I heard this bit of news earlier today but really thought that it can’t be true, but now it is on Reuters and some Iraqi spokesman is commenting on it. Really nasty stuff:

Iraq investigates abuse of prisoners

"There were 161 detainees in all and they were being treated in an inappropriate way ... they were being abused," Hussein Kamal, a deputy interior minister, told Reuters.

Actually saying they were being abused is putting it pretty mildly.

The way I heard it was that the US troops have surrounded the bunker a couple of days earlier after they finally listened to the buzz that was going about this place.

The American Army has raided a bomb shelter in al-Jadriya district in Baghdad after allegations of prisoner torture by members of Iraqi police and intelligence services. It is slightly ironic that Americans are trying to stop a case of prisoner abuse considering Abu Ghraib and all but I guess they already blocked that memory.

The place is very close to the Hamra Hotel where most of the western media stays and it is not officially a military bunker as the reports says, the US spokesman is making the same mistake his government made years ahgo when they bombed the Ameyiah bomb shelter, it is essentially a civilian shelter but that is besides the point today.

The report mentions 161 detainees

"I've never seen such a situation like this during the past two years in Baghdad, this is the worst," Hussein Kamal told CNN.

"I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralyzed and some had their skin peeled off various parts of their bodies."

"This is totally unacceptable treatment and it is denounced by the minister and everyone in Iraq," he told Reuters.

It is said that there were a number of dead bodies as well in the shelter and what the report doesn’t mention is signs of power tools used on the detainees. Apparently the officer in charge of this operation has something for drills; there were holes on feet and legs.
Heading this operation there is an Iraqi officer and is under the direct supervision of the current minister of interior affairs (security) who us a member of SCIRI. And I don’t really by the spokesman’s line that the minister of Interior Affairs had no idea of what was going on, what I heard was that the officer in charge was under direct supervision from the Minister.

There has been a lot of talk about Iraqi police and security forces abducting people from Sunni areas and the same people showing up dead a few days later. This is usually dismissed as very unlikely but many Sunni leaders have been talking about these incidents. The Minister of Interior Affairs’ typical answer to these allegations is that these can’t be happening because there are many Sunnis in his forces.
There has been a lot of finger pointing amongst Shia and Sunnis and shouts of “they did it first”. The Shia where always taking the moral high ground and for obvious reasons it is the Sunnis who are always blamed for crying Wolf! Just to distract from the atrocities they commit.

Adnan al-Dulaimi (big Sunni Kahuna) has apparently been going around with photographs of mutilated bodies for a while and shouting about them but obviously no one was listening because it sounded highly improbable and anyway it is the Sunnis who are the bad guys and not the Shia.