Amnesty International, Red Cross 07/26/03 (chiefwiggles.blog-city.com)

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Amnesty International, Red Cross 07/26/03

« H » Essay :: email link

Saturday, July 26, 2003

Wow what a whirlwind day it has been. I was jumping all over the place, like a Mexican jumping bean on drugs, just trying to keep up with demands of the day. I was in charge of family visits again, insuring each prisoner got to the visitation area, made sure each family got on the bus and made sure that if they brought any food or clothing they got delivered to the appropriate pen later.

Along with this duty I had to take care of the linguist who was to be stationed at the visitation area listening to all the conversations of the families. We have to make sure they are not scheming up some escape plan or something. You never know now that the mixture of prisoners has changed so drastically, with the arrival of all the criminals from the north. Lets just say it kept me hopping all day.

We have had a group of people here from Baghdad interviewing the generals to determine their intelligence value, which might be the last step in getting the book closed on these guys. We might be able to finally get someone to make a decision regarding their future. We are definitely looking for those trustworthy Iraqi individuals who have a desire to work as partners with the coalition forces. They are trying to make the final determination and recommendation for the generals. I am really keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

Today, in my travels about I stopped out at Hoover 7 to drop off a few packages for the guys when I noticed a certain nervousness in the air amongst the generals. They were definitely worried about the outcome of all the interviewing, especially the Navy general our camp leader. He made me promise to come back later that night to provide him with an update on the outcome of the interviews. I believe he was feeling like a few were going to be chosen for release, the rest being detained longer for no apparent reason. He was also thinking that a few would be chosen for job opportunities, while the others were to be sent home.

The one bad general I have been working for the last month and a half, lets just call him dark eyes, is now ready to be yanked around like a puppet on a string. He is so hammered from this prisoner experience that he is ready to do just about anything. We have him eating out of our hand now. It has been a long road but he has totally come around, now finally ready to cooperate with us.

He actually has great value to us because of his high position in the Baâ€™ath party, meeting with Saddam Hussein and his sons on numerous occasions. If we are able to work with him as our partner, he might become our eyes and ears on the street at a very high level. It is amazing what you can do with the right amount of psychological pressure, the right strategy and the right conditions. Never at any time have I used force, torture or pain to accomplish my goal.

As of recent I have been reading a number of disturbing articles from Amnesty International and the Red Cross lambasting our soldiers for mishandling Iraqi prisoners. They are accusing the US of perhaps mistreating, even actions bordering on torturing of Iraqi detainees. Here is a statement right out of one of those articles.

"Detainees continue to report suffering extreme heat while housed in tents, insufficient water, inadequate washing facilities, open trenches for toilets, no change of clothes, even after two months' detention," Amnesty said. Amnesty staff heard complaints that included prolonged sleep deprivation and detainees being forced to stay in painful positions or wear hoods over their heads for long periods.

In that I am an Intelligence officer, senior interrogation chief and have now worked in two different internment facilities in two wars, I can speak from a position of authority about this subject. I am very perturbed about these allegations attacking our efforts to provide the best possible treatment and conditions for these detainees, while still trying to get the information out of them that would save lives and prevent further acts of violence against other human beings.

I cannot speak for other facilities throughout the country but as far as this location is concerned these allegations are totally false. We have had up to 8,000 prisoners here at one time, now our numbers are down around 1,000. If you were to be able to read the entire circumstances of the sited events, you would know there is no truth to these vicious rumors.

Yes they live in extremely hot conditions, where the mean temperature inside the tent is over 120 degrees. Well welcome to our world. Hello, we live in there country right along side them, where the mean temperature outside is over 130 degrees, what do you expect. We all live in the same kind of tents under the same conditions with out air conditioning. Why isnâ€™t someone complaining about our conditions?

Yes we have thousands of prisoners, there was a war here you know and now we have criminals running around out of control. Most of the military personnel have been released (except a handful of generals) leaving only the criminals who have been out murdering, stealing, and committing crimes against humanity like rape. What should we do just let them out to run through the streets committing additional crimes. Hello, we still have Americans being killed, give me a break. Whose side are these people on?

Even so, regardless of their crimes, we feed the prisoners plenty of food twice a day, food prepared right next to where my food is prepared. We make every effort to provide them with food of their own liking, ethnic food as close to their own as possible. Prepared by people from this region of the world. We buy food right off of the economy in this region.

We give them new t-shirts, new jump suites, additional clothing when ever needed, slippers, flip flops, socks and on and on. They get plenty of supplies, so much that many of the prisoners save the additional items for their families. They have soap, shampoo, towels and all the other stuff necessary for their needs. Many of the prisoners have had huge boxes of saved up supplies they would like given to their families when they come to visit. We provide them with cots to sleep on, blankets when necessary, and cot mattresses if wanted. The medics come by every morning to see if they have any ailments. They have showers, plenty of water, soccer balls, and many other items for their comfort.

This is a prisoner of war camp, now transitioning over to being a prison. If you were to look at a list of why these men are being detained you would see that most of them are here because they have either committed some violent crime or have attempted to attack or kill an American. Regardless of their crimes we continue to believe in their human rights and make every effort to consider their needs. How many people in the world would believe in the rights of a criminal who has just been arrested for trying to kill one of their own? I have seen interrogation teams from all over the world conduct interrogations, witnessed first hand their approaches and techniques, which has only reconfirmed by belief that we are the only nation following the Geneva Convention, and with out a doubt we treat our prisoners better than anyone else in the world. Go be a prisoner in somebody elseâ€™s camp. Even the Iraqi generals have commented in amazement for the treatment they have received from us.

When are we going to get true and honest reporting that doesnâ€™t have some twist to it put on by some self-promoting special interest group. Why do we have to put up with the inaccuracies of these myopic self-proclaimed voices of the people?

Even in our interrogations I have yet to see any abuse of the prisoners. We do not and have never used torture as means to acquire information, unless you call taking aware a prisoners cigarettes as cruel and unusual punishment. Lets see, I did make a prisoner sit out in the sun once for an hour. All of our approach techniques involve psychological methods of extracting information, seeing torture as an inefficient method to break these people. You might get information but its truthfulness might be in question.

I am always so astonished at the extent to which these special interest groups will go to promote their cause knowing full well they are not divulging the whole story. Now with the Internet enabling all of us to connect directly with the source of the information, we can call these would be informants on the carpet. They make a claim of prisoners being shot and killed but they fail to divulge the rest of the story. The fact that the prisoner was coming at the guard holding a large piece of wood in an attempt to strike the guard after being warned to stop, the guard firing several warning shots into the air, what would you do?

These criminal prisoners here are unruly, undisciplined, have a total disregard for orders and authority, and just flat out donâ€™t care. Many of these guys have spent many years in some type of a prison environment, having been released just prior to the outbreak of the war. Yes we do have those that are here for minor infractions, many whom will be released very shortly after their arrival.

Prisoners do have a tendency to get lost at times, due to the fact that we donâ€™t have some wide area network with one master data base with file sharing for all entities involved. If any thing, that is the responsibility of the Red Cross to insure that prisoner letters get delivered and a response returned back to the prisoner.

If I were to identify one agency that has let the prisoners down it would be the Red Cross. Donâ€™t even go into Hoover 7 talking about the Red Cross. The Red Cross is totally detested, the generals will turn around and walk away from you. They have lost total confidence in their ability to perform any type of humanitarian service for the prisoners.

So I guess it is all a matter of what side you are on.

I received an email requesting my presence up north, so within the next few days I will be moving to a new location.

Stay tuned, coming at you live from somewhere in Iraq.

posted Saturday, 26 July 2003comments

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