WASHINGTON, May 4: Following are excerpts from a report of a military investigation of abuses of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. It was headed by US Maj Gen Antonio Taguba, named on Jan 31
, and the report was completed on March 3, the Pentagon said.
"Between Oct and Dec 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320th Military Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF).
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:
* 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;
* Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.
The intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:
* Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;
* Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;
* Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
* Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's clothing;
* Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;
* Positioning a naked detainee on an MRE (meals ready to eat) Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers and toes to simulate electric torture;
* Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;
* Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.
The various detention facilities operated by the 800th MP Brigade have routinely held persons brought to them by Other Government Agencies (OGA) without accounting for them, knowing their identities, or even the reason for their detention. The Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC) at Abu Ghraib called these detainees "ghost detainees".
On at least one occasion, the 320th MP Battalion at Abu Ghraib held a handful of "ghost detainees" (6-8) for OGAs that they moved around within the facility to hide them from a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) survey team. -Reuters
