Iraq: Torture is no Aberration
Praful Bidwai
HiPakistan, 18 May 2004
The depravity shown by Iraq’s occupation forces in inflicting nauseating forms of sexual torture upon prisoners in Abu Ghraib jail has shocked the world. As if the stories of detainees being kept in 3 feet X 3 feet cells without water or toilets and pictures of "pyramids" of naked men and women weren’t repulsive enough, even more sickening disclosures have come in, including pictures of US soldiers setting German shepherd dogs upon a terrified naked Iraqi, causing deep wounds.
Equally degrading is the picture of a crawling, naked prisoner tied to a leash, being dragged by a female soldier. Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld himself says "more terrible" disclosures may follow.
It’s becoming apparent that the sexual abuse was not the work of mavericks acting on their own. Nor were such practices confined to Abu Ghraib. By all accounts, US troops have routinely been torturing Iraqi prisoners. It won’t do to blame this upon "a few bad apples".
The torturers weren’t exactly "bad apples" or "rogues". Rather, they were acting under orders from US military intelligence to "break down" prisoners and extract information. The authorisation, disclose "The New Yorker" and "The Washington Post", was similar to the sanction granted in April last year for coercive interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay, including reversing the detainees’ normal sleep patterns and exposing them to heat, cold and "sensory assault". The classified list of about 20 such techniques was approved at the highest levels.
Clinching evidence that the Pentagon was aware of the torture and yet refused to act comes from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which can scarcely be accused of an anti-US bias. The ICRC made 29 visits to 14 detention centres in March-October 2003. Its evidence of abuse "went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered a practice tolerated by" US forces. The ICRC "repeatedly requested the US authorities to take corrective action". This went unheeded for nine months.
The US’s failure to act has damaged Washington’s credibility irreversibly - globally, not just in the "Arab world" or "Muslim world", as the Western media often emphasises. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld has apologised and owned up "responsibility" for the torture. From Washington’s standpoint, the simplest way to cap the damage would be to sack him although this won’t redress the systemic wrong. But the Bush Cabinet seems to have rallied around him. Vice-President Cheney has described him as "the best Secretary of Defence the US has ever had"!
The Iraqi prisoners’ sexual humiliation is closely related to the nature of Iraq’s occupation. An excellent report in "The Guardian", quoting British military sources, reveals that it is "part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by Special Forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors". The techniques belong to a system called R2I - resistance to interrogation.
R2I includes using sexual jibes, along with stripping prisoners naked - a method taught on both sides of the Atlantic to "prolong the shock of capture". Female guards play an important role in sexually taunting male prisoners. R21 techniques include keeping prisoners naked most of the time, as well as hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation and water and food deprivation.
Crucial is the recent change in the relationship between military policing and intelligence gathering in Iraq’s prisons in favour of military intelligence, reducing the military police to a subordinate, supportive role. Matters have been complicated by the presence of 20,000 mercenaries and employees of military contractors like CAC International, over whom even the Pentagon’s oversight is "inconsistent and sometimes incomplete".
The torture is inseparable from the larger context set by the post-September 11 consensus in the Bush administration - namely that old rules cannot apply to "the war against the terrorism". This is a special kind of war against an unknown, yet all-powerful, omnipresent enemy. Established rules of warfare can only hamper it.
It’s this mindset that led Rumsfeld to repeatedly ask his generals and admirals to act aggressively and ruthlessly, and "take greater risks". One of his memos said: "Our prerequisite of perfection for ‘actionable intelligence’ has paralysed us. We must accept that we may have to take action before every question can be answered..." Rumsfeld wanted to give military protocol the go-by. This was reflected in his contempt for the global outrage over the torture of Guantanamo Bay’s prisoners and in his cavalier dismissal of the Geneva Conventions. The US has resisted attempts to define their status as prisoners of war.
The assumption is that the Guantanamo-Abu Ghraib detainees don’t deserve humane treatment because they are sub-human. "Civilised" norms cannot apply to them. Coercion and torture are "the only language they understand". This is a horrendously racist way of demonising people. Yet, such demonisation underlay the post-1990 sanctions on Iraq, which led to the death of 1.3 million, including 500,000 children. Then, Secretary Madeline Albright notoriously said the "price is worth it".
The way the US and UK have conducted the year-long occupation is fully consistent with demonisation. Over 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, many of them in indiscriminate, vengeful "retaliation". The occupation forces’ actions in Fallujah and Najaf have earned them international notoriety.
The US has been sucked into a quagmire in Iraq, which is worse than the 1991 situation. Cheney had then described it thus to justify a quick withdrawal from Iraq after the Kuwait invasion was vacated: "Once you’ve got Baghdad, it’s not clear what you do with it. It’s not clear what kind of government you would put in place ... How much credibility is that government going to have if it’s set up by the US military? ... [I] think to have American military forces engaged in a civil war inside Iraq would fit the definition of quagmire, and we have absolutely no desire to get bogged down in that fashion."
The US faces an insurgency from both the Sunni Centre-North and the Shia South. The prospect for it looks bleak. This situation is of Washington’s own making - traceable to its lies about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. It acted against the will of the international community and manipulated the UN. The occupation has turned out even more grotesque than the war.
The US is now desperate for a "face-saver" through the same UN. One formula is that of a "fully sovereign" Iraqi government by June 30, to which it will "transfer power". But there can be no sovereignty until the occupation ends. After that, the Iraqis can decide which peace-keeping force - all-Arab, UN-led, or whatever - they need to make a transition to constitutional democracy. The priority is to get US-UK troops out NOW!
Tailpiece: It is thoroughly deplorable that South Asia’s governments have not been full-throated, unlike the US’s own close allies, in condemning the prisoners’ torture. India’s Deputy Prime Minister Advani even says it is an "internal matter" of the US (May 8). A more civilised person should know that gross human rights violations are nobody’s "internal" matter; they concern ALL of humanity. And, since when has Iraq become a part of the United States of America?
Copyright 2004 hiPakistan
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