Iraqi General tortured to death by US

[Balta1701]

This story appeared today in the Washington Post. Here are some key excerpts.

 

Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush was being stubborn with his American captors, and a series of intense beatings and creative interrogation tactics were not enough to break his will. On the morning of Nov. 26, 2003, a U.S. Army interrogator and a military guard grabbed a green sleeping bag, stuffed Mowhoush inside, wrapped him in an electrical cord, laid him on the floor and began to go to work. Again.

 

It was inside the sleeping bag that the 56-year-old detainee took his last breath through broken ribs, lying on the floor beneath a U.S. soldier in Interrogation Room 6 in the western Iraqi desert. Two days before, a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.

 

The sleeping bag was the idea of a soldier who remembered how his older brother used to force him into one, and how scared and vulnerable it made him feel. Senior officers in charge of the facility near the Syrian border believed that such "claustrophobic techniques" were approved ways to gain information from detainees, part of what military regulations refer to as a "fear up" tactic, according to military court documents.

 

The circumstances that led up to Mowhoush's death paint a vivid example of how the pressure to produce intelligence for anti-terrorism efforts and the war in Iraq led U.S. military interrogators to improvise and develop abusive measures, not just at Abu Ghraib but in detention centers elsewhere in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mowhoush's ordeal in Qaim, over 16 days in November 2003, also reflects U.S. government secrecy surrounding some abuse cases and gives a glimpse into a covert CIA unit that was set up to foment rebellion before the war and took part in some interrogations during the insurgency.

 

The sleeping-bag interrogation and beatings were taking place in Qaim about the same time that soldiers at Abu Ghraib, outside Baghdad, were using dogs to intimidate detainees, putting women's underwear on their heads, forcing them to strip in front of female soldiers and attaching at least one to a leash. It was a time when U.S. interrogators were coming up with their own tactics to get detainees to talk, many of which they considered logical interpretations of broad-brush categories in the Army Field Manual, with labels such as "fear up" or "pride and ego down" or "futility."...

 

In the months before Mowhoush's detention, military intelligence officials across Iraq had been discussing interrogation tactics, expressing a desire to ramp things up and expand their allowed techniques to include more severe methods, such as beatings that did not leave permanent damage, and exploiting detainees' fear of dogs and snakes, according to documents released by the Army.

 

Officials in Baghdad wrote an e-mail to interrogators in the field on Aug. 14, 2003, stating that the "gloves are coming off" and asking them to develop "wish lists" of tactics they would like to use.

 

An interrogator with the 66th Military Intelligence Company, who was assigned to work on Mowhoush, wrote back with suggestions in August, including the use of "close confinement quarters," sleep deprivation and using the fear of dogs, adding: "I firmly agree that the gloves need to come off."....

 

"Previous interrogations were non-threatening; Abid was being treated very well. Not anymore," the document reads. "The interrogation session lasted several hours and I took the gloves off because Abid refused to play ball."

 

But the harsher tactics backfired..... "He did not deny he was behind the attacks as he had denied previously, he simply said because I had humiliated him, he would not be able to stop the attacks. I take this as an admission of guilt."

 

...

 

When Army efforts produced nothing useful, detainees would be handed over to members of Operational Detachment Alpha 531, soldiers with the 5th Special Forces Group, the CIA or a combination of the three. "The personnel were dressed in civilian clothes and wore balaclavas to hide their identity," according to a Jan. 18, 2004, report for the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.

 

If they did not get what they wanted, the interrogators would deliver the detainees to a small team of the CIA-sponsored Iraqi paramilitary squads, code-named Scorpions, according to a military source familiar with the operation. The Jan. 18 memo indicates that it was "likely that indigenous personnel in the employ of the CIA interrogated MG Mowhoush."

 

On Nov. 24, the CIA and one of its four-man Scorpion units interrogated Mowhoush, according to investigative records. ...Soldiers heard Mowhoush "being beaten with a hard object" and heard him "screaming" from down the hall, according to the Jan. 18, 2004, provost marshal's report. The report said four Army guards had to carry Mowhoush back to his cell.

 

Two days later, at 8 a.m., Nov. 26, Mowhoush -- prisoner No. 76 -- was brought, moaning and breathing hard, to Interrogation Room 6, according to court testimony....

 

Welshofer allegedly crouched over Mowhoush's chest to talk to him.

 

Sgt. 1st Class William Sommer, a linguist, stood nearby.

 

Chief Warrant Officer Jeff Williams, an intelligence analyst, came to observe progress.

 

Investigative records show that Mowhoush "becomes unresponsive" at 9:06 a.m. Medics tried to resuscitate him for 30 minutes before pronouncing him dead.

 

...

 

Williams was arraigned yesterday on a murder charge and is scheduled for court-martial in November, a Fort Carson spokeswoman said. Welshofer's court-martial is set for October. Loper and Sommer have not been referred for trial. Commanders are still considering what, if any, punishment to impose.

