Don't think this is the way to "win the hearts and minds"

[helderheid]

Iraq engulfed by tide of violence
By John Simpson
World affairs editor, BBC News

Manfred Nowak, the UN's chief anti-torture expert, captured the headlines round the world when he suggested that torture could be worse in Iraq now than it was under Saddam Hussein.

Torture is indeed at appalling levels in Iraq. Everyone, it seems, from the Iraqi forces to the militias to the anti-US insurgents, now routinely use torture on the people they kill.

Each day, bodies are found with appalling injuries, particularly in Baghdad.

At the Baghdad mortuary, I was told that more bodies now showed signs of torture than of a clean death.

But new figures show that the picture is worse in other ways.

The number of violent deaths for July and August reached a total of 6,600 - 13% higher than the figure for the previous two-month figure.

'Too late'

They come at a time when 147,000 American soldiers are deployed in Iraq, the majority of them in the area around Baghdad. In recent months, reinforcements have been brought in to try to curb the violence.

The figures seem to indicate clearly that the US forces simply do not have the answer to the basic problem. The same applies to the British forces in Basra and the south, where the situation is also deteriorating.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5371394.stm