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<H4>THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ</H4>
<H1>Iraqi Security Tactics Evoke the Hussein Era</H1>
<H2>Many detainees face beatings and some are killed. U.S. officials are
troubled by the reports.</H2>By Jeffrey Fleishman and Asmaa Waguih<BR>Special to
The Times<BR><BR>June 19, 2005<BR><BR>BAGHDAD — The public war on the Iraqi
insurgency has led to an atmosphere of hidden brutalities, including abuse and
torture, carried out against detainees by the nation's special security forces,
according to defense lawyers, international organizations and Iraq's Ministry of
Human Rights.<BR><BR>Up to 60% of the estimated 12,000 detainees in the
country's prisons and military compounds face intimidation, beatings or torture
that leads to broken bones and sometimes death, said Saad Sultan, head of a
board overseeing the treatment of prisoners at the Human Rights Ministry. He
added that police and security forces attached to the Interior Ministry are
responsible for most abuses.<BR><BR>The units have used tactics reminiscent of
Saddam Hussein's secret intelligence squads, according to the ministry and
independent human rights groups and lawyers, who have cataloged
abuses.<BR><BR>"We've documented a lot of torture cases," said Sultan, whose
committee is pushing for wider access to Iraqi-run prisons across the nation.
"There are beatings, punching, electric shocks to the body, including sensitive
areas, hanging prisoners upside down and beating them and dragging them on the
ground…. Many police officers come from a culture of torture from their
experiences over the last 35 years. Most of them worked during Saddam's
regime."<BR><BR>The ordeal described by Hussam Guheithi is similar to many
cases. When Iraqi national guardsmen raided his home last month, the 35-year-old
Sunni Muslim imam said they lashed him with cables, broke his nose and promised
to soak their uniforms with his blood. He was blindfolded and driven to a
military base, where he was interrogated and beaten until the soldiers were
satisfied that he wasn't an extremist.<BR><BR>At the end of nine days, Guheithi
said, the guardsmen told him, "You have to bear with us. You know the situation
now. We're trying to find terrorists."<BR><BR>The Interior Ministry, responsible
for the nation's internal security, acknowledges cases of mistreatment but
denies that torture is common. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr is a Shiite Muslim,
and some Sunni Muslim tribal leaders and politicians have accused the ministry
of unfairly targeting Sunnis, who make up the bulk of the
insurgency.<BR><BR>"There are no official accusations that the ministry's forces
are carrying out widespread abuse and torture of detainees," said Col. Adnan
Joubouri, a ministry spokesman. "There was some abuse of authority, and those
officials responsible are being punished."<BR><BR>U.S. officials, whose image on
detainment issues has already been tarnished by the prisoner abuse scandal at
Abu Ghraib, say they are troubled by the allegations of torture. They worry that
mistreatment by Iraqi police and national guardsmen, thousands of whom were
trained by American instructors who sought to steer the departments away from
Hussein's corrupt legacy, may be viewed as an extension of Abu
Ghraib.<BR><BR>"We understand and we hear that [torture] is potentially
happening, and this is an issue we are constantly talking about," said a senior
U.S. military official in Baghdad. "I think this is an issue no one can afford
to ignore."<BR><BR>Stories of torture and abuse against suspected Shiite and
Sunni criminals and rebels are unfolding in the midst of the campaign against a
relentless insurgency. Iraqi forces are frustrated by their inability to stop
car bombings and ambushes that have killed more than 1,000 people in recent
weeks.<BR><BR>Rising crime, a shaky court system, the lack of a constitution to
define civil rights and an Interior Ministry underequipped to pursue well-armed
rebel networks have made human rights less of an immediate concern for Iraqis
than bringing order to the nation, Iraqi and U.S. officials say.<BR><BR>Having
endured more than two years of violence since the U.S.-led invasion, many Iraqis
favor tough measures to end the unrest. The death penalty was recently
reinstated, and for much of the country there is an unspoken acceptance — often
rooted in harsh tribal justice — that intimidation and torture serve a purpose.
Such attitudes are complicated by sectarian strains between Shiite and Sunni
Muslims.<BR><BR>Under Hussein, the minority Sunnis were the core of the ruling
Baath Party and controlled the country. The new Iraqi government is dominated by
Shiites, who make up the majority of Iraq's population. Each side blames the
other for the bloodshed. This dynamic poses an incendiary possibility: Accounts
of torture in detention given by Sunni extremists might have been fabricated or
embellished to help instigate a civil war against Shiites and the government.
