British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s human rights envoy to Iraq said on Friday she was “shocked” at photographs showing US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners in a Baghdad jail.
“I think they are absolutely terrible. I am shocked,” Ann Clwyd told BBC radio about the photographs shown on US television, some depicting grinning US troops posing with naked Iraqi prisoners in a variety of demeaning, sexual poses.
Ms Clwyd, a lawmaker from Mr Blair’s Labour Party who for many years campaigned over human rights under deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and backed the US-led war to remove him, said she had previously raised concerns with US officials about the treatment of prisoners at the Abu Gharib prison.
“I made the point that there must be answers, because I found it very difficult to get answers, and I was told by a very senior person there: ‘We don’t do this kind of thing’,” she said.
“Clearly the people in charge did not know this was going on.”
On Thursday a senior US military officer in Baghdad said that the general in charge of the US-run prison system in Iraq had been suspended after allegations of abuse meted out to detainees earlier this year.
Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was suspended in late January after six US soldiers were indicted for mistreating prisoners at the Abu Gharib prison, the officer said.
However Ms Clwyd said there was no comparison with how prisoners were treated under Saddam.
“A small number of cases, horrible though they are - you cannot compare that with the tens of thousands of people Saddam Hussein was responsible for executing and torturing,” she said.
Nonetheless, the pictures prompted distinctly negative coverage in some newspapers in Britain, Washington’s principal ally in the war and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
The right-wing Daily Mail splashed a picture of a hooded Iraq prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands across its entire front page.
“We are losing their hearts and minds,” was the unequivocal headline of the paper’s main editorial comment.
“I think they are absolutely terrible. I am shocked,” Ann Clwyd told BBC radio about the photographs shown on US television, some depicting grinning US troops posing with naked Iraqi prisoners in a variety of demeaning, sexual poses.
Ms Clwyd, a lawmaker from Mr Blair’s Labour Party who for many years campaigned over human rights under deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and backed the US-led war to remove him, said she had previously raised concerns with US officials about the treatment of prisoners at the Abu Gharib prison.
“I made the point that there must be answers, because I found it very difficult to get answers, and I was told by a very senior person there: ‘We don’t do this kind of thing’,” she said.
“Clearly the people in charge did not know this was going on.”
On Thursday a senior US military officer in Baghdad said that the general in charge of the US-run prison system in Iraq had been suspended after allegations of abuse meted out to detainees earlier this year.
Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was suspended in late January after six US soldiers were indicted for mistreating prisoners at the Abu Gharib prison, the officer said.
However Ms Clwyd said there was no comparison with how prisoners were treated under Saddam.
“A small number of cases, horrible though they are - you cannot compare that with the tens of thousands of people Saddam Hussein was responsible for executing and torturing,” she said.
Nonetheless, the pictures prompted distinctly negative coverage in some newspapers in Britain, Washington’s principal ally in the war and subsequent occupation of Iraq.
The right-wing Daily Mail splashed a picture of a hooded Iraq prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands across its entire front page.
“We are losing their hearts and minds,” was the unequivocal headline of the paper’s main editorial comment.
