Joshmo
10-02-2005, 03:30 PM
Three soldiers – a captain and two sergeants – from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Mercury near Fallujah in Iraq have told Human Rights Watch how prisoners were tortured both as a form of stress relief and as a way of breaking them for interrogation sessions.
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The 82nd Airborne soldiers at FOB Mercury earned the nickname “The Murderous Maniacs” from local Iraqis and took the moniker as a badge of honour.
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The soldiers referred to their Iraqi captives as PUCs – persons under control – and used the expressions “f***ing a PUC” and “smoking a PUC” to refer respectively to torture and forced physical exertion.
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He explained: “To ‘f*** a PUC’ means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them.
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“Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. We did that for amusement.”
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On some occasions, prisoners were tortured for revenge. “If we were on patrol and caught a guy that killed our captain or my buddy last week … man, it is human nature,” said the sergeant – but on other occasions, he confessed, it was for “sport”.
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Many prisoners were completely innocent and had no part in the insurgency
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Pictures of abuse at FOB Mercury were destroyed by soldiers after the scandal of Abu Ghraib broke.
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Fishback, a West Point graduate who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, spent 17 months trying to raise the matter with his superiors.
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Fishback says that army investigators were currently more interested in finding out the identity of the other soldiers who spoke to Human Rights Watch than dealing with the systemic abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
Full Story
http://www.sundayherald.com/52035
................................
The 82nd Airborne soldiers at FOB Mercury earned the nickname “The Murderous Maniacs” from local Iraqis and took the moniker as a badge of honour.
......................
The soldiers referred to their Iraqi captives as PUCs – persons under control – and used the expressions “f***ing a PUC” and “smoking a PUC” to refer respectively to torture and forced physical exertion.
.......................
He explained: “To ‘f*** a PUC’ means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them.
.....................
“Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. We did that for amusement.”
.........................
On some occasions, prisoners were tortured for revenge. “If we were on patrol and caught a guy that killed our captain or my buddy last week … man, it is human nature,” said the sergeant – but on other occasions, he confessed, it was for “sport”.
.........................
Many prisoners were completely innocent and had no part in the insurgency
........................
Pictures of abuse at FOB Mercury were destroyed by soldiers after the scandal of Abu Ghraib broke.
.............................
Fishback, a West Point graduate who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, spent 17 months trying to raise the matter with his superiors.
...............................
Fishback says that army investigators were currently more interested in finding out the identity of the other soldiers who spoke to Human Rights Watch than dealing with the systemic abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
Full Story
http://www.sundayherald.com/52035