The Human Rights Ministry says it has encountered made-up allegations of
abuse.<BR><BR>"Ninety percent of detainees say that they confessed under
torture," said Judge Luqman Thabit Samiraii, head of the 1st Iraqi Central
Criminal Court. "Yet 80% of them have no torture marks. But torture does exist
during interrogations, I admit that."<BR><BR>The courts aren't always willing to
explore abuse claims. In a trial last month, Samiraii denied a defense lawyer's
request to have four suspects medically examined to determine whether their
confessions to the murder of an Interior Ministry official had been induced by
torture. The defendants, three of whom were sentenced to death, said they had
been repeatedly beaten. One of them said police had sodomized him with a metal
rod.<BR><BR>Before the four men appeared in the courtroom, their confessions had
been aired on the popular Iraqi television program "Terrorism in the Hands of
Justice." The show is the government's attempt to demystify the insurgency by
portraying suspected rebels as brutish killers rather than revolutionaries.
Defense lawyers argue that some of the accused are coerced into giving
confessions and that the program violates defendants' right to a fair
trial.<BR><BR>"The Americans are occupying the country, but the Iraqi national
guard and Iraqi police are violating the human rights of detainees," said Sattar
Raouf, director of the Popular Committee for Culture and Arts, who has followed
allegations of abuse. "Intelligence and security forces are torturing people for
confessions. You can go to the sixth and seventh floors of the Interior Ministry
and find case after case like this." <STRONG><BR><BR></STRONG>The Interior and
Justice ministries have been struggling over control of prisons and detention
centers. Interior operates in a secret realm of intelligence networks in which
suspects can be jailed or vanish for weeks. Sultan said his committee has found
less abuse in centers under the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry. He added
that Justice has stricter oversight on inmate conditions and is less involved
than Interior in interrogating suspects, including alleged
insurgents.<BR><BR><STRONG></STRONG>A report this year by the international
organization Human Rights Watch found that abuse had become "routine and
commonplace" and that detainees were often beaten and held in violation of
judicial process, including not receiving court hearings within 24 hours of
their arrests. The group stated that some detainees — many of whom are arrested
based on tips by paid informants — waited months before a court
appearance.<BR><BR>"One of the most common complaints made by detainees," said
Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 90 current and former detainees in 2004,
"was of police officials threatening them with indefinite detention if they
failed to pay them sums of money."<BR><BR>The abuses reported by former
detainees and human rights organizations echo some of the Hussein regime's
tactics: poor legal protection, crowded cells, electric shock, threats of sexual
abuse and hanging and beating prisoners for prolonged periods.<BR><BR>Abbas
Jibouri said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that about 25 national
guard members raided his house on the morning of May 8.<BR><BR>A 41-year-old
farmer from the Maden area near Baghdad, Jibouri, whose account could not be
verified, said he had been taken to a detainee center and later transferred to
the national guard base at Rustumiya.<BR><BR>"There was always one man
interrogating me and four or five others who punched me in different parts of my
body," said Jibouri, a Sunni. "They accused me of providing terrorists with
weapons and money…. They gave me a list of 10 names and told me to give
information about their being terrorists. One of the names belonged to my
brother and another was a neighbor of mine who actually died a year or so
ago."<BR><BR>Jibouri said he was beaten with pipes and given electrical shocks.
"I didn't know when it would end," he said.<BR><BR>At one point, Jibouri said,
interrogators told him: "You [Sunnis] ruled the country for 35 years. We're
going to retaliate now." Jibouri was released after 10 days in custody. He was
not charged with a crime.<BR><BR>Guheithi, the Sunni imam, has been detained by
American as well as Iraqi forces. He said U.S. troops had arrested him in
January 2004 and accused him of preaching holy war at his mosque. He said he was
held in solitary confinement for seven days and released. American soldiers, he
said, "didn't torture me, but an Iraqi man with them punched me hard several
times."<BR><BR>Last month, Iraqi national guardsmen handcuffed Guheithi at the
home of his brother in the Rasafa neighborhood of Baghdad.<BR><BR>"They were
beating me and my brothers in front of our children," he said. "They told me
that I was helping the insurgents by sending trucks to Fallouja during the first
[anti-insurgent] offensive in April 2004. They had piles of reports about me. I
was actually only sending humanitarian aid to the people there, which I gathered
from our mosque."<BR><BR>He said he was held for nine days in the Taji camp,
which is used by U.S. and Iraqi forces.<BR><BR>"I stayed there with 19 other
people in a very small room with no windows," said Guheithi, who added that he
was often blindfolded and beaten. "When they found that we had no information,
they set us free…. I and other detainees about to be released had to swear that
we were not terrorists and that we are going to participate in building a
democratic country."<BR><BR>*<BR><BR>
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<I>Times staff writer Carol J. Williams contributed to this
report.<BR></I></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>