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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (5210)	8/16/2003 9:35:37 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793854

Indeed, telling the Truth in the whole Arab world is tremendously important. Who will break down the wall of lies that the Arabs tell each other? Can even a success story in Iraq do the trick? Notice that Al Jazeera doesn't seem to even have taken a hit from the revelation that its director was on Saddam's payroll?

To: LindyBill who wrote (5210)	8/16/2003 9:48:31 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (8) \| Respond to of 793854

This column reads as if Friedman is looking for a topic. One of those columns that pops up when one is due but there's not a big topic fully worked out in his head. I have great respect for Friedman but one has to see the full collection; not weak ones like this one.

To: LindyBill who wrote (5210)	8/17/2003 12:42:22 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793854

The web site mentioned in Mr. Friedmans article tells about Abu Ghraib prison....... iraq-today.com A tour of Abu Ghraib By Zaid H. Fahmi BAGHDAD - It was once the darkest symbol of the Saddam Hussein regime, a structure that exemplified everything wrong with the government and its various apparatus. Throughout its dilapidated halls, thousands of criminals and innocents were beaten, tortured, and sent to their deaths. It is a prison so large that it can take more than an hour to walk across. But these days, Abu Ghraib prison looks more like a giant construction project than a torture chamber. With its three-meter high walls and looming guard towers, the real picture of the site becomes clear only once you pass its heavily fortified gate. Last Monday, Coalition authorities opened the prison to the press for the first time, giving a full view of the changes going on. These days Abu Ghraib is for civilian prisoners-members of the former regime still reside at the Baghdad International Airport. As you enter the gate, you will spot some of the first of them on the west side, where more than 500 prisoners languish half naked in the searing summer sun. The second camp is on the east side, with more than 100 prisoners in almost the exact same circumstance. Several carpentry and metalworking factories rest looted, now cleared by coalition forces and used as a base. But still the clang of metalworking continues as prison bars continue to go up. Conditions for all are far better than they once were: Prisoners get towels, soap, shampoo, clean bathrooms and even the food is acceptable, one American guard claimed. The prison also has various medical care facilities to tend to prisoner needs. Further to the east lies the most defining element of the prison, the torture chamber. Coalition forces have built a high wall to separate it from the prison, but they have not yet managed to eliminate its stench. The space is meant to remain as a museum, a site for Iraq to remember its darkest hours. The stench and the darkness only hint at the horrors that occurred here. The single-floor building contains two sections. The first was the a torture room, a solitary place with eight small cells, one metre by one metre across, and thick bars used for restraining prisoners. More than 18 people stayed in the room at a time, witnessing and facing all manner of crimes against humanity. The second room is the execution room, where prisoners were hanged, sometimes in assembly line fashion. Rust has just begun to develop on the long handles that tightened the noose around prisoners' necks. And the Coalition, despite cleaning the place seven times over, has not managed to get rid of the smell of death yet. Sundays were normally execution days; on any given Monday like this one, the families would be lined up to collect the bodies. Some 30,000 people met their end at Abu Ghraib, not counting the ones who simply disappeared. "When we first came to the prison there was nothing much left to find," said Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, who is in charge of Iraq's prisons. "The place was badly destroyed and we found most of the files and documents damaged. The rest was in bad shape, and we don't know for sure it was damaged by the people in charge or by the war itself." As a result, Karpinski said, the coalition doesn't know the number of prisoners actually released by Saddam Hussein. The best estimate so far is about 150,000; it may well be far more. Plans for Abu Ghraib prison now sound tame in comparison. In all, the Coalition has spent between $3 and $4 million for the reconstructions, but another $ 20 million is needed to complete the work. Construction inside the prison is well underway, with 78% to 80% of the initial project completed. Yet issues like electricity and water supply continue to dog the process. "The prison will officially open in two weeks but I think the prison needs more than three years to be the perfect prison for Iraq," said Karpinski. There are more than 5,000 prisoners in all of Iraq; only 65 of them are women, and 15 of them lie in Abu Ghraib. In time, the bars may rise over ever more Iraqis. But the torture chamber will lie dormant