This video from Britain says about itself:
The Ministry of Defence has agreed to pay almost £3 million to the family of an Iraqi who died while being detained by UK troops and nine other men who were allegedly mistreated by the British Army, their solicitors said today.
From British daily The Independent:
British soldiers accused of sickening sex assault on Iraqi boy, 14
Just days after the MoD has to pay out millions to the father of a man UK soldiers beat to death, fresh claims of abuse emerge
By Andrew Johnson
Sunday, 13 July 2008
British soldiers forced a boy of 14 to carry out an act of oral sex on a fellow male prisoner in Iraq, according to shocking new allegations made about the behaviour of British troops.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday that the Royal Military Police (RMP) have launched an investigation. If the allegations are proved, it would mark a sordid low in the behaviour of British troops in Iraq, and damage further the reputation of Britain in the Middle East.
The victim, now 19, whom The Independent on Sunday has agreed to identify only as Hassan, says he was rounded up with a friend while trying to steal milk cartons from a food distribution centre. He was whipped, beaten and forced to strip naked.
“They made us sit on each other’s laps,” he said. “They were enjoying humiliating and abusing us, I wished I was dead at this moment. Then they made me sit with Tariq… where I was forced to put Tariq’s penis in my mouth. The other two were made to do the same.”
After five years of British troops in Iraq, this case becomes public at last. Will similar cases happening right now become public knowledge only in 2013, if ever?
Sexual Assault and the Military: When Will the Pentagon Take Action? Here.
——- Forwarded message follows ——-
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/90480/?page=entire
U.S. Journalist Photographs Grisly Aftermath of Attack in Iraq, Gets
Booted by Military
By Dahr Jamail, IPS News. Posted July 5, 2008.
An embedded U.S. journalist said the military tried to censor him
after he posted photos from Fallujah.
U.S. journalist Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S.
military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines
who died in a suicide bombing.
On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting in
Fallujah, 69 kms west of Baghdad, between local tribal sheikhs and
military officials.
Three Marines, Cpl. Marcus Preudhomme, Capt. Philip Dykeman, and Lt.
Col. Max Galeai, assigned to 2d Battalion, 3rd Marine Division based
in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, died in the attack.
The explosion also killed two interpreters and 20 Iraqis, including
the mayor of the nearby town of Karmah, two prominent sheikhs and
their sons, and another sheikh and his brother. All were members of
the local “awakening council,” one of the U.S.-backed militias that
have taken up arms against al Qaeda in Iraq, according to U.S. and
Iraqi authorities.
Miller was embedded with Marines on a patrol one block from the
attack when it occurred. He had originally turned down the option of
going to report on the city council meeting that was bombed.
Miller ran with the Marines he was with to the scene of the attack.
“As I ran I saw human pieces…a skull cap with hair, bone shards,”
he told IPS during a telephone interview from the so-called Green
Zone in Baghdad. “When we arrived at the building it was chaotic.
There were Iraqis, police and civilians running around screaming.
Bodies were being pulled out of the building.”
“I went in and there were over 20 people’s remains all over the
place,” Miller continued, “Of the Marines I jogged in with, someone
started to vomit. Others were standing around, not knowing what to
do. It was completely surreal.”
“At that moment I realized this was far beyond anything I’d
experienced, and I realized I wanted to focus and make sure I could
capture what it felt like, and the visual horror,” Miller explained.
“I thought, ‘Nobody in the U.S. has any idea what it means when they
hear that 20 people died in a suicide bombing.’ I want people to be
able to associate those numbers with the scene and the actual loss of
human life. And to show why soldiers are suffering from PTSD
[post-traumatic stress disorder],” Miller told IPS.
Miller was taken out of the building by Marines, but then allowed
back inside where he took one last photo of the carnage before they
closed the scene to him.
“We spent most of the rest of the day as Marines picked up body parts
and put them in buckets and bags,” he said.
