{COMMENT: I am almost rendered speechless. The puppet US government was guilty
of human rights abuses in Iraq? The countries to which the US has "rendered"
prisoners are human rights monsters?...This report is the ultimate hubris..Ish}
March 1, 2005
U.S. Cites Array of Rights Abuses by the Iraqi Government in 2004
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/politics/01rights.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=
[W] ASHINGTON, Feb. 28 - The State Department on Monday detailed an array of
human rights abuses last year by the Iraqi government, including torture, rape
and illegal detentions by police officers and functionaries of the interim
administration that took power in June.
In the Bush administration's bluntest description of human rights
transgressions by the American-supported government, the report said the Iraqis
"generally respected human rights, but serious problems remained" as the
government and American-led foreign forces fought a violent insurgency. It
cited "reports of arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, impunity, poor prison
conditions - particularly in pretrial detention facilities - and arbitrary
arrest and detention."
The lengthy discussion came in a chapter on Iraq in the department's annual
report on human rights, which pointedly criticized not only countries that had
been found chronically deficient, like North Korea, Syria and Iran, but also
some close American allies, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The allegations of abuses by an Iraqi government installed by the United States
and still heavily influenced by it provided an unusual element to the larger
report. The report did not address incidents in Iraq in which Americans were
involved, like the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, which came to light in
2004.
A senior State Department official said the criticism of Iraq was in keeping
with the administration's approach. "What it shows is that we don't look the
other way," the official said. "There are countries we support and that are
friends, and when they have practices that don't meet international standards,
we don't hesitate to call a spade a spade."
The official said Iraqi officials accepted that there had been problems and
were correcting their practices. "The Iraqis are not in denial on this," the
official added.
The report emphasized the larger accomplishments of the Iraqi people, as
symbolized by the successful elections of Jan. 30. But it gave extensive
details about complaints that the government had violated human rights
provisions of the transitional law put in place by the United States and the
Iraqi Governing Council shortly after the 2003 invasion.
These included reports that police officers in Basra were involved in killing
10 Baath Party members; that the police in Baghdad arrested, interrogated and
killed 12 kidnappers of three police officers on Oct. 16, 2004, and that
corruption was a problem at every level of government.
The document cited without comment a report by Human Rights Watch, an
independent advocacy group, that "torture and ill treatment of detainees by
police was commonplace," allegedly including "beatings with cables and
hosepipes, electric shocks to their earlobes and genitals, food and water
deprivation."
In one case, the report said, enough evidence had been gathered "to prosecute
police officers in Baghdad who were systematically raping and torturing female
detainees." Two of them received prison sentences, while four were demoted and
reassigned.
Prison conditions in Iraq had shown "significant improvement" after the fall of
Saddam Hussein, the department said, but many prisons still fell short of
international standards.
There were also reports of police officers making false arrests to extort money
from the families of detainees, and of an Iraqi ministry having members of a
political party arrested in order to occupy their offices. "Reportedly," the
document said, "coerced confessions and interrogation continued to be the
favored method of investigation by police."
The broader annual report, which is required by Congress and is formally titled
the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, described rights abuses in other
allied countries in notably tough language.
The report said that the Saudi record of abuses in 2004 "far exceeds the
advances," that Egypt's and Pakistan's records were poor, and that Jordan had
"many problems." It criticized all four countries over allegations of abusing
and torturing prisoners.
But the document also struck optimistic notes at times. It cited the success of
democratic elections in Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine, and suggested that
developments in those places, coming as President Bush continued to promote
democracy as a counter to terrorism, might be helping to embolden people
elsewhere to shed a hopelessness about change.
In much of the broader Middle East, "people are increasingly conscious of the
freedom deficit in the region," Under Secretary Paula J. Dobriansky said in
introducing the report.
The official attention paid to Egypt and Saudi Arabia is not new, but some of
the language in the report was unexpectedly sharp. In Saudi Arabia, for
example, it said: "There were credible reports of torture and abuse of
prisoners by security forces, arbitrary arrests and incommunicado detentions.
The religious police continued to intimidate, abuse and detain citizens and
foreigners. Most trials were closed."
Egypt, it said, restricted many basic rights, and its security forces continued
to mistreat prisoners, leading to at least 10 deaths in custody.
The report on Iraq also covered the year in which the prisoner abuses at Abu
Ghraib were uncovered.
An acting assistant secretary of state, Michael G. Kozak, was asked Monday how
that scandal had affected the administration's latest evaluation. "Look," he
said, "the events at Abu Ghraib were a stain on the honor of the U.S.; there's
no two ways about it."
What mattered, he said, was whether a government worked to redress the abuses
that do occur. "I think you've seen the U.S. being very active," he said.
The report, coming days after some critics suggested that President Bush had
been insufficiently tough with President Vladimir V. Putin, listed several
complaints about Russia. It criticized the central government's consolidation
of power at the expense of the regions, its restriction of news media, and its
allowing of political pressure to taint the judiciary.
It said China, which has a growing commercial relationship with the United
States, continued to abuse prisoners, harass activists and restrict religious
practices.
North Korea was condemned for continued "brutal and repressive" treatment of
its people; Iran for allowing citizen's freedom to "deteriorate;" and Syria for
widespread use of torture, poor prison conditions and mass arrests of Kurds.
Sudan's human rights record was called extremely poor, both for restricting
freedoms and for the continuing violence by government-linked militias in
Darfur Province.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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