"Dedicated to exposing the lies and impeachable offenses of George W. Bush"

Iraqi Intelligence Agency Tortures Prisoners
NY Times
By KIRK SEMPLE
March 5, 2007

BAGHDAD, Monday, March 5 — Iraqi special forces and British troops stormed the offices of an Iraqi government intelligence agency in the southern city of Basra on Sunday, and British officials said they discovered about 30 prisoners, some showing signs of torture.

The raid appeared to catch Iraq's central government by surprise and raised new questions about the rule of law in the Shiite-dominated south, where less than two weeks ago Britain announced plans for a significant reduction in its forces because of improved stability.

News of the Basra raid, with its resonant themes of torture and sectarian-driven conflict, coincided with the next stage of the intensified security plan here in Baghdad, where more than 1,100 American and Iraqi soldiers moved into Sadr City, a stronghold of Iraq's largest Shiite militia. The soldiers met no resistance in what the Americans called the plan's biggest test yet.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a conservative Shiite, condemned the raid in Basra. He publicly said nothing about the evidence of torture.

"The prime minister has ordered an immediate investigation into the incident of breaking into the security compound in Basra and stressed the need to punish those who have carried out this illegal and irresponsible act," said the full text of a statement issued late Sunday by his office.

It remained unclear why he sought to pursue the raiding force aggressively rather than the accusations of prisoner abuse. Efforts to reach officials in his office were unsuccessful.

The discovery of prisoners in the Basra offices, which the British described as the headquarters of Iraq's government intelligence agency, echoed other recent cases in which American or British forces stumbled onto a government-run detention center that held people showing signs of torture.

As recently as December, a combined force of British and Iraqi troops assaulted a police station in Basra and rescued 127 prisoners from fetid conditions. Some of the prisoners had been tortured.

The most significant recent case involved a secret Baghdad prison run by the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry, known as Site 4 and discovered by American and Iraqi troops last year, where more than 1,400 prisoners were discovered and where some had been subjected to systematic abuse.

Mr. Maliki has been under considerable pressure, particularly from American officials and Sunni Arab leaders, to rid the country's Shiite-run security and intelligence forces of militia influence and human rights abuses. American officials have warned Iraqi leaders that they might curtail aid to the Interior Ministry, which runs the country's police forces, if officials who commit "gross violations of human rights" and are not held accountable.

The Interior Ministry, dominated by Shiites, has long been accused by Sunni Arabs of complicity in torture and killings.

It was unclear whether the Basra detainees were still in custody, and there was no further information on the of the detainees or their captors. A spokesman for the British military command in Basra, Maj. David Gell, said in a telephone interview early Monday that he could not provide any further information about them. Reuters news agency said the detainees included a woman and two children.

The raid in Basra comes as the British command is planning a drawdown of as many as 1,600 of its 7,200 troops, a decision driven by the British government's assessment that Iraqi forces are strong enough to manage the security of the region on their own. In announcing the reduction on Feb. 22, Prime Minister Tony Blair said that while the Basra area remained dangerous, British troops faced far less violence than Americans farther north and that "the next chapter in Basra's history can be written by Iraqis."

It was unclear whether the discovery in Basra would have any impact on British planning.

Major Gell said the intelligence agency office was raided after an investigation earlier Sunday led to the capture of five suspected bomb makers and evidence that pointed to possible violations at the agency's offices. In those offices, he said, "Evidence of significant criminal activity such as torture was found."

In Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers began to patrol the streets of Sadr City and conducted house-to-house searches for illegal weapons and militia fighters linked to sectarian crimes, according to residents and the American military command. No shots were fired.

"Local residents were receptive and cooperative with coalition and Iraqi forces," said Lt. Col. Scott R. Bleichwehl, a military spokesman in Baghdad. The operation is the most ambitious since the implementation of the latest security plan for Baghdad nearly three weeks ago. The push into Sadr City, a bastion of Shiite militancy and anti-Americanism, will serve as a test of Mr. Maliki's willingness to seriously confront the country's Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, which is based in Sadr City and is led by Moktada al-Sadr, a powerful cleric.

