By Yossi Melman
Haaretz
July 3, 2004
The
U.S. general formerly in charge of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
told BBC Radio on Saturday she has evidence Israelis were involved in
interrogating Iraqi detainees.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau
Saturday evening denied the accusations made by U.S. Army Brigadier
General Janis Karpinski.
"These reports have no basis in reality,"
a bureau official said.
Karpinski, who was suspended by the U.S.
military in May over allegations of prisoner abuse, said she met a man
claiming to be an Israeli during a visit, related to the Abu Ghraib
torture affair, to a Baghdad intelligence center with a senior coalition
general.
"I saw an individual there that I hadn't had the
opportunity to meet before, and I asked him what did he do there, was he
an interpreter - he was clearly from the Middle East," Karpinski told BBC
radio in an interview broadcast Saturday.
"He said, 'Well I do some
of the interrogation here and of course I speak Arabic but I'm not an
Arab. I'm from Israel.' I was really kind of surprised by that... He
didn't elaborate any more than to say he was working with them and there
were people from lots of different places that were involved in the
operation," Karpinski added.
The Foreign Ministry told the BBC
reports of Israeli troops or interrogators in Iraq were "completely
untrue."
An Israeli security source told Reuters: "Israel was not
and is not involved in the interrogation of anyone in Iraq."
Israel
has denied similar reports in the past of involvement in U.S. operations
in the Middle East. Last month, it denied a report in the New Yorker
magazine that it was training Kurdish fighters in Iraq to counter Shi'ite
militias there.
Karpinski was suspended from command of the U.S.
Army's 800th Military Police Brigade after the publication in April of
photos showing soldiers abusing and humiliating naked Iraqi detainees at
Abu Ghraib.
She has said she did not know about the abuse and is
being made a scapegoat in the scandal.
All evidence refutes
claims of Israeli involvement
In a TV newscast about American
jailers' torturing Iraqi prisoners, which was broadcast by the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation in early May, Eugene Bird, a former U.S. diplomat
in the foreign service known for his pro-Arab position, pointed an
accusing finger at Israel, claiming that Israeli Intelligence personnel
have been operating in Iraq since the end of the war. Bird said there is a
need to determine whether any foreign interrogators, implying Israelis,
were among those who recommended the poor treatment of the Iraqi
prisoners. The following day, the CBC had to issue a clarification that
there was no evidence for Bird's claims.
The source of rumors that
Israelis were involved can be found in the Taguba report - an account of
the affair written by an investigator appointed by the commander of the
American forces in Iraq. The report, named after its author, General
Antonio Taguba, mentions "third-country nationals," whose names are not
mentioned, who were also present at the prison.
In addition, one of
the seven suspects arrested in the affair is "John Israel," who is not a
soldier and did not belong to the prison staff. The suspect is a contract
worker with Titan, a company that provides various services to the
American army in Iraq. One of Titan's board members is former CIA chief
James Woolsey, who is considered a close friend of Israel. Titan, for its
part, claimed that it does not employ John Israel directly, but rather via
a subcontractor whose name remained undisclosed.
Still, the
American media mentioned California Analysis Center Inc. (CACI) as the
company that employed at least two of the suspects involved in the affair.
The company specializes, among other things, in information and
intelligence systems, and has won contracts from the Pentagon. CACI
founder and president, Dr. Jack London, visited Israel a few months ago
and received the Albert Einstein Technology Award at a special ceremony in
Jerusalem sponsored by the Aish HaTorah yeshiva. Defense Minister Shaul
Mofaz was among the guests attending the ceremony.
"Titan and CACI
have close ties to the Israeli security and technology establishment,"
Wayne Madsen, who served on the U.S. National Security Council during the
Reagan administration, wrote in a recently published article on the
Counterpunch Web site (www.counterpunch.org), which reflects American
radical left attitudes. CACI denied all allegations against
it.
