Detainee Abuse by Marines Is Detailed

Marines operating in Iraq over the past two years committed a variety of abuses against Iraqi prisoners, including burning a detainee’s hands by igniting alcohol-based cleanser in August 2003, according to internal Defense Department documents released yesterday. Several other incidents, most of them previously undisclosed, are described in investigative reports and legal summaries. In Karbala in May 2003, one Marine held a 9mm pistol to the back of a bound detainee’s head while another took a photograph. Two months later, in Diwaniyah, four Marines ordered teenage Iraqi looters to kneel alongside holes and then fired a pistol “to conduct a mock execution.” In April of this year, shortly before the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal shook the U.S. military, three Marines in Mahmudiya shocked a detainee with an electric transformer, forcing him to “dance” as the electricity hit him, according to a witness, one document states. The Washington Post reported that incident in June, after two of the Marines pleaded guilty in the case. Full Story