A catalogue of British abuse

[DoYouEverWonder]

By Tony Paterson in Osnabrück

19 January 2005

"Shocking and appalling" photographs of British troops allegedly torturing and sexually humiliating Iraqi civilians were revealed yesterday.

The images were produced at a court martial of three British soldiers accused of acts of abuse on Iraqis in an aid camp weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein. They include forcing detainees to strip and simulate sex acts which were photographed by servicemen.

One of the photographs showed a grimacing Iraqi civilian bound tightly in an army cargo net being suspended from a forklift truck driven by a British soldier. A second depicted a soldier dressed in shorts and a T-shirt standing on the bound and tied body of an Iraqi civilian. Other pictures showed two naked Iraqi men being forced to simulate anal sex and two Iraqis forced to simulate oral sex.

Publication of the photographs echoes the controversy surrounding US troops' abuse of Iraqi prisoners - which was also captured on film - at the Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad.


http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=602312




The court was shown photographs depicting alleged abuse


The BBC has a link to a video with more photos on the upper right side of the following link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4184279.stm#

[Taxloss]

1. The most almighty scandal is brewing here about this.

It's taken time to emerge, but boy will it blow.

[cal04]

2. Britain rocked by abuse pictures

BRITAIN'S newspapers published pictures today of Iraqis apparently being abused by British soldiers under "Shame" and "Shock" headlines, in echoes of the Abu Ghraib scandal as a court martial rocked the country.

Some of the front-page pictures showed naked Iraqi prisoners appearing to be forced to simulate anal and other sexual acts, while in another a soldier had his fist raised above a bound detainee who had a net over his torso.

"They are pictures to make us sick with shame," said the top-selling Sun tabloid, as newspapers and opposition politicians warned of long-term damage to the image of Britain's military hours after the court martial of three soldiers began.The Times said the pictures would "provoke outrage in the Arab world and sully the reputation of the British Army".

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11986912%255E1702,00.html

[AP]

3. If you're wondering what led to this, here's the meat of the story:

It's curious that the US military and the UK military did basically the same thing to the Iraqis under what seems to be very different circumstances.

The US was trying to humiliate Iraqis and use photos of the humiliation to blackmail them into spying for the US when they went back to their homes.

It looks the UK was trying to dissuade looters who were stealing (bizarrely) humanitarian aid. Unless I missed something, these people weren't even in custody after they were humiliated.

So, what's up with this? Why is humiliation the way these people are treated for a huge range of purposes?


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Lt Col Clapham told the court martial that the incidents had occurred when the accused were part of an attachment of British soldiers at the Army's Bread Basket supply camp half a mile west of Basra, which was full of food and humanitarian aid for the Iraqis. "Unfortunately the Bread Basket Camp had a looting problem. It was being raided by looters every night so measures were taken to deal with the situation," Lt-Col Clapham said. The court martial heard how the commander of the camp, Major Dan Taylor, launched a controversial operation, code-named Ali Baba, in an attempt to round up and detain the looters and "work them hard". "There was a difficulty with Major Taylor's order. He hoped it would be a deterrent," Lt-Col Clapham said.

He added that the Major's order to "work the prisoners hard" was not in accordance with humanitarian laws and appears to have been in breach of Article 4 of the Geneva Convention.

Lt-Col Clapham said, however, that senior officers had decided not to take legal action against the Major. Lt-Col Clapham said: "If the defendants had done no more than fulfil the order that was given to them they would not be facing a court martial today."

Lt-Col Clapham said the British troops at Camp Bread Basket were ordered to parade at 6am on the morning of 15 May 2003 dressed in shorts and T-shirts because of the heat. Armed with SA-80 rifles and camouflage net poles as weapons, they were ordered to police the perimeter of the camp and to capture and detain looters. "The Iraqi civilians were made to carry back the stores they had looted," Lt-Col Clapham said. "They were all assembled near the main gate of the camp and then broken up into groups of three or four and taken away."

He described how the senior NCO accused, Cpl Daniel Kenyon, was given charge of three or four Iraqi civilians who were taken to a vast warehouse in a remote corner of the camp to be "worked hard".

Photographs of the detained Iraqi civilians showed them being taken on a forced run while carrying crates of milk powder over their heads as part of an alleged punishment. "It was after that that the incidents occurred," Lt-Col Clapham said.