TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

These are the kind of human rights violations the Administration cited as reason to "liberate" Iraq.

"A brutal dictator who tortures his own people..."

Now we are perpetrators of the same vigilante justice.

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH:

"A fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses at Abu Ghraib. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski's brigade headquarters.) Taguba's report listed some of the wrongdoing:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba added detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence. Photographs and videos taken by the soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report, Taguba said, because of their extremely sensitive nature."

These soldiers and their superiors should be prosocuted to the fullest extent of the law.