Beating POW's in Iraq is the norm!!!!! Original Article Human rights violations by Army reported Group assails U.S. military for abuses against Afghan and Iraq prisoners Josh White Washington Post Sept. 24, 2005 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - Two soldiers and an officer with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division have told a human rights organization of systemic detainee abuse and human rights violations at U.S. bases in Afghanistan and Iraq, recounting beatings, forced physical exertion and psychological torture of prisoners, the group said. A 30-page report by Human Rights Watch describes an Army captain's 17-month effort to gain clear understanding of how U.S. soldiers were supposed to treat detainees. He depicts his frustration with what he saw as widespread abuse that the military's leadership failed to address. The Army officer made clear that he believes low-ranking soldiers have been held responsible for abuses to cover for officers who condoned it. The report does not identify the two sergeants and a captain who gave the accounts, although one of them, Capt. Ian Fishback, has presented some of his allegations in a letter to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and humane treatment of detainees," Fishback wrote in a Sept. 16 letter to McCain, a member of the Armed Services Committee and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment." Fishback, reached by phone Friday, declined to comment. The Human Rights Watch statements included vivid allegations of violence against detainees held at Forward Operating Base Mercury, outside Fallujah, shortly before the notorious abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison began. The soldiers described incidents similar to those reported in other parts of Iraq, such as putting detainees in stress positions, exercising them to the point of total exhaustion, and sleep deprivation. They also detailed regular attacks that left detainees with broken bones, including once when a detainee was hit with a metal bat. They said that detainees were piled into pyramids, a tactic seen in photographs taken at Abu Ghraib. "Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid," an unidentified sergeant who worked at the base from August 2003 to April 2004 told the group. "This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement." Like soldiers accused at Abu Ghraib, these troops claimed that military intelligence interrogators encouraged their actions, telling them to make sure the detainees did not sleep or were physically exhausted. "They were directed to get intel from them so we had to set the conditions by banging on their cages, crashing them into the cages, kicking them, kicking dirt, yelling," the soldier was quoted as saying. Later he described how he and others beat detainees. "But you gotta understand, this was the norm." Army and Pentagon officials said Friday that they are investigating the allegations as criminal cases and said that they learned of the incidents just weeks ago when the Fort Bragg captain's concerns surfaced. Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the Army began investigating as soon as it learned of the allegations. Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman, severely criticized the report and emphasized that the military has taken incidents of detainee abuse extremely seriously since the Abu Ghraib scandal, changing policies and procedures to prevent mistreatment. There have been more than a dozen major inquiries.