Abu Ghraib: selbst Teenager wurden misshandelt

--- Die Washington Post wartet heute mit ein paar neuen Einzelheiten über die sadistischen Folterungen und Misshandlungen in Abu Ghraib auf. Demnach soll auch mit Gefangenen im zarten Jugendalter wenig sanft umgesprungen worden sein: An Army investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has found that military police dogs were used to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as part of a sadistic game, one of many details in the forthcoming report that were provoking expressions of concern and disgust among Army officers briefed on the findings. Earlier reports and photographs from the prison have indicated that unmuzzled military police dogs were used to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib, something the dog handlers have told investigators was sanctioned by top military intelligence officers there. But the new report, according to Pentagon sources, will show that MPs were using their animals to make juveniles -- as young as 15 years old -- urinate on themselves as part of a competition. ... Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been released, other officials at the Pentagon said the investigation also acknowledges that military intelligence soldiers kept multiple detainees off the record books and hid them from international humanitarian organizations. The report also mentions substantiated claims that at least one male detainee was sodomized by one of his captors at Abu Ghraib, sources said. "The report will show that these actions were bad, illegal, unauthorized, and some of it was sadistic," said one Defense Department official. "But it will show that they were the actions of a few, actions that went unnoticed because of leadership failures." The investigative report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay focuses on the role of military intelligence soldiers in the prison abuse. ... Another report regarding the prison abuse, commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, is expected to be released this afternoon. That independent commission, chaired by James R. Schlesinger, a former defense secretary, will be critical of the guidance and policies set by top Pentagon and military officials as they worked to get more useful intelligence from detainees in Iraq, said a source familiar with the commission's work. The Schlesinger report is not expected to implicate high-level officials by name, but it would be the first report to link the abuse at Abu Ghraib to policies set by top officials in Washington. The Fay report, by contrast, does not point a finger at the Pentagon and instead assigns most of the blame to military intelligence and military police who worked on the chaotic grounds of the overcrowded and austere Abu Ghraib. In Mannheim gehen derweil Voruntersuchungen zu einem Prozess gegen Abu-Ghraib-Folterer weiter. Mehr zum Thema in Telepolis.

Update: Der Schlesinger-Report, der das "Chaos" in Abu Ghraib und die Pentagon-Spitze kritisiert, ist jetzt online gemeinsam mit einer Pressemitteilung des US-Verteidigungsministeriums.