WORLD / Middle East
Report cites U.S. abuse of Iraqi detainees
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-20 17:06
NEW YORK - Members of a shadowy U.S. military unit turned one of Saddam
Hussein's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell, beating
prisoners with rifle butts and using detainees for target practice in
games of jailer paintball, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The so-called Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp
Nama, the secret headquarters of the unit known as Task Force 6-26, the
Times said.
The camp, in a former Iraqi military base at Baghdad International
Airport, was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to Abu
Ghraib prison a few miles away.
The Times said the abuse at Camp Nama began as the Iraqi insurgency
intensified in early 2004 and continued after photographs of abuse at Abu
Ghraib were made public in April 2004, belying Pentagon assertions that
abuse was limited to a small group of reservists at the notorious
detention center.
The report was based on interviews with more than a dozen civilian and
military Department of Defense personnel who worked with Task Force 6-26.
Virtually all of them were granted anonymity to encourage them to speak
candidly without fear of retribution from the Pentagon, the Times said.
The critics said the harsh interrogation techniques practiced at Camp
Nama yielded little information to help capture insurgents or safe
American lives.
Many of their complaints are supported by declassified military documents
and e-mail messages from FBI agents who worked with the task force, the
Times said.
According to the report, placards posted at the detention area said, "No
Blood, No Foul" �� a slogan that meant soldiers could not be prosecuted
as long as they did not make detainees bleed.
Prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole,
barred from access to lawyers or relatives and confined for weeks without
charges, the report said.
"The reality is, there were no rules," an unidentified Pentagon official
told the Times.
Gen. Bryan D. Brown, the commander of the Special Operations Command,
told the Times in a brief exchange on Capitol Hill, "We take all those
allegations seriously. Any kind of abuse is not consistent with the
values of the Special Operations Command."
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