Bureau Recommends: Latest Wikileaks revelations from US cables
The Bureau recommends a Wikileaks revelation that Iraqi interrogators raped juveniles as a tactic to obtain confessions.
The leak is from a US State Embassy cable marked ‘confidential’ detailing the allegations about an Iraqi detention complex.
The cable was written following a joint US-Iraqi inspection of the detention facility in 2006.
Located in central Baghdad, it was found to have 1,400 detainees held in two separate facilities.
Conditions were described as ‘cramped and squalid’. Inspectors interviewed 41 detainees who had injuries consistent with physical abuse.
Thirty-seven illegally detained juveniles were found, with many claiming they had suffered sexual abuse.
Similar allegations were made by US soldiers in the Iraq war logs, a cache of nearly 400,000 military logs, also leaked to Wikileaks and handed to the Bureau. The logs formed the basis of our award-winning iraqwarlogs.com.
The allegations will also provide further ammunition to human rights organisations concerned that western powers are attempting to water-down the Geneva Conventions as they seek to find a way to transfer detainees in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, where torture is reported to be used. Our investigation was published in the New Statesman and can be read here.
