Iraqi PM promises probe into torture allegations
The discovery of 173 mostly Sunni Arab detainees in an Iraqi Interior Ministry basement lockup – malnourished and showing signs of torture – appeared to validate some of the long-standing grievances and has raised questions about the Shiite-led government’s commitment to democracy and human rights.
“In order to search for one terrorist, they detain hundreds of innocent people and torture them brutally,” said Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, a Sunni politician.
US forces seized the detention centre in Baghdad on Sunday, and yesterday Iraq’s prime minister promised an immediate investigation.
“I was informed that there were 173 detainees held at an Interior Ministry prison and they appear to be malnourished,” Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, said of Sunday’s raid at a detention centre in the fashionable Jadriyah district.
“There is also some talk that they were subjected to some kind of torture.”
One detainee had been crippled by polio and others suffered “different wounds,” said the deputy interior minister, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal.
Shiite civilians also suffer at the hands of Sunni insurgents and religious extremists who have killed hundreds in suicide attacks.
But the Sunni allegations are disturbing because the alleged offenders are not rebels, but government forces sworn to defend the rule of law.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the Bush administration found the reports troubling.
“We don’t practice torture, and we don’t believe that others should practice torture,” said the spokesman, Adam Ereli.
“We think that there should be an investigation and those who are responsible should be held accountable.”
But the head of Iraq’s largest Sunni political party said he had spoken to al-Jaafari and other government officials about torture at Interior Ministry detention centres, including the one where the detainees were found.
Abdul-Hamid, leader of the IraqiIslamic Party, said the government routinely dismissed his complaints, calling the prisoners “former regime elements,” meaning Saddam Hussein loyalists.
US Brig. Gen. Karl Horst, who commanded the troops in Sunday’s raid, said American and Iraqi forces planned to carry out checks at every Interior Ministry detention facility in Baghdad.
It was not immediately clear why US forces chose to move in on Sunday.
“We’re going to hit every single one of them, every single one of them,” Horst said.
Sunni politicians have been complaining of torture, abuse and arbitrary arrest by special commandos of the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry since the current government took power last April.
Sunnis have also accused the ministry of being behind “death squads,” rumoured to be made up of former members of Shiite militias, which target Sunnis in reprisal for the killings of Shiites by Sunni Arab insurgents.
Interior Minister Bayn Jabr has denied any role in such killings.
Sunni Arab complaints have taken on new urgency because of American efforts to encourage a big Sunni turnout in the December 15 parliamentary elections in hopes of undermining Sunni support for the insurgency.
In recent days, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan have all visited Iraq to promote Sunni participation.
US officials have also been pressing the majority Shiites and their Kurdish allies to reach out to the minority community – which dominated the country during Saddam’s regime.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top US commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, have expressed their “deep concern” over the condition of the detainees “at the highest level” of the Iraqi government, a US Embassy statement said.
“We agree with Iraq’s leaders that the mistreatment of detainees is a serious matter and totally unacceptable,” the statement added.
But the case also raises troubling questions about the training and discipline of Iraqi security forces, which Washington hopes can assume a greater role in fighting the insurgents so that US and other international troops can begin to go home.
Interior Ministry commandos, who are separate from the Iraqi army, spearhead the Iraqi government's campaign against the insurgency.
Those commandos arrested more than 300 suspects last week in Diyala province after attacks on police checkpoints and a truck bomb that killed about 20 people in a Shiite village.
Kamal, the deputy interior minister, said all detainees found at the centre had been arrested under legal warrants issued by judges.
“They were mistreated and you know what happens in prison,” Kamal told The Associated Press. “We will try to make sure that such acts are not repeated in the future.”
He said the detainees were held in the basement of the building because the Justice Ministry lacked proper facilities and “there are no other places to hold those terrorists".
