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At least seven U.S. Army military police guards are to face
court martial over abuse of Iraqi prisoners as more gruesome
images of US troops torturing captives are released to American
lawmakers.
But will putting the alleged abusers on trial be enough to
appease the Iraqis and and the general public?
Dr Martin Griffiths, senior lecturer at Flinders University
in Melbourne, Australia doesn't think so. He shares his opinion
here with Valarie Tan.
MG: Public opinion inside Iraq is deeply divided on this.
The last opinion poll that was done before this outrage became
public showed that the Iraqi public was split. A lot of them
really did hope that the occupation would work and that the
United States could bring order and peace to Iraq. Half of
them thought that the United States should get out as soon
as possible. I think that the combination of the photographs
and of the assassination of Berg, the captive who was beheaded
online in the last couple of days, is going to split the Iraqi
public opinion. Perhaps what might happen though, is if the
secretary of defence resign. If you get the combination of
a number of court martials at the bottom and it doesn't move
far up the chain but you do get secretaries of states leaving,
then that would send a pretty strong signal to the Iraqi people
that the United States takes this very seriously.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the interrogation
techniques used by the military in Iraq. Methods such as sleep
deprivation and making prisoners assume stress positions had
been approved by Pentagon lawyers. So are the abuses we saw
in the media essentially allowed if not for the public outcry?
MG: Oh absolutely. Its well-known that the United States
has developed some off-shore detention centres where these
kind of techniques are being used. And indeed, the 19-year-old
girl from West Virginia photographed with the prisoners is
now claiming that a number of the photographs were taken so
that they could be shown to other suspects. In other words,
if you don't talk to us, these kind of things is going to
happen to you and worse. Now, if that's the case, then its
clear that these kind of practice is quite widespread. However,
I think what needs to be taken into consideration here is
that what seems to have happened at this prison is a complete
collapse of the command and control. In other words, you have
very junior people who were not trained, who were being allowed
to engage in these kind of activities without any kind of
real supervision or control, which presumably can take place
in other centres that the United States is running.
Reports have also said that allegations of troops mistreating
Iraqi captives at Abu Ghraib prison was first heard of in
January. A US guard at Abu Ghraib had actually told superiors
he could not tolerate abuses he had witnessed at that time
as well. But news of the abuse broke only recently. Was there
essentially a cover-up?
MG: Oh I think absolutely. I think also there's a report
of Red Cross and other Human Rights organization have been
documenting these abuses and submitted a report to the American
government in July of last year. So this has been going on
for a very long time. What has happened is that essentially,
it was off the radar of the United States. Its another example
of the appalling lack of planning for the post-war situation
in the American administration. And I think its reflected
in the attitude of the secretary of defence.
So what will it take now for US troops to repair the damage
caused in relations with Iraqis especially in light of the
impending handover of sovereignty in June?
MG: Well I think we got to remember that the beheading of
an American worker in Iraq, I think has hardened the American
public opinion in the United States. In a sense, the outrage
that has been demonstrated in the couple of days in the United
States has moderated some of the pressure off George Bush.
Now in terms of Iraq itself and what the United States need
to do, I think they've got to do a couple things. On the one
hand, they've been quite successful in putting down some of
the armed rebellions in a couple of key cities inside of Iraq.
The other thing they've got to do relatively quickly is move
towards the constitutional settlement which is still lacking
inside Iraq up till June. And they haven't much time to do
that. In other words, to make sure that they can marginalize
some of the more radical fundamentalists inside Iraq, they've
got to bring on board the 3 groups that matter, if they're
going to have any kind of sustainable order in Iraq, first
being the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites. And its not
clear that they've done that yet.
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