The US Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of “leveraging” their husbands into surrender, US military documents show.
This AP story isn’t as horrifying as ones about, say white phosphorus, torture, or death squads, but it’s still disgusting:
Iraqi human rights activist Hind al-Salehi contends that US anti-insurgent units, coming up empty-handed in raids on suspects’ houses, have at times detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in. {snip}
In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect’s house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.
“During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target’s surrender,” wrote the 14-year veteran officer.
He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway.
“The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing,” the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said. {snip}
The second episode, in June 2004, is found in sketchy detail in e-mail exchanges among six US Army colonels, discussing an undisclosed number of female detainees held in northern Iraq by the Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.
The first message, from a military police colonel, advised staff officers of the US northern command that the Iraqi police would not take control of the jailed women without charges being brought against them.
In a second e-mail, a command staff officer asked an officer of the unit holding the women, “What are you guys doing to try to get the husband – have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?”
Two days later, the brigade’s deputy commander advised the higher command, “As each day goes by, I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in getting the husband.”
He went on, “These ladies fought back extremely hard during the original detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation.”
The command staff colonel wrote in reply, referring to a commanding general, “CG wants the husband.”
The released e-mails stop there, and the women’s eventual status could not be immediately determined.
Pathetic, just plain and simple crazy! …and this is maybe why Jill Carroll was kidnaped??!! for shame of it all! and what happened to the nursing baby? and the other children in the home? Did they just leave them to fend for themselves or what? What is happening with our military is not a good thing. The brass seem to be loosing their ever living minds over there!
Khalid Mohammed’s little boys were only 7 and 9 when they were seized and hauled off for “interrogation.” US prefers not to comment on their fate. It’s unlikely they were able to withstand much.
The guy that was tortured to death and US reprimanded the torturer actually traded himself for his 2 sons that had been seized by US torturers.
Here is a snip from WaPo in 2003. The url gives an “error” message now, maybe because it is old, maybe because they thought it best to remove it
I remember reading that Duct. I also thought at the time that this would help explain much of the spreading hostility toward our troops-along with all the other crap we are doing.
There is no ‘freedom is on the march’ but more like we’re spreading chaos and anger toward us daily one family at a time. And it’s almost as if that is the goal-to give us an excuse to stay in the Mid East permanently..duh.
You come up w/the most amazing info, DF!
They should tell us when we’re young just how much memory storage capacity is required to keep up with Atrocity.
I’d forgotten about KM’s kids.
But not Abu Ghraib.
.
Welcome to the Warhorse Website! The 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division is the U.S. Army’s first, fully digitized, and modernized heavy brigade combat team. If you are not sure what all that means, let me assure you the essence of what we do is all about training lethal crews, sections, platoons, and companies to win on the battlefield of the future. This brigade possesses the most modern, powerful, and lethal land combat systems in the world.
The brigade stays ready to fight our nations wars. The Warhorse Brigade is the first unit in the U.S. Army to be equipped with the M1A2SEP Abrams Tank and M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. These systems bring state-of-the-art weapons technology together with advances in digital command and control systems in order to increase the lethality and force effectiveness of today’s heavy armor brigade. The end result is to provide our soldiers with improved situational awareness on the battlefield.
Our hallmark in this brigade is a training methodology known as the “critical task approach.” This approach to small unit training is deeply rooted in our training doctrine of Battle Focused Training.
Intensified Offensive Leads To Detentions, Intelligence
BAGHDAD (WaPo) July 28, 2003 — Over the past six weeks a small but intense war has been conducted in the mud-hut villages and lush palm groves along the Tigris River valley, fought with far different methods than those used in the campaign that toppled president Saddam Hussein.
As Iraqi fighters launched guerrilla strikes, the U.S. Army adopted a more nimble approach against unseen adversaries and found new ways to gather intelligence about them, according to dozens of soldiers and officers interviewed over the last week. Thousands of suspected Iraqi fighters were detained over the six-week period, many temporarily, in hundreds of U.S. military raids, most of them conducted in the dead of night …
One of over 30 detainees kept in Camp Lancer in Bayji, where patrols and raids continue daily. Andrea Bruce WoodallAt the beginning of June, before the U.S. offensives began, the reward for killing an American soldier was about $300, an Army officer said. Now, he said, street youths are being offered as much as $5,000 — and are being told that if they refuse, their families will be killed, a development the officer described as a sign of reluctance among once-eager youths to take part in the strikes.
