ACLU: Army Command Approved and Encouraged Abuse of Prisoners

04/27/2005

New evidence disclosed in documents released by the Department of Defense confirms that soldiers who abused prisoners were acting with the “seeming approval” of senior command.

“These documents provide further evidence that the chain of command in Iraq approved and even encouraged the abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody,” said ACLU attorney Amrit Singh. “Instead of holding that chain of command accountable for systemic detainee abuse, the U.S. government continues to thwart efforts to bring the full truth about who was ultimately responsible to light.”

It is the ACLU’s persistent efforts that have brought to light information about the torture and abuse carried out by our government. Most recently, a CD-ROM of 2,200 documents was released in response to a federal court order that directed the Defense Department and other government agencies to comply with our year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act. These latest documents include autopsy reports that provide new, often gruesome details about detainee deaths ruled to be homicides, including death by strangulation and “blunt force injuries.” Significantly, the ACLU said, several documents link the abuses to a “command climate” that encouraged brutality.

For more details on these latest documents click below.

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=18060&c=206

To date, more than 30,000 documents have been released in response to the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The latest documents are available online.