Those pointing an accusing finger at Israel also note that the
U.S. Military Intelligence, which advised and handled the jailers in the
Iraqi prisons, maintains close ties with Israeli intelligence. Another
foundation for the rumors is the vast experience of the Israeli security
services in managing prisons and interrogating Arab prisoners, as well as
cases in which it was found that Palestinian detainees were
tortured.
It was revealed in 1987 that the Shin Bet security
services had been practicing a culture of lies since 1967. The Landau
Report, named after former Supreme Court judge Moshe Landau, revealed that
Shin Bet interrogators had extracted confessions from prisoners under
duress and unacceptable physical and psychological torture, and had lied
shamelessly in court under orders from their superiors.
This
history, along with Israel's experience in interrogations, make it
possible to easily refute the recent accusations involving the Iraqi
prisoners. The Landau Report determined what was permissible and forbidden
in interrogations, and since then, the Shin Bet has drafted clear
regulations and orders for interrogators, from which there can be no
deviation. Although a few irregularities were discovered, former senior
Shin Bet officials have testified that the regulations were strictly
followed. This was reinforced with legislation of the Shin Bet Law two
years ago.
"Nothing like that ever happened," said a senior Shin
Bet source, referring to the recent allegations. "We did not operate [in
Iraq], and did not assist the United States in running the interrogations.
This is baseless slander."
Israel's Military Intelligence runs the
504 unit that mainly specializes in handling agents, but also is
responsible for interrogating prisoners of war. Military sources denied
the possibility that Israeli military interrogators were involved in the
Iraqi prisoner affair in any way. The defense minister's bureau said "the
minister had indeed been present at a large public ceremonial event
attended by U.S. congressional members, but had no acquaintance with [CACI
President] Dr. London." Defense Ministry sources added that they are
unaware of any connections with CACI.
Even the legal adviser to the
Israeli Public Committee Against Torture, Gaby Lasky, does not believe
that Israel is involved in the interrogations and torture in
Iraq.
"There is no similarity between the complaints we received
from Palestinian interogees and what we saw and heard about what was done
in Iraq," Lasky said.
Interrogation experts point to the many
differences between Israel and Iraq. Only Shin Bet interrogators
participate in Shin Bet interrogations unless there is a clear military
interest, and in these few cases, unit 504 interrogators are involved.
Police and prison personnel hardly ever enter Shin Bet facilities. In
Iraq, however, jailers were involved in the torture, and the Taguba report
also revealed that female soldiers were involved in the affair. In
contrast, the Shin Bet recruited a few women to its interrogations
department only recently, and they do not participate in the interrogation
of male Palestinians.
Some of the torture in Iraq also smacked of
sexual abuse, including suspicions of the rape of a female
prisoner.
"I am unaware of any participation of female
interrogators in interrogations in Israel, and I have received no
complaints of sexual attacks or abuse," Lasky said.
"Even if in
the past Palestinian prisoners complained of sexual allusions on the part
of the interrogators, a former senior official in the Shin Bet's
interrogation branch said these were isolated and irregular
incidents."
Perhaps the most convincing evidence comes from new
American documents revealed last week by a non-profit organization, the
National Security Archives. These documents are CIA manuals from 1963 and
the 1980s that display an impressive doublespeak lexicon. The section
called "The Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant
Sources" approves the use of "threats and fear," "pain," and
"debility."
Another document states that in CIA interrogations
intended to elicit information, the interrogator "is able to manipulate
the subject's environment," while the 1983 manual states, "to create
unpleasant or intolerable situations, to disrupt patterns of time, space,
and sensory perception."
"When one reads all the American documents
and reports, it is clear that the Americans did not need us to conduct
interrogations," a former senior official in the Shin Bet's interrogations
branch said. "The reports and the pictures of the torture, abuse and
humiliation from the prison in Iraq portray a reality compared to which
the interrogations of the Palestinians by us are really child's
play."