UK probe says there is no systematic abuse by UK troops in Iraq
February 1, 2008
Aitken report, which probed the cases of abuse and unlawful killing in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 by the members of British Army did not find any evidence of systematic abuse by soldiers. Brig. Aitken, director of Army personal strategy, was commissioned to probe allegations concerning mistreatment of prisoners. This included Iraqi hotel receptionist Baha Mousa who died with 93 injuries while being held by British forces in southern Iraq and 16-year-old Ahmed Jabber Kareem, who drowned after allegedly being forced to swim across a river.
However, the report by Brigadier Robert Aitken “ identified the areas for development to ensure that those events will never be repeated.” The Army must learn and implement lessons from the disciplinary process in the same way that it does for wider operational issues: it needs to find better ways to entrench its core values and standards of behaviour and discipline into the everyday lives o personnel: and must ensure that administrative action is used correctly, the report recommended.
After the report was released on Friday morning, the UK Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt said” This report is rightly critical of our performance in a number of areas and it catalogues the significant number of steps we have already taken towards ensuring that such behavior is not repeated. I am now satisfied that we have put in place measures, which ensure that as far as humanly possible, there should be no repetition of this behavior.” The defence ministry said that report focuses solely on instances where members of the British Army are alleged or proven to have mistreated Iraqi civilians.
Other News:Army Surplus here
Comments
Got something to say?
