>>Most Iraqi detainees 'arrested by mistake'
By Frances Williams in Geneva
Published: May 10 2004 20:57 | Last Updated: May 10 2004 20:57
Coalition military intelligence officers believed 70-90 per cent of Iraqi detainees were "arrested by mistake", according to a leaked Red Cross report on prisoner abuse, further details of which were disclosed on Monday.
The confidential report, given to the US and British governments in February but covering events in March to November last year, describes a pattern of indiscriminate arrests involving destruction of property and brutal behaviour towards suspects and their families.
Ill-treatment during capture was frequent and "appeared to go beyond the reasonable, legitimate and proportional use of force", the report said. Such behaviour "seemed to reflect a usual modus operandi by certain CF [coalition forces] battle groups".
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday it had repeatedly, throughout last year, drawn these and other violations of international humanitarian law to the attention of the coalition forces and the prison authorities in Iraq.
In February, a consolidated report summarising the ICRC's interventions was sent to the US and UK governments. A month earlier, Jakob Kellenberger, ICRC president, had raised the issue of prisoner abuse in Iraq when he saw Colin Powell, US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, US national security adviser, and Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy defence secretary, on a visit to Washington.
The report, published in full on Monday by the Wall Street Journal, said arrests tended to follow a pattern. "Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property.
"Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people. Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles."
The report said some coalition military intelligence officers estimated that "between 70 per cent and 90 per cent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake".
Pierre Krähenbühl, ICRC's operations director, said on Friday that he was "disturbed" to see the report made public, noting that confidentiality was a vital element of the ICRC's work that enabled it to gain access to hundreds of thousands of detainees around the world. Last year ICRC representatives visited more than 460,000 detainees in nearly 80 countries, including 13,000 in Iraq. The Wall Street Journal stated on Friday that the leak did not come from the ICRC.
Mr Krähenbühl said the ICRC faced a "terrible dilemma" in Iraq and elsewhere over its consistent policy not to talk about what it sees in its visits to the prisons.
However, the agency had decided not to speak out unless it was clear that its recommendations were having no effect.<<
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