BAGHDAD (China Daily) Aug. 27, 2003 — Hundreds of U.S. forces launched a series of raids to hunt down bandits, gangsters and Saddam Hussein loyalists, capturing at least 24.
Meanwhile, the number of American troops killed in postwar Iraq surpassed the toll of those killed in major combat, reaching 140 with the deaths of a soldier in a roadside bombing and another in a traffic accident.
When President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1, the U.S. death toll stood at 138. Since then, 140 more soldiers have died, counting both deaths announced. The total number of U.S. soldiers killed since the Iraq war began on March 20 is 278.
U.S. soldiers stand over two Iraqi men while their family look on during a raid on scores of houses in Khalis, a town about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad. [AP]The two dozen suspected Iraqi criminals were swept up near Baqouba, 42 miles north of Baghdad, in “Operation Ivy Needle,” a campaign launched by the 4th Infantry Division.
Hundreds of troops, backed by helicopters, tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles chased a convicted murderer and gangster named Lateef Hamed al-Kubaishat, known as Lateef by U.S. forces, said Col. David Hogg, commander of the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade.
BAQUBAH FOB Warhorse Feb. 23, 2004 — From the times when Civil War commanders sent intelligence collectors hundreds of feet up and over enemy troops in hot air balloons until today, tactical commanders have relied on eyes other than their own to track enemy movement.
The Shadow 200 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle system operated by the soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division provides brigade-level commanders with real-time intelligence of what is happening on the ground – day or night, while being virtually undetectable.
A Shadow Tactical UAV launches from its catapult just prior to an intelligence-gathering mission for 2nd Brigade Combat Team in Baqubah, Iraq.The secret is its ability to fly at extremely high altitudes while using advanced imaging systems capable of seeing from great distances.
WASHINGTON May 20, 2004 — A military intelligence analyst who recently completed duty at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said Wednesday that the 16-year-old son of a detainee there was abused by U.S. soldiers in order to break his father’s resistance to interrogators.
The analyst said the teenager was stripped naked, thrown in the back of an open truck, driven around in the cold night air, splattered with mud and then presented to his father at Abu Ghraib, the prison at the center of the ongoing scandal over abuse of Iraqi detainees.
Upon seeing his frail and frightened son, the prisoner broke down and cried and told interrogators he would tell them whatever they wanted, the analyst said.
Sgt. Samuel Provance, who maintained the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion’s top secret computer system at Abu Ghraib prison, gave the account of abuse of the teenager in a telephone interview from Germany, where he is now stationed. He said he also has described the incident to army investigators.
Provance’s account of mistreatment of a prisoner’s son is consistent with concerns raised by the International Red Cross. The Red Cross noted it had received reports that interrogators were making threats of reprisals against detainees’ family members.
Provance already has been deemed a credible witness by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who included the army sergeant in a list of witnesses whose statements he relied on to make his findings of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib.
FORT HOOD, Texas, Jan. 20, 2005 –Enemy forces watch and learn. When they observe a routine, they strike, often using improvised explosive devices, according to veterans of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instruction focuses on troops learning the technical components of the explosive as well as ways to increase awareness of enemy tactics.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Sinking to the Level of what We Say We Deplore, Human Rights Violations
Silly me. I thought taking hostages was against the rules
of war. The 4th Geneva Convention says, and I quote,
Maybe the administration’s copy reads “permitted” instead
of “prohibited”? Or maybe they’re just going for a war crime
quadfecta.
The original article, unlike this diary, is “balanced” & includes remarks by a US Army spokesman telling us that all detentions have a just cause, & an Iraqi who says that hostage kidnapping was what happened back in the old days of Saddam. Rummy would no doubt affirm that the Geneva conventions are being fully respected.
They tell us that information is now the first site of battle. It would appear that in the War for Language, the aim is to liberate the words from their confining definitions; in the New Semantics, of course we don’t take hostages, torture & abuse prisoners, use chemical weapons on civilian populations, etc. etc.