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June 19, 2005
Iraqis Found in Torture House Tell of Brutality of Insurgents
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
KARABILA, Iraq, Sunday, June 19 - Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis.
The American military has found torture houses after invading towns heavily populated by insurgents - like Falluja, where the anti-insurgent assault last fall uncovered almost 20 such sites. But rarely have they come across victims who have lived to tell the tale.
The men said they told the marines, from Company K, Third Marines, Second Division, that they had been tortured with shocks and flogged with a strip of rubber for more than two weeks, unseen behind the windows of black glass. One of them, Ahmed Isa Fathil, 19, a former member of the new Iraqi Army, said he had been held and tortured there for 22 days. All the while, he said, his face was almost entirely taped over and his hands were cuffed.
In an interview with an embedded reporter just hours after he was freed, he said he had never seen the faces of his captors, who occasionally whispered at him, "We will kill you." He said they did not question him, and he did not know what they wanted. Nor did he ever expect to be released.
"They kill somebody every day," said Mr. Fathil, whose hands were so swollen he could not open a can of Coke offered to him by a marine. "They've killed a lot of people."
From the house on Saturday, there could be heard sounds of fighting from the large-scale offensive to eliminate strongholds of insurgents, many of whom stream across Iraq's porous border with Syria. [Page 10.]
As the marines walked through the house - a squat one-story building of sand-colored brick - the broken black window glass crunched under their boots. Light poured in, revealing walls and ceiling shredded by shrapnel from the blast they had set off to break in through a wall. Latex gloves were strewn on the floor. A kerosene lantern lay on its side, shattered.
The manual recovered - a fat, well-thumbed Arabic paperback - listed itself as the 2005 First Edition of "The Principles of Jihadist Philosophy," by Abdel Rahman al-Ali. Its chapters included "How to Select the Best Hostage," and "The Legitimacy of Cutting the Infidels' Heads."
Also recovered were several fake passports, a black hood, the painkiller Percoset, handcuffs and an explosives how-to-guide. Three cars loaded with explosives were parked in a garage outside the house. The marines blew them up.
This is Mr. Fathil's account of his ordeal.
He was having a lunch of lettuce and cucumbers in the kitchen of his home in the small desert village of Rabot with his mother and brother. An Opel sedan pulled up. Two men in masks carrying machine guns got out, seized him, and, leaving his mother sobbing, put him in the trunk of their car.
The drove to the house here. They taped his face, put cotton in his ears, and began to beat him.
The only possible explanation for the seizure he could think of was his time in the new Iraqi Army. Unemployed and illiterate, Mr. Fathil signed up after the American occupation began.
But nine months ago, when continuing working meant risking the wrath of the Jihadists, he quit. In all, 10 friends from his unit have been killed, he said. So have his uncle and his uncle's son, though neither ever worked as soldiers.
The men tended to talk in whispers, he said, telling him five times a day, in low voices in his ear, to pray, and offering him sand, instead of water, to wash himself. Just once, he asked if he could see his mother, and one of them said to him, "You won't leave until you are dead."
Mr. Fathil did not know there were other hostages. He found out only after the captors left and he was able to remove the tape from his eyes.
The routine in the house was regular. Because of the windows, it was always dark inside. Mr. Fathil said he was fed once a day, and allowed to use a bathroom as necessary in the back of the house.
When marines burst in, one of the captives was lying under a stairwell, badly beaten. At first, they thought he was dead.
The others were emaciated and battered. Mr. Fathil had fared the best. The other three were taken by medical helicopter to Balad, a base near Baghdad with a hospital.
But he still had been hurt badly. Marks from beatings criss-crossed his back, and deep pocks, apparently from electric shock burns, were gouged in his skin.
The shocks, he said, felt "like my soul is being ripped out of my body." But when he would start to scream, and his body would pull up from the shock, they would begin to beat him, he said.
Mr. Fathil has been at the Marine base south of Qaim since his release, on Saturday around noon. His mother still does not know he is alive.
When she was mentioned, he bowed and lowered his head, and began to cry softly, wiping his face with the jumpsuit given him by the marines.
He asked a reporter for help to move to another town, because it was too dangerous for his family to remain in their house. He begged not to have a photograph taken, even of the scars on his back. The captors took pictures of that, he said.
His town has always been a good place, he said, but the militants have made it hell.
"These few are destroying it," he said, his face streaked with tears. "Everybody they take, they kill. It's on a daily basis pretty much."
Kathianne said:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/international/middleeast/19torture.html?
Notice the absence of music, bibles/korans? Don't they know what it really takes?
I would not advocate or condone torture. That's the whole point, with few exceptions, seriously less then you would find in US med. and high security prisons, the conventions regarding torture have been followed, which is what was agreed to regarding 'combants other than lawful.'nosarcasm said:torture always show a lack of humanity whatever you cause is
It is a slippery slope. Looking at German history what else is there
to do then to be embaressed.
Kathianne said:I would not advocate or condone torture. That's the whole point, with few exceptions, seriously less then you would find in US med. and high security prisons, the conventions regarding torture have been followed, which is what was agreed to regarding 'combants other than lawful.'
It seems some senators and citizens need to understand what are rules for getting information and what torture is.
No nonsense, I can understand your sensitivity. I'll even go one better, I doubt very much there are many, if any 'innocents' at Guantanomo as prisoners. Still wouldn't condone torture. From what I've read it rarely works anyways.nosarcasm said:oh dont get me wrong this is not Nazi Germany or Russia
but I prefer to set very high standards.
The terrorist are weak this is not a grab for world power by Al quaeda.
We neeed to have an establised chain of justice, when they got
NR2 of Al Quaeda yes torture is needed.
For some unsubstained guy from wherever, we should refrain because
we dont want to go down the gutter.
Thats why torture needs to be authorized and by that justified.
Some senators just want to cut and run and use it as an excuse.
Still I demand (if I may) that torture has to be restricted for only
the top 500 of our enemies.
While it may give us insight torturing anyone the moral price imo is not
worth it. We can win without stooping down to the level of the enemy.
I know we dont stoop that low to begin with, there are no heads cut
off that I remember.
Like always it is tricky to protect the innocent while prosecuting the guilty.
I just have the Nazi experience in my history (and that is not meant as
an compariosn) that makes me error in favor of doubt.
Kathianne said:No nonsense, I can understand your sensitivity. I'll even go one better, I doubt very much there are many, if any 'innocents' at Guantanomo as prisoners. Still wouldn't condone torture. From what I've read it rarely works anyways.
However, to use omnimous threats, lies, etc.? Yeah, standard investigative procedures by police. To fool with lights, temps, etc. Yeah, disorienting. Screeching music, sure-nasty but heh, not torture. (yeah, even if it's "A Small World" or "Little Bunny Foo Foo."
As I've said before, the coddling, kowtowing on Islam should stop. It's brought nothing but trouble all around and is NOT part of the conventions.
nosarcasm said:oh I agree the Koran story was ridicilous. I mean I dont care if you piss
on the bible or Koran, Given I am an atheist now, but even
as a former protestant it is hardly torture.
I am not buying into the guantanmo campaign either, prison are never
set to be out vacation camps. Still the lack of inditements of
prisoners irks me. If they are terrorists try em and condamn
their ass.
If they are not terrorist make em POW and keep them just in case
dont sent them back to friggin rejoin the enemy.
As a German I am more sensitive about legality gone wrong. I do not
mean to compare Bush to the ill spirited Nazi regime.
But history also proves that alot of disaster happened out of good
intentions.
Either way we need more harshness on the battlefield not in the judicial
process.
