WASHINGTON (Reuters):
IRAQI DETAINEES were routinely subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions and other forms of abuse by U.S. interrogators, according to a Human Rights Watch report released on Sunday that offers first-hand accounts from three former soldiers.
The U.S.-based watchdog group said its report discredits govern-ment arguments casting mistreat-ment of detainees as the aberrant and unauthorised work of a few personnel.
It included accounts by former soldiers who said detainees were regularly subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation and stress positions practices that started to come to light two years ago when pictures of physical abuse and sexual humiliation at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison surfaced.
"These accounts rebut U.S. government claims that torture and abuse in Iraq was unauthorised and exceptional on the contrary, it was condoned and commonly used," said John Sifton, author of the report and the group's senior researcher on terrorism and counter-terrorism.
A Defense Department spokes-man, however, said 12 reviews have been conducted and none found the Pentagon promulgated a policy that condoned, directed or encouraged abuse.
"The standard of treatment is and always has been humane treatment of detainees in DoD's custody," said Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, a Pentagon spokesman.
Human Rights Watch said it could only document instances of abuse from soldiers stationed in Iraq up to April 2004. The United States has faced international criticism for the indefinite detention of detainees at a naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for physical abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
