'Torture rooms' found (CNN)
Coalition forces in Iraq have recently uncovered what they call "torture rooms" operated by Sunnis on Sunnis in Anbar province, a military commander said Wednesday.
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room" and in an earlier press briefing, said 17 kidnapped Iraqis had been found in two hideouts.
He said one of the tortured people was a 13-year-old boy, who "literally had been tortured, electrocuted, whipped, beat by these al Qaeda terrorists." He said freed people told troops that one or two captives had died during the torture sessions, and the remaining captives expected to be ransomed off to their families, with the funds going to support the al Qaeda insurgency.
"This is the nature of the enemy that the Iraqi people are facing here in Iraq," Caldwell said.
Two locations northeast of Karma were found over just the last couple of days, he said. Troops had been conducting "focused operations" in the area.
Those operations stemmed from information uncovered at another location during a raid about two weeks ago, he said. At that location, troops found no captives, but recovered a laptop computer containing an apparent al Qaeda manual on how to torture victims.
The manual, illustrated by graphic drawings, shows how to use drills to torture people, sever hands, drag people behind vehicles, use a blowtorch or clothes iron on skin, remove eyes and electrocute people, among other tactics.
"They made it in a cartoon manner, so that no matter what your literacy rate, what nationality you are, all you've got to do is look at these pictures to understand how to conduct tortures of innocent people," Caldwell said on CNN's "The Situation Room."
The manual was recently declassified and was made available to CNN Wednesday.
Anbar is a largely Sunni territory. Anti-al Qaeda forces have been emerging there.
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You know, every so often a guy's gotta re-evaluate his position. This stuff is really sickening. The worst I've seen and read about U.S. prison atrocities doesn't hit this level, and even the stuff they cover up - - what goes on in the secret torture chambers around the world or what's in the 90% of the Abu Ghraib photos and videos that the Pentagon still won't release - - could only equal this stuff, they couldn't surpass it. Although dumping willie peter on civilians is in a class all by itself. Now I just say fuck the whole God-damn bunch of them. The best thing that could happen for this planet would be for them to kill each other off. The sooner the better.
