Post by RPankn on May 7, 2004 5:26:50 GMT -5
NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - A Red Cross report delivered to the United States in February suggested abuse of Iraqi prisoners was widespread and may have been tolerated by the U.S.-led coalition, the Wall Street Journal said on Friday.
The confidential report concluded that mistreatment in some cases was "tantamount to torture," the newspaper said. The findings were based on inspections and interviews in Iraq by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The February report shows the treatment of prisoners in Iraq differed with statements made by officials in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush that military higher-ups had not condoned the abuse, the newspaper said.
It quoted the report as saying information gathered by the Red Cross "suggested the use of ill-treatment against persons deprived of their liberty went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered a practice tolerated by" coalition forces.
In the report, the Red Cross said prisoners were held in empty cells naked at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and beaten by soldiers. Three former military policemen at the prison told Reuters on Thursday that abuse was commonplace.
The aid group also said coalition forces fired on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers and killed some of them, as well as committing "serious violations" of the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of war prisoners, the Journal said.
The newspaper report comes a day after the Red Cross said on Thursday it had repeatedly urged the United States to take "corrective action" at a Baghdad jail at the center of a scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
The Geneva-based humanitarian agency, mandated under international treaties to visit detainees, has had regular access to Abu Ghraib prison since U.S.-led forces began using it last year, a Red Cross spokeswoman said.
Pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers abusing naked Iraqis at Abu Ghraib -- the largest prison in the country and notorious for torture under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- have sparked an international outcry.
Bush told Jordan's King Abdullah he was sorry for the humiliation suffered by Iraqi prisoners and their families. [Why is it the crackhead can apologize to Abdullah but did not to the Iraqi people?]
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Thursday that the United States takes seriously concerns raised by the Red Cross. "When it comes to the Red Cross, there are actions that have been taken," he said.
Link: www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07304078.htm
