Torture in Iraq

Herald Sun:

The claims by Iraqi Government officials, human rights groups and victims follow the discovery of more than 170 tortured and starving prisoners in a locked Interior Ministry bunker beneath Baghdad. Many had been severely beaten. Some had been paralysed. Others had skin peeled off their bodies. The horrific discovery by US troops, who stumbled on it while searching for a missing boy, threatens to undermine the new democracy the US is trying to build in Iraq. 'This sort of behaviour completely undermines everything the Iraqi Government stands for and everything the coalition came here for,' said Lt-Col Frederick Wellman, a spokesman for the division of the multinational force in Iraq that is responsible for training Iraq's police. 'It is unacceptable in any form.'

This is very disturbing. Individual rights, rather than tribal grudges, are the hope for building a new Iraq. This shows that the former is not nearly as strongly protected as we would like, and the latter still much to prevalent. The Iraqi government must act quickly and unequivocally to salvage this situation.