Iraqi Detainees Protest as Media Tours Prison
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: May 5, 2004
BU GHRAIB, Iraq, May 5 — A guided tour of the American military prison here today got off to an unexpected start.
As a group of Iraqi and Western reporters stepped off their bus and onto the prison grounds, hundreds of Iraqi detainees leaped to their feet and rushed from their tents to the razor wire fence. The men began to shout, wave their arms and wail.
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Some peeled off their shirts and twirled them over their heads. One detainee yanked off his artificial leg and held it in the air.
"Where is the freedom, Bush?" the one-legged man cried through the fence. "Is this freedom?"
As the crowd gathered, another Iraqi produced a bullhorn, issuing his complaints in flawless English.
"The problem of the Iraqi prisoners isn't only what is written in the news," the man said. "Iraqi prisoners need freedom, their dignity and their rights."
With that, the American commanders, who said they had wanted to demonstrate the openness with which they treated Iraqi prisoners, decided after a few minutes that it was time to move to the next stop on the tour.
"Please follow the rules," said Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the commandant of Abu Ghraib prison, leading the reporters back inside. "Get back on the bus."
So began the American military's official attempt to respond to the abuses of Iraqi detainees, captured graphically in a series of photographs taken at Abu Ghraib, that have sparked outrage across the Arab world. American officers in charge of the prison spent much of the day demonstrating how such things could never happen again.
Under an afternoon sun, American officers led reporters along razor wire fences that enclose the 3,800 Iraqi detainees in their tent cities. They opened up the cell block where the abuses and humiliations were believed to have unfolded. They swung open the doors on the interrogation rooms, offering assurances that nothing untoward ever happened inside.
The American officials announced some concrete steps as well: the International Committee on the Red Cross, which has sometimes clashed with American commanders over the treatment of prisoners, would be free to open a monitoring office inside the jail. In two weeks, prisoners would begin moving to new quarters with concrete and wooden floors and fans for the summer heat. General Miller said he was considering doing away with as many as 10 of the most aggressive techniques used by American interrogators.
And in the first of many such statements by American officials today, General Miller said he was sorry to the Iraqi people for the abuses that were allowed to go on inside the prison.
"I would like to apologize for our nation and for our military for the small number of soldiers who committed illegal or unauthorized acts here at Abu Ghraib," General Miller told the reporters following a tour of the prison. "These are violations not only of our national policy but of how we conduct ourselves as members of the international community."
He added, "I will personally guarantee that this will not happen again."
General Miller's apology was one of several American efforts today to mollify Iraqis angered by the humiliations depicted in the photographs. A senior American commander said that officers had been ordered to send their soldiers into the streets to assure Iraqis that what happened at Abu Ghraib clashed with everything the American Army stood for.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the spokesman for the American military here, delivered a powerful and unqualified public apology.
"My Army has been embarrassed by this," he said at a briefing for the press. "My Army has been shamed by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those soldiers did to your citizens. It was reprehensible and it was unacceptable."
Later, in response to another question about the abuse, General Kimmitt said: "That will be a black mark on the United States Army for years to come. But please understand that that is a small number of soldiers doing the wrong thing. They do not reflect the 150,000 coalition soldiers and the 130,000 American soldiers and marines that are out there every day providing security for your nation.
"They feel as ashamed as I do. They feel as embarrassed as I do. We came here to help.".....................
nytimes.com
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Hmmmmm maybe these dumb occupiers can also promise that they will stop killing Iraqis and go home? |