So read what actually happened there. The U.S. couldn't get answers out of the guy, so someone asked for permission to use more, shall we say, strenuous methods. They tried those, and still couldn't get an answer.

 

So what happens? The guy is handed over to some secret group, who's job it seemingly is to make sure people answer the questions - the Scorpions, whoever they are. The guy ends up dead. How many of them didn't end up dead? And how did a group like that come into existence when supposedly we weren't engaging in torture as an official policy?

 

As a final point...here are the words of Donald Rumsfeld, speaking about Iraqi Prisoners.

 

There is no ambiguity about whether or not the Geneva Conventions apply in Iraq. There never has been any ambiguity. From the outset, Iraq is a country, the United States is a country. The Geneva Conventions apply to parties -- nations. They don't apply to terrorist networks. They do apply to nations.

 

Iraq's a nation. The United States is a nation. The Geneva Convention's applied. They have applied every single day from the outset.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Oops?

[Balta1701]

If you want to read more coverage of this guy's arrest (he walked into a prison to try to get his sons released - never charged with anything) torture and then death, these two posts will be quite helpful as well.

[CubKilla]

Too bad. Should have flown him into a building

[KipWellsFan]

Okay the US broke the Geneva conventions but what could possibly come of it? Aren't the Geneva convention issues ruled upon by the International High court and hasn't the United States withdrew themselves from it?

Edited August 4, 2005 by KipWellsFan

[CubKilla]

Okay the US broke the Geneva conventions but what could possibly come of it? Aren't the Geneva convention issues ruled upon by the International High court and hasn't the United States withdrew themselves from it?

 

Maybe the big, BAD UN will hold us responsible. Oh no!!!!!! :finger

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Maybe the big, BAD UN will hold us responsible. Oh no!!!!!!  :finger

I'll remember this the next time you feign outrage at the way that US soldiers are treated when they get kidnapped.

[YASNY]

Williams is being charged with murder, as he should be. He took it too far when they ramped up interrogations. Way too far. This is not 'a policy issue' in my opinion.

[Kid Gleason]

I don't know. He was a general, and he admitted to the attacks. Our soldiers that are being held were following orders. This guy did the ordering for his guys. This guy made his life out of this. Should he have died? No. But in wars, s*** happens...right? How many innocents have died? I'll feel saddness for the kids in Iraq who have fallen, then I will for a general who was holding out on info and died during the interigation.

[southsider2k5]

Williams is being charged with murder, as he should be.  He took it too far when they ramped up interrogations.  Way too far.  This is not 'a policy issue' in my opinion.

 

Unless the orders came from someone else, they are doing exactly what they need to be doing.

[Milkman delivers]

Eh, Iragi general is tortured and killed. I surprisingly don't care.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

Williams is being charged with murder, as he should be.  He took it too far when they ramped up interrogations.  Way too far.  This is not 'a policy issue' in my opinion.

If their punishments are like the ones given to the soldiers who forced two Iraqis to jump off a bridge (just random people they found) The troops even admitted to a coverup. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5560805/ -- well, if the punishments are like the ones those soldiers received, then Williams should just be waiting for a slap on the wrist and a "Don't do it again."

 

And it is really funny to see the people in the thread (not you, YAS) that say "Well, I don't care that the US Army beat a man to death." and then "Damn people killing our detainees!" You don't get to have indignation about detainee murder of our own soldiers when you wholeheartedly support it when we are the perps.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Too bad. Should have flown him into a building 

Tell me how Iraq was involved in that again.

[kapkomet]

Don't you remember that highly classified memo signed by Bush himself that Iraq was involved in 9-11? :rolly

[Balta1701]

I don't know. He was a general, and he admitted to the attacks. Our soldiers that are being held were following orders. This guy did the ordering for his guys. This guy made his life out of this. Should he have died? No. But in wars, s*** happens...right? How many innocents have died? I'll feel saddness for the kids in Iraq who have fallen, then I will for a general who was holding out on info and died during the interigation. 

You're missing 1 key point...the guy admitted to attacks UNDER TORTURE. Statements taken under duress are remarkably inaccurate - that's one big reason why we're not supposed to torture people - it doesn't work.

 

When you're sitting there having a guy beat the sh*t out of you until you admit you did something, at some point, maybe you break and admit you did it whether or not you were actually involved, just so that the guy will stop hitting you for a while.

[Kid Gleason]

He was an Iraqi General? I'm banking on it that maybe...just MAYBE...he has done something "not cool" in our militaries eyes. I expect that if they capture any of our generals, they might meet a similar fate.

[CubKilla]

I'll remember this the next time you feign outrage at the way that US soldiers are treated when they get kidnapped.

 

File it, write it down, memorize it..... I don't care. The treatment of this Iraqi General probably pales in comparison to the way captured Coalition Troops are treated by insurgents in Iraq.

[Steff]

Can't we all just get along..

[kapkomet]

Can't we all just get along.. 

NO!