Air Force Officer Details New Iraq Abuses

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Air Force Officer Details New Iraq Abuses
September 25, 2008
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A military interrogation expert, U.S. Air Force Col. Steven Kleinman, told Congress on Thursday that he witnessed interrogations of Iraqi detainees that he considers violations of the Geneva Conventions.

One of those interrogations was conducted by a civilian and a contractor employed by his own organization, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which had sent a small team to Iraq in September 2003 to help a special forces task force make its interrogations more effective.

Kleinman told the Senate Armed Services Committee that his two colleagues forcibly stripped an Iraqi prisoner naked, shackled him, and left him standing in a dank, six-foot (1.8 meter) cement cell with orders to the guards that the prisoner was not to move for 12 hours. They could intervene only if he passed out, Kleinman said his two colleagues told the guards.

Had the prisoner passed out, he would have hit his head on a wall, Kleinman said.

Kleinman put a stop to the interrogation. The team returned to the United States several days later.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/September-2008/air-force-officer-details-new-iraq-abuses.html?col=1186032369229