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US military reluctant to probe prisoner abuse
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-11-16 22:52 The US military said Tuesday
that it won't formally probe into whether US forces in Iraq put detainees in a
cage with lions as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld launched a verbal attack on
Iraq war critics.
Two Iraqi businessmen, Sherzad Khalid, 35, and Thahe Sabbar, 37, made the
allegation as part of a lawsuit against Rumsfeld and top US military commanders
in Iraq filed by two rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human
Rights First.
US Army Spokesman Paul Boyce said there will be no formal investigation,
adding that he has never heard of lions being used in any detainee operations.
He said that no mention of lions has ever come up in any of over 400
investigations into detainee abuse conducted by the military over the past three
years.
"We are just somewhat perplexed that some 800 days after this incident
allegedly occurred and these individuals were detained that this is the first
time there's been any reference to a lion,"Boyce said.
However, the two former Iraqi detainees described a day in July2003, when
they were arrested by US troops with guns and armored vehicles, they were
covered with plastic hoods and repeatedly struck by soldiers using the butt of
their guns.
They both described standing in front of a lion cage, and said they could
hear other prisoners screaming as the metal cage door creaked open and slammed
shut.
"They threatened that if I did not confess they would put me in the cage,"
said Khalid, adding that US soldiers kept asking him where Saddam Hussein was.
Failing to give an answer, he was then pushed into the cage three times, but
were pulled out as the lions moved toward him.
Sabbar said he was also pushed into the cage. "The lions came running toward
me and they (US soldiers) pulled me out and shut the door. I completely lost
consciousness."
The United States faced international condemnation last year after
photographs emerged showing American forces physically abusing and sexually
humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail.
Asked about the newly emerged lion allegation, Rumsfeld said it seemed "quite
farfetched."
Terrorists were trained to lie about how they were treated while imprisoned,
he said at a Pentagon press conference.
Asked by a reporter whether he was saying the lion incident never happened,
Rumsfeld responded, "I didn't say that. You heard precisely what I said. I spoke
very precisely. And you can get a transcript of it if you really want to know
what I said."
With Democrats stepping up accusations that US President George W. Bush had
misled the American public about the urgency of the Iraqi threat prior to his
order to invade in March 2003, Rumsfeld launched a verbal attack on Iraq War
critics.
He argued at the press conference that when the Democrats were in power, they
also supported efforts to topple Saddam.
He noted that former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed The Iraq
Liberation Act and ordered four days of bombing of that country in December
1998.
Rumsfeld also cited the words of Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore,
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, Clinton's
national security adviser, to prove his argument.
He said that flawed intelligence offered by the Bush administration on Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction was based on "honest mistakes."
Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Senate defeated on Tuesdaya Democratic
proposal to call for Bush to draw a timetable for a phased withdrawal of US
troops from Iraq.
The vote result was 58-40 as the Republicans enjoy a clear majority in the
Senate.
In response, the Republicans put forward their own initiative, urging that
the Iraqi forces should take the lead in defending their nation and there should
be "a period of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty" in 2006.
Asked whether the vote signaled a growing impatience with the Iraqi war
similar to that sparked more than three decades ago by the US war in Vietnam,
Rumsfeld ejected any direct comparison between the two wars.
"Oh, I wouldn't go down that road myself," he said.
In Iraq, a suicide bomber attacked a military checkpoint south of Baghdad on
Tuesday, killing at least three US National Guards, a police source told Xinhua.
The death has brought to over 2,050 the number of US military personnel who
have died in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003, according to media
tally. Enditem
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