West turns blind eye as police put Saddam's torturers back to work, page 1

Here's an interesting article from The Times regarding the induction of Saddam's trained torture-merchants into the Iraqi "security forces".

www.timesonline.co.uk

IRAQI security forces, set up by American and British troops, torture detainees by pulling out their fingernails, burning them with hot irons or giving them electric shocks, Iraqi officials say. Cases have also been recorded of bound prisoners being beaten to death by police.

In their haste to put police on the streets to counter the brutal insurgency, Iraqi and US authorities have enlisted men trained under Saddam Hussein’s regime and versed in torture and abuse, the officials told The Times. They said that recruits were also being drawn from the ranks of outlawed Shia militias.
[...]
The abuse has not gone unnoticed by the coalition, but little has been done to address it. A US State Department report in February stated that Iraqi authorities had been accused of “arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, impunity, poor prison conditions — particularly in pre-trial detention facilities — and arbitrary arrest and detention.” A Human Rights Watch report also noted that “unlawful arrest, long-term incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees (including children) by Iraqi authorities have become routine and commonplace”.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Revelations like this put to rest any illusions of the coalition governments' concerns for humanitarian issues in Iraq. I realize that the situation in Iraq is no picnic and sometimes a dirty job requires dirty tools, but the question is have things really gotten any better for the Iraqis? After the WMD justification was abandoned, BushCo turned to humanitarian reasons to sell the occupation. Once again, the excuses ring hollower than an aluminium tube.

And if billions of dollars are being put into Halliburton and other companies' coffers to rebuild the country, into military operations in the country, and into securing the new government, then why is obviously so little money being put into humanitarian concerns?

Indiscriminate arrests and brutal torture perpetrated by these "security forces" can perhaps shed some light on why these people are often the targets of insurgents' attacks. Their image as innocent, good-willed men trying to get the country back on its feet is a little tarnished it seems. Rusty even...