An Iraqi soldier closes the door of a cell in Abu Ghraib prison after the Iraqi government took over control of the facility near Baghdad. (File photo)

 

On Tuesday, the Guardian published a report based on interviews with British soldiers and airmen from the UK Royal Air Force and Army Air Corps who had been given guard and transport duties at the secret prison at Baghdad International Airport, known as Camp Nama, during the US-led war in Iraq.

“I saw one man having his prosthetic leg being pulled off him, and being beaten about the head with it before he was thrown on to the truck,” said a British serviceman who had served at Camp Nama.

According to the report, Iraqi prisoners were subjected to electric shocks and routinely hooded.

The witnesses also said the detainees at Camp Nama were held for long periods of time in cells the size of large dog kennels.

A probe launched by Human Rights Watch disclosed that the detainees at the secret center were subject to “beatings, exposure to extreme cold, threats of death, humiliation and various forms of psychological abuse or torture.”

General Stanley McChrystal, the then-commander of US Joint Special Operations Forces in Iraq, was frequently seen at the prison, the report added.

On March 19, 2003, US-led forces invaded Iraq under the pretext that the Iraqi regime had arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, no such weapons were ever discovered in the country after the invasion and the ensuing destruction wrought by the occupying forces.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and Iraq’s infrastructure was destroyed in the US-led invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country.