As they say at the Pottery Barn, you break, you buy it. I don’t think
President George W. Bush has enough in his piggy bank to cover the cost of the
horror he is helping perpetuate in Iraq. Today’s Washington Post reports
that the Shias running Iraqi prisons are engaged in the kinds of abuse last seen
when Saddam was in power.
On Saturday, a group of parliament members paid a surprise visit to a
detention facility run by the Interior Ministry in Baqubah, north of Baghdad.
“We have found terrible violations of the law,” said Muhammed al-Dayni, a
Sunni parliament member who said as many as 120 detainees were packed into a
35-by-20-foot cell. “They told us that they’ve been raped,” Dayni said. “Their
families were called in and tortured to force the detainees to testify against
other people.”
“The detention facilities of the ministries of Defense and Interior are
places for the most brutal human rights abuse,” he
added.
Jonathan Finer and Ellen Knickmeyer also report:
Inmates in another photo clustered around chains hung from the middle of
one of the crowded cells. The chains were used to hoist prisoners by their
bound hands, Zobaie said. The practice, noted frequently in inspection reports
of Interior Ministry detention centers, often results in the dislocation of
prisoners’ shoulders.
Ninety percent of the men crowded into Interior Ministry detention centers
are Sunni Arabs, Zobaie said. He called treatment in the Interior Ministry
prisons “inhumane” and indicated it still was less than certain whether the
Defense and Interior ministries would follow through on their agreement to
turn over the inmates to the Justice Ministry. “Hopefully, they will,” he
said.
As I have said in previous posts, the civil war underway in Iraq is breaking
the way of the Shia. Moqtada al Sadr’s Badr militia are the big boys on
the block with the muscle and means to enforce their will. Most of our
troops are attacking Sunni insurgents and terrorists. The Shias generally
avoid attacking us because, why antagonize us when we’re doing their dirty work
for them.
I cannot wait to watch how George and Condi will square this circle.
We’re helping a group of Shia religious extremists who have close ties to Iran
consolidate power in Iraq. Meanwhile, we’re threatening Iran with dire
consequences if they don’t surrender their nuclear program. This Dr. Jekyl
and Mr. Hyde policy is getting our kids killed and putting our security at
risk. And now, worst of all, on top of the abuses of Abu Ghraib, we are
perceived as tolerating, if not sanctioning, the torture and rape of Sunni
prisoners.
Will George and Rummy wind up at the Hague some day and be asked to answer
for Saddam style rape rooms? Just a
thought.
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Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder
of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm
that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by
terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously
with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s
Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized
expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk
management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety
of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio,
ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News,
and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for
publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York
Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and
aviation security around the world. Further bio
details.
