Defence Department report on more torture in Iraq
See the detailed report by Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall in the NY Times . AP provides a summary, and there is some analysis here. The below are excerpts from a previous, shorter version available via the IHT:
As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein’s former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. […]
Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, “No Blood, No Foul.” According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges.
“The reality is, there were no rules there,” another Pentagon official said.
Documents and interviews with more than a dozen people now offer the first detailed description of serious abuses by the military’s most highly trained counterterrorism unit. […]
The abuses at Camp Nama continued despite warnings beginning in August 2003 from a U.S. Army investigator and U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials in Iraq. The CIA was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August.[…]
Defense Department personnel briefed on the unit’s operations said harsh treatment extended beyond Camp Nama to small field outposts in Baghdad, Falluja, Balad, Ramadi and Kirkuk.[…]
In the summer of 2004, Camp Nama closed and the unit moved to a new headquarters in Balad, north of Baghdad. The unit’s operations are now shrouded in even tighter secrecy.