In an Iraqi Police station in Karmah, the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service (NCIS) was brought in to investigate the
bombing. Millers’ photos were the only ones of the scene, so the NCIS
team asked for them.
“I made them copies, but then one of the Marines came in and told me
to delete my memory card after I give them the photos, and I
refused,” Miller told IPS, “I told the NCIS that if they forced me to
delete them, I would stop sharing them. So they stopped pressing that
issue.”
Miller said that he was following the rules for embedded journalists.
“That evening, during the debriefing, the guys [Marines] I was with
told me that the higher-ups had said I was a stand-up guy and behaved
well and to treat me well. The guys I was with were all very much on
my side.”
Miller explained to IPS that he meticulously showed his photos to the
Marines he was with to make sure he was not going to show any photos
that would upset the family members of the deceased Marines. “They
were all okay with them, so then about 96 hours after the bombing I
published the photos on my blog.”
Then things got interesting.
“Tuesday [Jul. 1] I awoke to a call in their combat operations
centre, and the person on the phone told me they were a PAO (Public
Affairs Officer) at Camp Fallujah, and he wanted me to take my blog
down right away,” Miller told IPS. “I asked them why, and was then
called back after five minutes by a higher ranking PAO who claimed I
had broken my contract by showing photos of dead Americans with U.S.
uniforms and boots.”
Miller said the PAO claimed he was not allowed, by the embed
contract, to show dead or wounded U.S. citizens or soldiers in the
field. “I never signed any contract for that,” Miller said.
He was called back after another five minutes and told his embed was
terminated and they would send him back to Baghdad on the next
flight. He was then taken back to Camp Fallujah where he said,
“Everyone was extremely angry and fired up at me.”
Nevertheless, the lower ranking Marines he had embedded with “were on
my side, and they told me they thought that what was happening was
wrong.”
Miller explained that he grew nervous when the flight was canceled
due to a sandstorm, and then a security guard was assigned to him.
“I started to feel uncomfortable with this,” Miller explained. “The
next day, Gen. Kelly, [Major General John Kelly, who is the
Commanding General of the I Marine Expeditionary Force] wanted to
have some words with me. I was to meet with him at 3 pm, and we sat
outside in the sun for two hours and he never showed.”
Miller was told he would be flown out that night, but he was deleted
from the flight and told that General Kelly wanted to see him, so he
waited again until Thursday, Jul. 3. Again the general did not
appear, so Miller was given an official letter about the grounds for
the termination of his embed, signed by Gen. Kelly, and flown to
Baghdad.
“Now, as I think about it, I think they needed the extra time to
figure out what they were going to say about my dismissal,” Miller
said. “Their original reason ended up being bogus, so they had to
figure something else out.”
The letter he was given stated reasons for his dismissal as “you
photographed the remains of U.S. soldiers”, “you posted these images
along with detailed commentary”, and “by posting the images and your
commentary you violated 14 H and O of the news media agreement you
signed.”
In addition, the letter, which Miller read to IPS, stated, “By
providing detailed information of the effectiveness of the attack and
the response of U.S. forces to it, you have put all U.S. forces in
Iraq at greater risk for harm.”
Miller feels the reason for his dismissal is otherwise.
“The bottom line is that the thing they cited as the reason for my
dismissal was ‘information the enemy could use against you.’ They
realized, probably from keeping track of my blog, that I was not
showing identifiable features of a soldier … and they couldn’t find
a reason to kick me out. Because it was a high ranking person who got
killed, they were all fired up.”
Miller concluded, “Up to that point they said it was because I showed
pictures of bodies with pieces of uniform and boots. The letter,
though, doesn’t mention that at all. I checked the document I had
about ground rules for media embeds, and I followed them.”
The Pentagon would not comment on the story when contacted by IPS,
saying they had no information on Miller’s case beyond what Central
Command had already posted.
Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who reports from Iraq.
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U.S. CONSIDERS INCREASING PACE OF IRAQ PULLOUT — INTO AFGHANISTAN
The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/washington/13military.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
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