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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Friday, July 14, 2006

Detaining family members in Iraq.

There have been allegations of this floating around for awhile. (It's Salon, so you have to watch the little ad.)
Congress has demanded that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hand over a raft of documents to Congress that could substantiate allegations that U.S. forces have tried to break terror suspects by kidnapping and mistreating their family members. Rumsfeld has until 5 p.m. Friday to comply.

It now appears that kidnapping, scarcely covered by the media, and absent in the major military investigations of detainee abuse, may have been systematically employed by U.S. troops. Salon has obtained Army documents that show several cases where U.S. forces abducted terror suspects’ families.....

As to a specific. (This is single source from a whistleblower.)
Provance also made the disturbing allegation that interrogators broke an Iraqi general, Hamid Zabar, by imprisoning and abusing his frail 16-year-old son.....

But, Provance said, interrogators grew frustrated when the boy's father, Zabar, wouldn't talk, despite a 14-hour interrogation. So they stripped Zabar's son naked and doused him with mud and water. They put him in the open back of a truck and drove around in the frigid January night air until the boy began to freeze. Zabar was then made to look at his suffering son.....

Similar allegations have shown that kidnapping may have been a systematic practice. Special Operations troops, working with an elite unit called Task Force 6-26, allegedly abducted the 28-year-old wife of a suspected Iraqi terrorist during a raid on a house in Tarmiya, Iraq, in May 2004.

There have also been similar allegations made by Charles Graner who was convicted for actions at Abu Ghraib. "Cpl. Charles Graner, the alleged ringleader at Abu Ghraib, told investigators the military routinely kidnapped family members to force suspects to turn themselves in."

4 Comments:

  • But they hate us because we're free.
    Imagine the outrage if someone did this to a precious American child. This is a clear indication that those in charge of this counbtry are inherently evil, and every bad action against our troops can be blamed on them.

    By Blogger Lew Scannon, at 3:18 PM  

  • I know. Or a wife. Or even another soldier to his commanding officer.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:24 PM  

  • There is no doubt that this will hit them in the as sometime along the road.

    "He who fights terrorists for any period of time is likely to become one himself."

    Israeli historian Martin van Creveld
    The Transformation of War
    1991

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:03 AM  

  • yep.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 6:13 AM  

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