U.S., British Forces Take Criticism for POW Treatment Scandal

The ill treatment of war prisoners by the coalition forces is facing hot criticism from the public.

This case stirred up by a report from CBS on April 28 suggested the suspicion on May 2 that “it is highly possible that the intelligence services of the U.S. instigated the ill-treatment of war prisoners,” stirring a big cloud of suspicion.

Additionally, with British forces also suspected of committing torturous behavior against war prisoners, the U.S. and British governments face a difficult situation.

--Possibility of military forces ordering the maltreatment

Quoting the remarks of Brigadier General Janice Kapinski, who was in charge of the war penitentiary in Iraq, the New York Times has reported on May 1 that “the ill-treatment of the Iraqi war prisoner may have been carried out in accordance with the command of the U.S. intelligence forces.”

Brigadier General Kapinski has disclosed that the room in which the Iraqi prisoners of war were placed was not under her control but the direct surveillance of the intelligence services of the U.S. forces.

In advance of this report, the U.S. based weekly, the New Yorker, has reported that due to the compelling desire of the intelligence forces to get the information out of the prisoners, ill-treatment might have been carried out.

--British forces also committed abuses

The British weekly The Daily Mirror has disclosed photographs of the soldiers of British forces who arrested Iraqi youths under suspicion of theft in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on May 1.

The photograph shows a British soldier urinating over the body of an arrested Iraqi youth who wore a facial hood and was chained, and whose body was struck with a butt plate of his rifle.

As for this report, British premier Tony Blair remarked that “if it is true, it shouldn’t be allowed again in the future.”

But the BBC has reported that this photograph might have been concocted. The rifle shown in the photograph is not the regularly supplied rifle distributed to British forces, and there is a possibility that the photograph was taken in the other places besides Iraq.

--Barrage of questions from all over the world

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan stated in his address of April 30 that “every people in detention should be well protected by the provisions of International Human Rights Law.”

The International Commission of the Red Cross has also focused on the fact that “The Geneva agreement rules that any physical pressure and insulting remarks are not allowed to the prisoners of war.” The U.N. special representative to Iraq has also said that “this cannot be pardoned.”

“I feel sympathy and profound disgust,” said U.S. President George W. Bush, promising strict punishment for the people concerned. But still, the discord related to this incident has not been settled down, and leaders of Sunni Muslims regard this incident as the “War crime.”

Sung-Won Joo swon@donga.com