In an attempt to limit any damage to the image of the UK rulers’ participation in the U.S.-led “coalition of the willing,” Prime Minister Anthony Blair, Conservative leader Michael Howard, and army chief Gen. Michael Jackson have all condemned the prisoner abuse in Iraq, but claimed this case is an isolated incident. Within days of their statements the media spotlight on the issue had faded significantly.  
 
Damning photos revealed
Revelations of the actions of the three members of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers under court-martial—Lance Cpl. Darren Larkin, Lance Cpl. Mark Cooley, and Cpl. Daniel Kenyon—came to a head when 22 photographs were submitted as evidence against them when the trial began in Osnabruck, Germany. The photos were taken May 15, 2003, at a British army-run supply depot near Basra in southern Iraq known as Camp Bread Basket. They show naked Iraqis—accused of looting the depot—being forced to simulate sex acts, and a blindfolded Iraqi tied up and suspended high in the air from the prongs of a fork lift truck.

Cooley has admitted to driving the fork lift, but said his purpose was only “to move the man out of the sun,” the Scotsman reported.

The court-martial was told the soldiers were acting under orders from Major Dan Taylor. The three were ordered by Taylor to conduct an “Operation Ali Baba,” referring to the story ”Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” to punish the prisoners. The soldiers were sent out with long sticks to hunt for the alleged looters. Once caught, the Iraqis’ were, in army language, “beasted”—made to run in searing heat with large heavy boxes of dried milk on their heads. According to a January 21 BBC news report, Taylor was talked to by senior officers in a process known in army slang as an “interview without coffee,” and the senior officers concluded he was guilty of no more than “misguided zeal.”’

The photos only came to light when an assistant in a photo developing shop turned them over to the police. Fusilier Gary Bartlam has been convicted of a series of offenses for taking the photos. Kenyon and Cooley have denied all charges. Larkin admitted to the charge of battery, but denied committing any other offenses. The three each face terms of between four and 10 years in prison if convicted of all charges.  
 
Damage control by British rulers
As the photos were displayed across the media in the United Kingdom and world wide, liberal columnists initially expressed concern that the role of the 9,000 UK troops in Iraq would be tarnished in the way the U.S. forces were after the brutality at Abu Ghraib came to light. For example, James Kirkup, writing in the Edinburgh-published Scotsman, said “The semi-myth of the British squaddie as multi-cultural latter-day saint, part aid worker, part diplomat and part muscular priest, is a comforting one, not least for Mr. Blair. Time and again we have been assured that Our Boys are different: they wear soft berets, not hard helmets; they befriend the local population, not kill them; they observe the laws and rules of war and peace, not violate them. That battle was won, but yesterdays images will not be erased from the imagination so easily or so soon.”

Reacting quickly to widespread coverage of the brutal treatment by British soldiers in Basra, General Jackson stressed that only a “small number” of the 65,000 UK forces who have been deployed to Iraq were involved. Blair said “I hope we do not allow that [the photos] to tarnish the good name, fully deserved, of the British armed forces.” Echoing Blair, Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed the photos “in no way reflect the true character of Britain’s armed forces.”

Within a few days the court-martial slipped from its position as a major news item. Despite this, its proceedings are revealing some of the breadth of what occurred. Testifying at the court-martial, Lt.-Colonel Nicholas Mercer said, “Once we moved into an occupation role from a battlefield one the situation changed and numbers of allegations were made that Iraqis were not being treated as properly as they should be.” Mercer is reported to have issued an order five days after the photographed abuses occurred that “detainees should not be abused.”

In a further sign of London’s determination to drive ahead with the “war on terror,” Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced new measures January 26 to extend detention without trial in the United Kingdom. Clarke said that on the basis of secret intelligence and decision by ministers, suspects could be subjected to house arrest, curfews, and electronic tagging as well as a ban on telephone and Internet use. Revealing the broad scope for this new assault on democratic rights, Clarke’s advisor, Stephen McCabe, told the Scotsman, “We can envisage this applying to animal rights extremists and the far right.” The announcement was made the day after four British men were released from Guantánamo Bay. Also, in December the Law Lords had ruled the detention of 12 men without trial in London’s Belmarsh prison illegal. In announcing the new measures on detention, Clarke suggested he “should be applauded for accepting the Law Lords’ judgment and working on that basis.”

Meanwhile, military prosecutors in Copenhagen have charged a Danish army captain and four military police sergeants with the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at a military camp near Basra last year, according to the Associated Press. Charges against them include denying prisoners food and water.
 
 
Related articles:
Iraqi elections marked by relatively high turnout, little bloodshed
The unintended effects of the Iraq war  
 
 
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