The Wire

This week, a revised copy of the United states’ army field manual is due to be released, with hopes it will put an end to the type of terrible abuses captured on tape at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. The new manual is a result of amendments sponsored by US Senator John McCain, who served in Vietnam and himself was tortured in detention. And it seems that the release of the document couldn’t come sooner. Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First and New York University’s Center for Human rights and Global Justice have just compiled a damning report into torture and abuses being carried out by US army personnel against detainees. The report, entitled By the Numbers, has found that detainee abuses by US military personnel were not peculiar to Abu Ghraib – they have been ongoing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo bay and many detainees have died and been permanently injured because of them. Sadly though, according to the Washington Director of Human Tights First, Elisa Massimino, few within the military have been brought to justice for perpetrating these acts.