Hersh and Child Sodomy

Adam and I had been discussing Seymour Hersh's recent comments at an ACLU 
speaking engagement [1].  Hersh alleged the US government has videotapes of 
children being raped at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

    Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos,
    um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing
    letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The
    women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of
    what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were
    arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The
    boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of
    that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They
    are in total terror. It's going to come out.

Typically such a bold comment is followed two days later by a new New Yorker 
on the newstands featuring a Hersh article subtantiating whatever claim he's 
just made.  This time, however, the latest New Yorker came out containing 
nothing by Hersh -- so I took some time to look into this morning.

It turns out that we don't need a new issue of the New Yorker, the allegations 
have already been substantiated in Maj. Gen. Taguba's report.  What most of us 
have seen of the report are excerpts from the 50-page summary, but the 6,000 
page report contains credible evidence that supports Hersh's claim:

Excerpt from statement provided by Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, Detainee #151108, on 
January 18 2004:

    I saw [name deleted] fucking a kid, his age would be about 15 - 18 years.
    The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets.
    Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn't
    covered and I saw [name deleted] who was wearing the military uniform
    putting his dick in the little kid's ass. I couldn't see the face of the
    kid because his face wasn't in front of the door. And the female soldier
    was taking pictures. [name deleted], I think he is [deleted] because of his
    accent, and he was not skinny or short, and he acted like a homosexual
    (gay). And that was in cell #23 as best as I remember.

Another testimony alleging abuse of minors from a statement provided by Thaar 
Salman Dawod, Detainee #150427, on January 17, 2004:

    I saw lots of people getting naked for a few days getting punished in the
    first days of Ramadan. They came with two boys naked and they were cuffed
    together face to face and Grainer was beating them and a group of guards
    were watching and taking pictures from top and bottom and there was three
    female soldiers laughing at the prisoners. The prisoners, two of them, were
    young. I don't know their names.

All this will appear in the upcoming issue of the zine, which will be out 
later today.

David

[1] 
http://stream.realimpact.net/?file=clients/aclu/conf2004/20040707_aclu_AmericaAtACrossroads_300.rm


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