War may be hell and things may have to be done while fighting that aren't acceptable otherwise but when the beating of informants by the fledgling military in a fledgling democracy is met with a 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy from the righteous United States, just what hope do we have for a real democracy in Iraq?
3 Suspects Talk After Iraqi Soldiers Do Dirty Work
“The detainee gave us names from the highest to the lowest,” Captain Fowler told the Iraqi soldiers. “He showed us their safe houses, where they store weapons and I.E.D.’s and where they keep kidnap victims, how they get weapons, where weapons come from, how they place I.E.D.’s, attack us and go away. Because you detained this guy this is the first intelligence linking everything together. Good job. Very good job.”
What the Americans did not know and what the Iraqis had not told them was that before handing over the detainees to the Americans, the Iraqi soldiers had beaten one of them in front of the other two, the Iraqis said.
“I prepared him for the Americans and let them take his confession,” Capt. Bassim Hassan said through an interpreter. “We know how to make them talk. We know their back streets. We beat them. I don’t beat them that much, but enough so he feels the pain and it makes him desperate.”
“They are not supposed to do that,” Captain Fowler said. “What I don’t see, I don’t know, and I can’t stop.
