From
The Times Online:
"Counter-insurgencies are rarely clean fights, but Iraq's dirty war is being waged under the noses of US and British troops whose mission is to end the abuses of the former dictatorship. Instead, they appear to have turned a blind eye to the constant reports of torture from Iraq's prisons."
This comes from a July 7th report. While news of the ACLU's efforts to obtain access to the remaining photos from the Abu Ghraib torture scandal has been prevalent over the past week, both the mainstream media and (suprisingly) the alternative press, have been silent over allegations of new, US-sanctioned abuses in Iraq.
From
the Washington Post:
"Iraqi police, jailers and intelligence agents, many of them holding the same jobs they had under Hussein, are "committing systematic torture and other abuses" of detainees, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be released Tuesday."
The preceeding is from January 24th.
The fact that the White House is still able to pretend that "the few bad apples" at Abu Ghraib were punished and that there was no official position on torture is ludicrous. The dwindling percentage of Americans who believe we are bringing Iraqis a better future are in for a rude awakening. From WMD, to fighting terrorism, to bringing democracy to the the Middle East, to ending torture in Iraq, the chips have all fallen.
Instead of focusing efforts on exposing previous allegations of torture, which the US Government has already pawned off on a couple of low-level officers, this new and continuing abuse needs to be highlighted. If anything, it is these "anti-insurgency" programs in Iraq that demonstrate that these abuses are SYSTEMATIC, ENCOURAGED, and FULLY SPONSORED by the highest levels of both the US and new Iraqi regime.
