Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Let's be glass-is-half-full about this: In one way, at least, the Iraqi security forces seem to be "fully operational," and not in need of any U.S. training:

After a US raid on a secret Iraqi government jail last month revealed some detainees were tortured and abused there, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr insisted abuse claims were exaggerated and that torture will not be tolerated in the new Iraq.

US soldiers and some Iraqi officials disagree. They say not only is prisoner abuse widespread, but that much of it is carried out by Mr. Jabr's subordinates....

Major R. John Stukey, a US Army doctor who served in Baghdad from January to June, frequently visited Interior Ministry facilities on the east side of Baghdad to assess the health of prisoners. He says he personally treated about a dozen men who had been tortured....

In one case on May 3, a prisoner was "being severely tortured, the MPs could hear the screams,'' says Stukey. They took custody of the man and the equipment he was being tortured with....

The British are currently investigating allegations that the Iraqi police tortured two men to death with electric drills in the southern city of Basra. In Baghdad, this reporter met with four survivors of police custody who bore injuries consistent with their alleged torture with electric shocks and other implements....


So remind me again: Apart from redistributing the electrodes in Iraq, what have we accomplished exactly?

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