WASHINGTON, 9 November 2005 — Five US Army Rangers in Iraq alleged to have punched and kicked Iraqi detainees and hit them with a broomstick have been charged with assault, the military said on Monday.
US Army spokesman Paul Boyce said the five Special Operations troops had been charged with assault and maltreatment of prisoners and dereliction of duty in the incident, which occurred on Sept. 7 in Baghdad.
“The detainees received injuries described as bruises and contusions caused by striking with a closed and open hand, kicking, and hitting with an object described as a broomstick,” Boyce said in response to questions.
The United States faced international condemnation after photographs surfaced in April 2004 of US forces abusing and sexually humiliating detainees at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.
Boyce, citing privacy concerns, declined to identify the five troops or the detainees, who he said were still being held in Iraq. He said the International Committee of the Red Cross had been given access to the detainees in question.
Boyce said the abuse allegedly occurred after the men were arrested and before they were taken to prison.
The five soldiers charged — members of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment — have been assigned to “administrative” duties in their unit in Iraq, which Boyce declined to identify. No decision has been made, pending further investigation, on whether they might face courts martial.
Elsewhere, the New York Times reported yesterday that the Pentagon has approved a new directive to tighten control over the interrogation of terror suspects and other prisoners by US soldiers.
The new directive ensures interrogation techniques are approved at the highest levels in the Pentagon, that interrogators are properly trained and that personnel are required to report any abuses, Army officials told the daily.
It also reaffirms that military dogs may not be used in interrogations and that military police may provide interrogators information about detainees’ behavior, but may not take part in the interrogations themselves.
“Acts of physical or mental torture are prohibited,” said a copy of the directive obtained by the daily, which added that the document only elaborated that detainees must be treated humanely “in accordance with applicable law and policy.” The new directive will allow the US army to issue a long-delayed field manual for interrogators that incorporates lessons gleaned from the prisoner abuse scandals of last year, army officials said.
Signed on Thursday without any public announcement by Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, the new directive comes at a time when US government interrogation techniques, which critics say border on torture, have come under fire in Congress.
Republican Senator John McCain has proposed an amendment to a defense-spending bill that would “prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of persons in the detention of the US government.”
Vice President Dick Cheney has led a lobbying effort against the measure, and the White House has repeatedly said the legislation is unnecessary because the US abides by international rules, like the Geneva Convention, that prohibit torture.
