounts to a pattern, a broad system."

The Wall Street Journal said that the report, which was submitted to the American government in February, detailed mistreatment at prisons other than Abu Ghraib, where pictures published this week in the American news media were taken.

Kraehenbuehl said that Red Cross officials had discussed their findings with L. Paul Bremer 3rd, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the head of U.S. forces there, on Feb. 26. But elements of the report were raised far earlier, the Red Cross said

"Findings that are contained in this particular report were previously discussed at different levels of the coalition forces at different moments between March and November of 2003," a Red Cross official said.

...Coalition forces also fired on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers, killing some of them, the newspaper said. In another incident, nine men were arrested in Basra and beaten severely, leading to one death.

...Kraehenbuehl said some of the earlier discussions with U.S. officials were with Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, the unit in charge of Abu Ghraib prison. Karpinski has said since returning to the United States that she knew nothing of the abuses. She said that American military intelligence actually controlled the facility where interrogations took place.

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