Iraqi PoW 'torture' pictures

[OneFootInTheGrave]

I hope noone posted this before as on torture search nothing came up

still this is more of an

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...portaltop.html

Eight-man unit to be questioned over Iraqi PoW 'torture' pictures
By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 01/06/2003)


The investigation into alleged torture of Iraqi prisoners of war was dramatically widened last night when Army investigators began questioning the other members of the eight-man unit of a soldier arrested last week.

The troops serve in the same section of 1bn Royal Regiment of Fusiliers as the private held after developing a roll of film that allegedly showed Iraqi PoWs being tortured and humiliated.

Officers from the Special Investigation Branch (SIB) of the Royal Military Police are attempting to discover how many troops were involved in the incident and whether it was a one-off breach of discipline or part of a wider regime of abuse of PoWs.

The inquiry will extend to the highest reaches of the regiment as the SIB seeks to uncover why there appears to have been such a dramatic failure of command and control and what part may have been played by non-commissioned officers and officers.

A senior officer told The Telegraph: "Every eight-man section in the British Army should be commanded by two NCOs: there are three sections in a platoon, which is commanded by an officer and a sergeant. The big question is where all these NCOs and officers were when these alleged incidents were taking place."

Any troops found to have abused or tortured Iraqi PoWs would be charged and court-martialled and any found guilty would be jailed and dishonourably discharged from the Army.

Commanders of every front-line unit that served in the Iraqi war have been ordered to carry out their own inquiries into the conduct of troops during the campaign.

The Fusiliers were twice visited by the Chief of the General Staff, Gen Sir Mike Jackson, who is said to have described them as a "thoroughly competent and well-organised infantry battalion". He is "saddened" by the situation and angry that the "good name of the British Army appears to have been tarnished by a few ill-disciplined and unprofessional soldiers".

The allegations of war crimes come 10 days after it emerged that Col Tim Collins, the commanding officer of the 1st Bn Royal Irish Regiment, was under investigation for allegedly ordering a mock execution and pistol-whipping a Ba'ath Party official.

The new allegations emerged after Gary Bartlam, an 18-year-old Fusilier private, was arrested on Wednesday following the developing of a roll of film at a high street shop in Tamworth, Staffs. He is being held in custody at Colchester for questioning by the SIB.

One picture, apparently taken in a warehouse, showed a man stripped to the waist and suspended high in the air by a rope attached to a fork-lift truck.

A soldier driving the truck could be seen staring at his victim and apparently laughing. Another picture showed a pair of white legs and the head of an Iraqi. The hand of a man behind the Iraqi's head appeared to be forcing him to perform a sex act. A third picture showed a pair of bare bottoms with an Iraqi on his knees on the floor and his body bent. Another man was pressed behind him in what seemed to be a sexual position. The fourth picture appears to show two naked Iraqis cowering on the ground.

A senior defence official said: "On face value this appears to be a shocking and appalling act and goes against everything the British Army is all about and has tried to achieve in the Basra area in particular.

"The tragedy this is that the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers did a fantastic job in Iraq and now that looks as though it is about to be ruined. It is clear that more than one person was involved, which makes you wonder where the non-commissioned officers were - and indeed the officers."

Well there a few issues here:
1. Should these guys and their commanders go to Hague?
2. This must have been a true idiot when he went to develop the pictures in a "high street shop"!!! so he got caught - where were the normal people responsible for reporting abuse.

3. How many more? are these the only ones? how responsible is the command structure to report abuse of POW's etc.

[TheStinger]

Lock em up throw away the key.

[SlowwHand]

4) How much is bullshit?

[Solly]

It's all Blair's fault, isn't it Mr Daily Telegraph?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
2. This must have been a true idiot when he went to develop the pictures in a "high street shop"!!! so he got caught - where were the normal people responsible for reporting abuse.

Forget where he developed them, if you are going to do something illegal and morally reprehensible you don't take self-incriminating photos.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Big Crunch


Forget where he developed them, if you are going to do something illegal and morally reprehensible you don't take self-incriminating photos.

Well if you are a sexual maniac you could (child porn etc...)... but did you read the comments, actually noone official is dismissing the claims as nonsense, what Iwould expect if someone actually made a fake photo and similar claims...

A senior defence official said: "On face value this appears to be a shocking and appalling act and goes against everything the British Army is all about and has tried to achieve in the Basra area in particular.

to me it looks like the official line believe this is true, I am sure this is not impossible.

[Sava]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
4) How much is bullshit?

because nobody in the American military ever does anything bad...

[Solly]

Originally posted by Sava
because nobody in the American military ever does anything bad...

Your biggest nightmare Sava?

[Sava]

Originally posted by Boddington's
Your biggest nightmare Sava?

That would be Republican presidents for the next 40 years.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...=1045739057805

Well after googling this is a Canadian link, from AP, but still why would the film be manufactured, if the guy gave it to be developed himself, and he was in Iraq? Anyway I am sure that government labs are examinig this...

Still there was another one about some Col Collins who was accused by an US soldier of "torturing" prisoners to get information ...

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Sava
because nobody in the American military ever does anything bad...

Um, you do realize the article is about the British military, don't you?

[August Borms]

Originally posted by Big Crunch


Forget where he developed them, if you are going to do something illegal and morally reprehensible you don't take self-incriminating photos.

Why not? The Belgian soldiers in Somalia (?) took photos of themselves while abusing the local population...

[Dauphin]

To clarrify my comment, its not that they don't do it, they obviously did, its that you don't do it if you have any nous.

[Arrian]

John, I doubt he did - Sava has a tendancy to jump in without actually reading the thread.

Bad ****, this. Real bad.

-Arrian

[Solly]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
To clarrify my comment, its not that they don't do it, they obviously did, its that you don't do it if you have any nous.

Well, they were soldiers...

[MichaeltheGreat]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
Well there a few issues here:
1. Should these guys and their commanders go to Hague?

2. This must have been a true idiot when he went to develop the pictures in a "high street shop"!!! so he got caught - where were the normal people responsible for reporting abuse.

3. How many more? are these the only ones? how responsible is the command structure to report abuse of POW's etc.

1. I'd assume the British military justice system would be adequate to handle it. Particularly for commanders, "war crimes" would be problematic to prosecute unless you could show that commanders knew of, or else ordered such practices. Negligence wouldn't be prosecutable, unless it was to a degree tantamount to knowing and doing nothing.

2. Since the descriptions appear to be along the lines of buggery, etc., this was probably done pretty surreptitiously in the field, but filming it and having it developed is pretty stupid.

3. See above. Buggery and such isn't the normal mode of mistreating POW's.

[gsmoove23]

A decade ago, trophy photos of a Canadian soldier grinning beside a bloody and battered young prisoner led to the disbanding of the Canadian Airborne Regiment after a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Eight soldiers were later charged after the beating death of 16-year-old Somali Shidane Arone.

If these guys are only caught when they take photos it makes me wonder how much of this stuff goes on thats never caught on film or prosecuted. Ugh.

[Sava]

Originally posted by JohnT


Um, you do realize the article is about the British military, don't you?

hahah oops

Arrian

I skimmed it...

[Imran Siddiqui]

That sucks. I definetly hope they are court marshalled and serve lots of jail time (and the same goes for any Americans who did anything similar).

[Solver]

Read the story about film developing yesterday... I'm glad to see that there is now some investigation. Soldiers who liberate people from opressors are none too good if that's what they do afterwards.

[Solly]

So do we now allow gays in the army?