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Blair's envoy condemns US torture of Iraqi prisoners

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, April 30, IRNA -- Prime Minister Tony Blair`s human rights 
envoy to Iraq Friday condemned the US torture and abuse of Iraqi 
prisoners lavishly depicted in American television, and said that 
officials at the White House had previously denied that detainees were
mistreated. 
"I think they are absolutely terrible. I am shocked," Ann Clwyd 
told BBC Radio 4`s Today program when asked about the photographs 
of the abuse by American troops in Baghdad`s Abu Ghraib jail that 
were shown on US television on Thursday. 
She said that she had raised the treatment of detainees at the 
prison during a visit to Washington, but that the White House denied 
there was a problem. 
"I made the point that there must be answers, because I found it 
very difficult to get answers, and I was told by a very senior person 
there, `We don`t do this kind of thing,`" Clwyd said. 
But she rejected comparisons with the treatment of prisoners by 
the former regime of Saddam Hussein, insisting it was only a "small 
number of cases, horrible though they are." 
Speaking on the same program, former foreign secretary Lord 
Owen warned that Britain, as the joint occupying power, would be 
"damaged" by the revelations of US torture. 
"I hope, I believe, nothing like this happens in the British 
Army. But there is no joy for us. What happens with the Americans of 
course impacts on us. We are in it together. It hurts us as well," he 
said. 
Owen, who also served as the EU`s special representative to 
Bosnia, said: "Things go wrong in every conflict. But this is very 
bad to happen at this time. We could have done without it; it is very 
damaging. You never pull back lost ground." 
Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi 
newspaper believed that the abuse and torture of prisoners meant it 
was the US that had lost its battle for the hearts and minds of the 
Iraqi people. 
"I think this is the end of the story, the straw that broke the 
camel`s back, for America. I think the British job will be extremely 
difficult because we are associated with this torture and abuse, the 
closest ally of a country which tortures prisoners," he said. 
Atwan said the US had "lost the battle completely" and believed 
it would lead to even more violence. 
"Iraqis expected the Americans and British to bring democracy and 
human rights and not the same thing as under Saddam," he said. 
HC/LS/210