What the Press Won't Tell You About the Taguba Report
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Thursday, May. 06, 2004 12:55 AM EDTEver since it was released to the media late last week, the Pentagon's "Taguba Report" on the abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. MPs has fueled a firestorm of controversy, adding new details about heinous-sounding crimes that hadn't been included in initial media reports on the scandal.
While prison abuse photographs broadcast by CBS News last week document little more than the humiliation of Iraqi inmates, it was Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba's catalogue of allegations that offered the most dramatic claims of physical abuse; including brutal beatings, a dog attack and sodomizing of a detainee "with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick."
However, so far the press has failed to mention this salient fact: Gen. Taguba actually documented two sets of allegations; the first set backed by confessions and photographic evidence; the second comprised mainly of unverified allegations by the inmates themselves.
Not surprisingly, the worst of the allegations fall into the latter category, though the media has been covering them as if they were just as credible as those that have been confessed to.
Here's how Gen. Taguba describes the evidence to support the first category of less offensive mistreatment:
"These findings are amply supported by written confessions provided by several of the suspects, written statements provided by detainees, and witness statements."
The Taguba list of confessed-to lighter crimes includes:
* Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
* Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
* Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
* Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
* Forcing naked male detainees to wear women?s underwear;
* Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;
* Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
* Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
* Writing "I am a Rapest? (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;
* Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee?s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;
* A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;
* Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
For the second, far more serious set of crimes, Taguba admits he's relying mainly on the complaints of the detainees themselves, without any confessions by the perpetrators to back their stories up.
He prefaces that section by saying, "In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.
It's that list of uncorroborated allegations that the media has been ballyhooing as "torture," including claims that U.S. MPs engaged in:
* Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
* Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;
* Pouring cold water on naked detainees;
* Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
* Threatening male detainees with rape;
* Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;
* Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
* Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee. [End of Excerpt]
Before the press labels any more of our soldiers serving in Iraq guilty until proven innocent, perhaps reporters should make it clear that the most damaging of the prison abuse complaints come from Saddam Hussein's dead-enders, al Qaeda terrorists who have joined their cause and common street criminals - all of whom have a vested interested in seeing the U.S. fail in Iraq.
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