PFC Lynndie England's Article 32 hearing began today at Fort Bragg. The prosecution will call 25 witnesses. The defense also will call witnesses - some by telephone in Iraq. The defense included Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top generals on an early witness list, but they are not expected tto appear.

The hearing is the first chance in court for the 21-year-old Army reservist's attorneys to make their case that she was following orders from higher-ups when she was photographed mocking naked detainees at the prison.

Our prior Lynndie England coverage is accessible here.

Update: Prosecutors say England acted not out of frustration or on higher orders, but "just for sport."

Sickening. From the New England Journal of Medicine (by Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.):

There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Such medical complicity suggests still another disturbing dimension of this broadening scandal.

We know that medical personnel have failed to report to higher authorities wounds that were clearly caused by torture and that they have neglected to take steps to interrupt this torture. In addition, they have turned over prisoners' medical records to interrogators who could use them to exploit the prisoners' weaknesses or vulnerabilities. We have not yet learned the extent of medical involvement in delaying and possibly falsifying the death certificates of prisoners who have been killed by torturers.

Here's more:

From Brad Plummer at the MoJo Wire:

This new report on child torture in Abu Ghraib is just horrible. Why isn't anyone in the U.S. covering it?

It was early last October that Kasim Mehaddi Hilas says he witnessed the rape of a boy prisoner aged about 15 in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets," he said in a statement given to investigators probing prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. "Then, when I heard the screaming I climbed the door … and I saw [the soldier's name is deleted] who was wearing a military uniform." Hilas, who was himself threatened with being sexually assaulted in Abu Graib, then describes in horrific detail how the soldier raped "the little kid"…

It's not certain exactly how many children are being held by coalition forces in Iraq, but a [Scotland] Sunday Herald investigation suggests there are up to 107. Their names are not known, nor is where they are being kept, how long they will be held or what has happened to them during their detention.

Where is our press on this story? Is the Unicef report available online? Rolling Stone is still covering Abu Graib, but where is everyone else?

Cyber-sis Avedon Carol of Sideshow reminds us of the human toll and suffering caused by the War in Iraq in Sgt. Joel Gomez Awakes. Go read "A Soldier's New Life" in the Daily Herald. Here's a quote:

He lies there frozen on his bed as his parents and doctors explain why he has been in the hospital for the past three weeks. The information comes quickly, and parts of it confuse him after a long coma. There had been an accident in Iraq. His tank rolled into a river near Bayji, and he had been under water for 10 minutes. His spine is broken in two places, and some internal organs have been severely damaged. He will not walk again. If he gains enough arm mobility to brush his teeth, it will be a major accomplishment. In the ensuing weeks, Joel Gomez will become a nameless number in military records and media reports. History will now refer to him as one of the 308 U.S. soldiers injured in Iraq during the month of March.

Avedon found the article through Today in Iraq which also has this amusing Bush picture.

Rolling Stone has an article analyzing the newly declassified documents on Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

New classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners....The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib -- including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The secret files -- 106 "annexes" that the Defense Department withheld from the Taguba report last spring -- include nearly 6,000 pages of internal Army memos and e-mails, reports on prison riots and escapes, and sworn statements by soldiers, officers, private contractors and detainees. The files depict a prison in complete chaos. Prisoners were fed bug-infested food and forced to live in squalid conditions; detainees and U.S. soldiers alike were killed and wounded in nightly mortar attacks; and loyalists of Saddam Hussein served as guards in the facility, apparently smuggling weapons to prisoners inside.

The files make clear that responsibility for what Taguba called "sadistic, blatant and wanton" abuses extends to several high-ranking officers still serving in command positions.

Just a few bad apples, right? [link via Just a Bump in the Beltway]

Check out the case Ron Reagan makes against President Bush in the September issue of Esquire.

The New York Times calls Iraqi criminal defense lawyer Fuaad Ahmed al-Jawary, "the Johnnie Cochran of the Insurgency." The article portrays the Iraqi criminal justice system, a type of french inquisitorial process with roots in the 3,800 year old Hammurabi code, and one of the lawyers working within it.

It might be hard to imagine that in a place where bombs keep blowing up and raw sewage splashes in the streets there would be a functioning legal system, complete with subpoenas, autopsies, objections, search warrants, evidence reports and public defenders. But there is, and American officials are increasingly turning to the Iraqi courts to prosecute suspects still being held in Abu Ghraib and other prisons.