Sadr City residents said they witnessed American soldiers converting a police station into a small garrison on the neighborhood's western flank. American and Iraqi military officials would not confirm this report, but officials have been planning to open a joint Iraqi-American security station there, one of several in the plan to pacify Baghdad, unveiled by President Bush in January.

The sweep on Sunday amounted to the largest military operation in Sadr City involving American troops since 2004, when the Americans suppressed a violent uprising of the Mahdi Army with ground forces and aerial bombardments.

American officials have been pressing Mr. Maliki to send troops into Sadr City and wrest control from the Mahdi Army, which has been accused of driving the cycle of sectarian bloodshed but is considered by many Shiite followers of Mr. Sadr to be a bulwark defense against Sunni insurgents.

The prime minister has also been under pressure from the Americans and his Iraqi critics to distance himself politically from Mr. Sadr, whose backing was decisive in Mr. Maliki's campaign for prime minister last year.

On Sunday, Mr. Maliki announced that he planned to reshuffle his cabinet within the next two weeks, possibly eroding Mr. Sadr's influence in the administration. While the prime minister did not identify whom he would replace, two prominent Shiite politicians said in interviews on Sunday that the Health Ministry, the most powerful of the six ministries run by a Sadr loyalist, would be removed from Mr. Sadr's faction's control.

The military incursion into Sadr City, widely anticipated for days, lacked any element of surprise. It followed protracted negotiations — among representatives of Mr. Sadr, neighborhood leaders, Iraqi government officials and American and British military commanders — regarding the American role in Sadr City, home to at least 1.5 million people.

Mr. Sadr has long demanded an American withdrawal from Iraq. But he has promised not to impede the government's latest crackdown in Baghdad, which involves a so-called surge of about 20,000 American troops in the capital. The cleric has privately ordered his militia fighters not to resist the military sweeps regardless of provocation.

Many militia leaders, in turn, have left Sadr City and sought sanctuary in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq and Iran, possibly figuring that they can wait out the offensive and return to the capital later. Their subordinates, foot soldiers who have for years operated openly in Sadr City, manning checkpoints and maintaining neighborhood watches, have also remained out of sight in recent days.

For the past two weeks, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of neighborhoods bordering Sadr City. These operations, in eastern Baghdad, have been the centerpiece of the new security plan, which is viewed by many here as a last-ditch effort to save the country from all-out civil war. American and Iraqi commanders say they have conducted thousands of patrols and detained hundreds of suspects.

Abdul Hassan Jubara al-Kahbi, the manager of the Sadr City governing council, warned that a prolonged American presence in the neighborhood might eventually incite militia members to retaliate.

Other residents, however, had more mundane concerns, like the traffic jams the sweep caused.

"You can see a vehicle at the entrance of each street," said a 45-year-old baker, who gave only his nickname, Abu Aqil. "It took me two hours to reach the grocery store and return home."

Elsewhere, the American command said Sunday that one marine and one sailor were killed on Friday while conducting a combat mission in Anbar Province, and another marine was killed on Saturday, also while on a combat mission in Anbar.

In an operation unrelated to the Sadr City incursion, American soldiers in Baghdad raided a mosque on Sunday and captured three suspected insurgents hiding inside, according to the American military.

In the western Baghdad neighborhood of Jamiya, the authorities discovered the bodies of eight Shiite pilgrims who were apparently on their way to a holy city south of the capital to celebrate an Islamic holiday this weekend. The bodies were handcuffed and had bullet holes in their heads, according to an official at Yarmouk Hospital.

In Hilla, a bomb killed four other Shiite pilgrims — three women and a child — on their way to Karbala, one of the southern holy cities. The bomb was apparently intended for an American convoy but missed, according to an official at the Interior Ministry. Two others were wounded.

In Baghdad, three people were killed and seven were wounded in a series of attacks. In one, an editor for the Iraqi newspaper Al Mashriq was shot and killed by gunmen while he waited to catch a bus to go to work, an official at the Interior Ministry and a colleague said.

Reporting was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Hosham Hussein, Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times.

Original Text

Commentary: