Iraq government fails to deliver torture investigation report
11/30/2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi government officials failed today to deliver the promised results of an investigation into alleged torture at an Interior Ministry jail in Baghdad.
U.S. and Iraqi forces discovered 173 malnourished Iraqi detainees when they went into the facility on Nov. 13. Some inmates showed signs of torture, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. A U.S. general was so concerned with what he found that he took immediate control of the jail but the military has released few details about it since.
Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal said the investigation led by Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nouri Shaways was still under way. An official in Shaways’ office said the ministerial committee needed more time to finish its work.
On Nov. 15, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari ordered the investigation and promised the results within two weeks. The U.S. Embassy touted the probe as proof that the Iraqi government was taking action and there was no need for an independent, international inquiry, which many in the Sunni Muslim minority have demanded.
There have been conflicting reports about the inmates, but many were believed to be Sunnis, who also make up the backbone of the insurgency.
Sunni leaders have alleged that Shiite militias that have been incorporated into the Interior Ministry, which controls the police, and have formed death squads that have carried out thousands of extrajudicial abductions and executions.
Hundreds of Sunnis have been found dead along the Iranian border, many with gunshot wounds to the head or showing signs of torture.
The failure to release any results today did not surprise Sunni politicians.
“We believe that the government is part of this case, so we do not expect that it would try to reveal the truth,’’ said Harith al-Obeidi, a spokesman for the General Conference for the People of Iraq. “If some members in the government were not involved, the facts would have been announced in less than a two-week period. It is a deliberate delay.’’
Mohammed al-Mishehdani, a senior official in the National Council for National Dialogue said that simple cases of torture reported in the past were never solved, so he had low expectations for this investigation, just weeks before Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.
“We think that the government is not serious in this matter because it does not want to be dragged into controversy while the elections are looming,’’ he said. “We still demand an international investigation because nobody expects that the government would indict itself.’’
President Bush has repeatedly said one goal of the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to install a democratic government that respects human rights.
After U.S. troops took over the jail in Baghdad, President Jalal Talabani said there was “no place for torture and persecution in the new Iraq’’ and promised that anyone involved “would be severely punished.’’
But since then, al-Jaafari has said the poor condition of the detainees had been exaggerated and Interior Minister Bayn Jabr suggested some making the torture allegations were supporting the insurgency or had a personal score to settle.
In a sign of the differing views on detainee abuse, America’s top military official, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld contradicted each other Tuesday on the role of U.S. troops in Iraq while speaking to reporters at the Pentagon.
Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. troops have a duty to intercede and stop abuse of prisoners by Iraqi security personnel, while Rumsfeld told the general he believed U.S. soldiers only had to report the abuse, not stop it.
Pace stuck to his original statement.
“If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it,’’ Pace told his civilian boss.
The unusual exchange occurred during a discussion at a news conference about the relationship between U.S. forces in Iraq and an Iraqi government considered sovereign by the United States.