Hundreds of detainees are being shuffled from American custody into one of the three tiers of the Iraqi criminal justice system: a special tribunal for Saddam Hussein and high-ranking Baath Party members; a new national criminal court for terrorism suspects; and local courts for run-of-the-mill crimes. American officials said that right now, of about 2,300 inmates at Abu Ghraib, 580 had been scheduled for prosecution in Iraqi courts.

Mr. Jawary is the current star of the legal system. Two of his mottos: "Every man is born innocent" and "I try to take cases only where there is some doubt." The article describes his typcial day and a few of his "tricks." It's a very interesting protrait, one that makes us glad we have court in Denver tomorrow, not Iraq.

The military has released its report on prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afganistan, finding 94 cases of confirmed or alleged abuse:

The number is significantly higher than all other previous estimates given by the Pentagon, which had refused until now to give a total number of abuse allegations.The inspector general investigation, ordered Feb. 10 after the allegations of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to the attention of top Army officials in Washington, concluded that there were no systemic problems that contributed to the abuse. In some cases, the report found, the abuse was abetted or facilitated by officers not following proper procedures.

In contrast to its own findings that there were no systemic problems, however, the Army report also cites a February report from the International Committee for the Red Cross that alleged that "methods of ill treatment" were "used in a systematic way" by the U.S. military in Iraq.

94 cases is not an isolated problem. It is a systemic failure that indicates the need for a comprehensive overhaul of current policies. For more, check out this Human Rights First Press Release. The organization's 10 point plan to end unjust security detentions and abuse is here.

The full military report is available here.

Saudi authorities report they recovered the head of American Paul Johnson from a freezer during a raid on a Saudi al-Qaida chief. Mr. Johnson's body is still missing.

U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun is speaking out. He denies he's a deserter. He says he was captured and held for 19 days--during which he witnessed beheadings. Authorities aren't sure whether to believe him.

He's willing to go back to active duty. He's going to be subjected to intense military interrogation. We say give him the benefit of the doubt. Presume him innocent.

by TChris

Sadly, the transfer of sovereignty (full or partial) to Iraq's interim government has not lessened the death toll for American soldiers.

Nearly as many US soldiers lost their lives in Iraq in the first half of July as in all of June, even as Iraqi insurgents seem to have shifted focus from attacking US targets to aiming instead at Iraqi security forces and government officials.

Since the June 28 handover of power, the 160,000 coalition forces have averaged more than two deaths a day, among the highest rate of losses since the war began 15 months ago. By Saturday, 36 US soldiers had died this month, compared with 42 last month, according to a Globe analysis of official statistics.

How long this trend will continue is open to speculation.

[T]he continued attacks on US troops demonstrate the staying power and growing flexibility of the insurgency, believed to be made up largely of former Ba'ath Party elements as well as Sunni and Shia Muslim opponents of the US invasion, both Iraqis and foreigners. They have recently shown a greater ability to cut off US military supply routes and to force Americans to adjust their own tactics, officials said.

Remember last March when TChris wrote about Paul Bremer's announcement that the U.S. was shutting down the radical Shiite al-Hawza newspaper because it increased the threat of violence against the occupying forces? Well, the new Iraqi Government has announced al-Hawza will resume publication.

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi on Sunday ordered the reopening of a radical Shiite newspaper closed by United States soldiers nearly four months ago. The closing was a catalyst for some of the worst anti-American mayhem of the occupation. Dr. Allawi's decree concerning the newspaper, Al Hawza, was a pointedly conciliatory gesture to Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric whose associates run the newspaper. The decree came on the same day as Dr. Allawi approved an American airstrike meant to pound another branch of insurgent fighters, in the city of Falluja, a center for attacks on American and Iraqi forces here.

What is the import?

Together, Dr. Allawi's two actions seemed early evidence of his stated strategy for taming the deadly insurgency by making concessions to fighters who cooperate and cracking down on those who do not.

Dr. Allawi says it's simply a matter of honoring the freedom of the press.

by TChris

Responding to right-wing charges that the mainstream media were sold a bill of goods by Joseph Wilson and that the media now refuse to acknowledge that Wilson's an unpatriotic liar, Tim Rutten at the LA Times reminds us that "over the past week, the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times have worked their way through the [Senate Intelligence Committee and British] reports' main themes and all eventually published dense accounts of their conclusions concerning Wilson." Wilson defends himself against one such story here.

Rutten also notes that the evidence is far from conclusive that Wilson lied about the role his wife played in his assignment to investigate Iraq's alleged interest in Niger's uranium or that he waffled when he initially reported his conclusions to the administration. Don't expect any amount of counter-evidence to change the pro-war bloggers' depiction of Wilson as, in Rutten's words, "the poster boy for a nearly traitorous opposition to the war."