tankie

This just aint good news at all , will they never learn






The Ministry of Defence said Saturday it was investigating fresh complaints that its troops had abused prisoners in Iraq.
News of the probe came after the Independent reported that Phil Shiner, a lawyer acting for detainees, had catalogued 33 new cases of abuse since the 2003 invasion, including rape and torture.

The paper reported that, for the first time, female soldiers were accused of aiding in the sexual and physical abuse of detainees.

Armed forces minister Bill Rammell said in a statement that the claims were being taken seriously, but that formal investigations needed to take place "without judgements being made prematurely."

He told the BBC that not all the cases were new and "that about seven have come in within the last month."

In one case, soldiers are accused of piling Iraqi prisoners on top of each other and subjecting them to electric shocks, the Independent reported.

The paper compared it to the abuse at the notorious U.S. detention centre at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.

One abuse claim relates to a 16-year-old boy who says he was raped by two British soldiers while he was in custody in 2003. Others say they were stripped naked, abused and photographed.

A public inquiry is already under way into the death of an Iraqi civilian, Baha Mousa, who died in British custody in Basra in 2003 after sustaining 93 separate injuries to his body.

Shiner, who is representing Mousa's family, told the BBC he believed "there are hundreds of cases that are going uninvestigated."

But the MoD said instances of abuse were isolated cases.

"There is not any endemic evidence of abuse within the armed forces, and that is in the context of 120,000 (troops), the vast, vast, majority adhering to the highest standards of behaviour," Rammell told BBC television.

Shiner, conceded that claims still needed to be tested against fact, but called for a public inquiry into all of them.

"It is very important now that there should be no further attempt by this government and the MoD to sweep this under the carpet -- the 'few bad apples' thesis does not work," he told the BBC.

Tom Porteous, director of Human Rights Watch, which has a track record of investigating abuse by U.S. forces in Iraq, said he was aware of the 33 cases mentioned.

"These are cases that involve many more soldiers, obviously, and because of the seriousness... and the credibility of the allegations, we are conducting our own inquiry...and will produce our own report," he told BBC television.

Britain has withdrawn almost all of its troops from Iraq. Only 100 naval trainers who are helping to protect Iraq's southern oil terminals remain. They are expected to stay for another year

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TANKIE

WITHOUT WAX

Merlin

As expected, there'll be a closed-door inquiry.

No public probe into Iraq 'abuse'

tankie

Shameful .

Michael C

It will be unfortunate all around.

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Michael C

On Violence Twitter

S-2

"It will be unfortunate all around."

Not really. It's only Americans left in Iraq that will suffer from any such outrage.

Meanwhile, I'm fairly certain that we'll never know how compassionate Iraqis are about the imprisonment of their own. I doubt they're so stupid as to eagerly rush to the presses with their own particularly perverse prison peculiarities.

Nor the Afghan government.

Nor the Pakistani government.

Just to name a few.

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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

gunnut

Let's not rush to judgment here. How do we know these claims are true and the prisoners didn't just make them up? Or exaggerate a little?

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

YellowFever

I agree with this.

Unfortunately, the weasels in the press bend over backwards to give these "prisoners" a bigger benefit of the doubt than they do our men and women over there.

Michael C

Yeah especially if you factor in that the British won't be investigating.

tankie

This investigation has started today and the guy was on the beeb saying there will be no whitewash , blame will be laid where the blame should go ,im not holding my breath tho


An official inquiry into Britain's involvement in the Iraq War began on Tuesday, promising a thorough investigation which could prove embarrassing for the government ahead of next year's election.

The five-member inquiry team, headed by former civil servant John Chilcot, was set up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in June to examine the reasons for Britain's involvement in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and the subsequent occupation of Iraq.

"We want to establish a clear understanding of the various core elements of the UK's involvement in Iraq, and how these developed over time," Chilcot said in an opening statement.

"What we are committed to, and what the British general public can expect from us, is a guarantee to be thorough, impartial, objective and fair."

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair sent over 45,000 troops to topple Saddam Hussein in a war that became deeply unpopular in Britain and angered many Labour supporters.

British combat operations officially ended at the end of April this year, six years after the invasion and with the deaths of 179 British service personnel.

Relatives of some of those killed and opposition politicians have long called for an inquiry into the war, arguing the government had distorted intelligence to justify the invasion.

A government dossier justifying military action included the claim that Saddam was capable of launching weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes. No such weapons were found, leading to accusations the public had been deceived.

Commentators say evidence to the inquiry and publicly raking over such a divisive issue could embarrass the government before a general election which must be held by June 2010, with Brown already trailing in polls to the Conservatives.

However the inquiry's final verdict will not be made public until after the vote at the end of next year.

Chilcot's study will be the third official probe into the Iraq War. A 2004 inquiry into intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction concluded much of the information had been flawed but ministers had not deliberately misled the public.

Another report earlier in 2004 cleared ministers of any wrongdoing over the death of an Iraq weapons expert who killed himself after the government outed him as the source of a BBC report that claimed Blair's team had "sexed up" intelligence.

Both findings were widely condemned in the media as being a whitewash, and fuelled demands for a full independent inquiry. Anti-war campaigners said they did not have much confidence in the latest probe.

"Sir John Chilcot insists that it will not be a whitewash but the committee -- the five members of which were all hand picked by Gordon Brown -- looks like it was set up with exactly that purpose," said the Stop the War Coalition.

Chilcot insisted his team would be "thorough and rigorous."

"We are not a court or an inquest or a statutory inquiry; and our processes will reflect that difference. No one is on trial. We cannot determine guilt or innocence," Chilcot said.

"But I make a commitment here that once we get to our final report, we will not shy away from making criticisms where they are warranted."

Chilcot's team will begin by hearing testimony from senior officials and military officers. Blair and other politicians will be quizzed early next year, although Chilcot has not yet said whether Brown will be called to give evidence.

zara

What exactly is the point in this? We've already had several inquiries, I don't understand what this hopes to achieve?