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Lawmakers shocked by evidence of abuse { May 12 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.jsonline.com/news/nat/may04/229063.asphttp://www.jsonline.com/news/nat/may04/229063.asp
Lawmakers shocked by evidence of abuse
Images from Iraq prison more graphic than expected
From Journal Sentinel wire services
Posted: May 12, 2004
Washington - Lawmakers who viewed hundreds of images of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners said Wednesday that the photographs were even more graphic than they had expected and included pictures of forced sexual acts between male detainees, consensual sex between American soldiers and a soldier posing with the body of a dead prisoner.
All afternoon, a parade of solemn senators and House members filed into secure rooms in the Capitol and House Rayburn Office Building to view more than 1,600 images, along with some video clips. The lawmakers emerged shaken and aghast, even though they already had seen some of the images in news photographs.
"What we saw is appalling," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said.
"I don't know how the hell these people got into our Army," Colorado Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who served in a police unit in the Air Force, said after viewing what he called a fraction of the images.
"I saw cruel, sadistic torture," Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) said.
"It's like looking at one of the rings of hell, and it's a ring of hell of our own creation," Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) said.
Not everyone reacted the same way to the additional photos. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said he thought "some people are overreacting. . . . The people who are against the war are using this to their political ends."
Uniformed military officials presided over the viewings, flashing the images onto a large screen for about two seconds at a time, lawmakers said. But the officials declined to answer questions or provide a narrative to explain the pictures. Lawmakers were instead given a document reminding them that the images were collected as part of a military investigation and are considered "active evidence."
Some of the pictures were dark and grainy, and the senators and representatives said they were sometimes confused about what they were seeing. Among the most shocking images, several said, was a video clip of a male detainee repeatedly banging into a cell door, until he collapsed.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) said it appeared that the man had a rope lashed around his waist and that someone was pulling him toward the door. "It just deepens the conclusion that this was a cell block that had gone wild," he said.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was particularly offended by a photograph in which "a prisoner was sodomizing himself" with a banana. "My conclusion is that that was probably coerced somehow," he said.
Conflicting opinions
The explicit nature of the photographs left senators and House members deeply conflicted over whether the images should be made public.
Some who previously favored a public release said they had changed their minds and were swayed by remarks from military personnel that to do so would violate the prisoners' right to privacy and protection from humiliation under international law.
"When I walked into the room, my view was they ought to be made public; I always lean toward full disclosure," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. "But when the military explained to us that to release them would violate their privacy and the Geneva accord, I agreed with their assessment."
But others, including Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, said they thought releasing the pictures would be best in the long run.
Both Democrats and Republicans said the images renewed their determination that the abuse must be fully investigated, and some said the pictures made them doubt that the mistreatment was limited to a handful of low-level soldiers.
"Some of it is clearly individuals acting in a rogue manner," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said. "Some of it has an elaborate nature to it that makes me very suspicious of whether or not others were directing or encouraging."
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) agreed, saying "it is impossible that this could have been carried out without the knowledge of higher-ups."
Brutality of terrorists
But on a day when the story of the beheading of an American civilian in Baghdad also was in the news, other lawmakers said the public should not lose sight of the brutality of terrorists. "The way he was beheaded once again makes graphically clear that the other side knows no mercy," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said.
President Bush said Wednesday that "there's no justification" for the execution of American Nicholas Berg and that those who beheaded Berg wanted to "shake" America's resolve in bringing democracy to Iraq.
In the Senate, the pictures were available for three hours, from 2 to 5 p.m., in a tightly controlled room on the fourth floor of the Capitol, where the public elevators go only to the third floor. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and who worked with the Pentagon to arrange the viewing in Congress, took to the Senate floor earlier in the afternoon to urge his colleagues to see the photographs.
But he said they should be careful in describing them afterward, particularly in light of Berg's murder in an incident that Islamic militants have said was in response to the prison abuse. Lawmakers, Warner said, must "not incite in any way anger against our forces or others working in the cause of freedom."
Not everyone took Warner's advice about attending the session. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said he had not seen the pictures and saw no need to. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) felt the same way: "I've already seen enough. Why would I want to go see a bunch of perverted pictures?"
Lawmakers said they could not tell where the pictures were taken, but the images of mistreatment appeared to be confined to the Abu Ghraib prison that has been at the center of the current inquiry. "It was of the same prison and the same people we had before," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. "It did not suggest anything broader or deeper."
Interrogation techniques
Shortly before the viewing began, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended military interrogation techniques in Iraq, rejecting contentions that they violate international rules and may endanger Americans taken prisoner.
Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee that Pentagon lawyers had approved methods such as sleep deprivation and dietary changes as well as rules permitting prisoners to be made to assume stressful positions.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the rules require prisoners to be treated humanely at all times.
Durbin said some of the approved techniques "go far beyond the Geneva Convention," a reference to international rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.
The growing scandal and the prospect of more damaging photographs and videotapes to come threaten to unravel the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, which already has been shaken by continuing violence and Spain's decision to abruptly withdraw its 1,300 soldiers. Pressure has been particularly strong against the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
From the May 13, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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