After Iraqi Troops Do Dirty Work, 3 Detainees Talk

US Captain Darren Fowler could not have heaped more praise on the Iraqi soldiers who had captured three insurgents whose confessions he believed would help to save American lives.

“The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,” Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. “He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.’s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.’s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.”

What he did not know was that the insurgents were tortured in order to hand over this information, which - to most rational people - would render any information given as worthless.

The stripes on the detainee’s back, which appeared to be the product of a whipping with electrical cables, were later shown briefly to a photographer, who was not allowed to take a picture.

To the Iraqi soldiers, the treatment was normal and necessary. They were proud of their technique and proud to have helped the Americans.

“I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,” Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. “We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don’t beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.”

When the US army discovered that the men had been beaten they were quick to condemn the practice.

Most experts, including in the military, say they believe that coerced confessions are an unreliable way to learn about enemy operations because people being tortured will often say whatever they think it will take to stop the pain.

But how seriously can we take such condemnation?

Since the deplorable attacks of 9-11 nothing has flourished more across the globe that the awful practice of torture. From Abu Ghraib to secret US detention centre's across the globe, we have all stood dumbfounded as George Bush's White House has given a nod and a wink and the implication that the rules have changed and that, for the US, "the gloves have come off."

Bush has signed legislation that allows for "aggressive interrogation techniques", which we all know is merely a euphemism for torture, so although the US officially condemn the Iraqis when they engage in this practice, is there anyone on Earth who believes that they mean this?

After all it is widely known that the Red Cross had made Bush well aware of their concerns about what was taking place in Abu Ghraib long before the scandal erupted in public. There is no evidence that anything was ever done to halt what was going on there before the scandal broke.

Indeed, Human Rights Watch have argued that there is evidence that the permission to torture came from the very top of the American administration.

An e-mail to senior FBI officials released yesterday under a Freedom of Information Act request repeatedly referred to an Executive Order that permitted military interrogators in Iraq to place detainees in painful stress positions, impose sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, intimidate them with military dogs and use other coercive methods.

“The FBI e-mail is not proof of a presidential order to commit unlawful acts, but it strongly suggests that U.S. interrogators thought they were acting with the president’s approval,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “It’s no longer enough for Bush to issue a simple denial. A real explanation is needed."

Indeed, the CIA have been flying suspects to Morocco, Egypt, Libya, Guantanamo Bay and even some former Soviet republics such as Uzbekistan, where torture is almost routine, so it's hypocritical for the US to feign horror that this practice is now being used by the Iraqi army that they have trained.

Torture is the only real legacy that the Bush administration are leaving behind. It is the only thing that has truly flourished under Bush's watch.

What was once the dreadful practice of a handful of tinpot dictators has now been embraced by a US President. Reports of how the US treat detainees are almost commonplace:

The prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug prisoners, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation.

Indeed, the practice is so commonplace that the US-trained Iraqi soldiers don't even feel the need to lie about what they have done, they actually boast of their actions with some form of pride, and are keen to let us know that their technique is honed; it is not barbaric, it is measured:

We beat them. I don’t beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.

This Iraqi soldier is proud that he doesn't "beat them that much", but that he does it "enough so he feels the pain". It's almost as if he has been trained in what are acceptable levels of beatings.

But we should not be surprised at this. After all, some of the Bush regimes greatest and most vocal supporters argue publicly that torture should be used to fight the War on Terror, indeed Dershowitz has admitted that such torture is already being subcontracted by the US to other nations.

DERSHOWITZ: Don't you think if we ever had a ticking-bomb case, regardless of your views or mine, that the CIA would actually either torture themselves or subcontract the job to Jordan, the Philippines or Egypt, who are our favorite countries, to do the torturing for us?

ROTH: OK, there is no moral or legal difference between torturing yourself and subcontracting torture to somebody else. They're equally absolutely prohibited.

DERSHOWITZ: But we do it.

This really is the legacy of the Bush regime. It is the one thing that has come to prominence since he was elected. It is the thing that his supporters now argue publicly in favour of. He has passed laws that allow it to be done.

Therefore, the most shocking thing about the Iraqi soldiers boasts is that we are actually not shocked at all. Somewhere, deep in our psyches, we now accept that this is simply a given. Our governments torture people. Hey ho.

This is further proof, were any needed, that the regime of George W. Bush has actually demeaned us all.

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Tags: Bush, Iraq, Iraq war, torture, interrogation techniques, Geneva Conventions, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib