News-Info-Alerts

Re: Former Gulf War POWs Speak Out

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: March 24, 2003

"US POWs Risk Torture in Iraq, '91 War Prisoners Say
By Mark Egan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. prisoners of war in Iraq risk being beaten, tortured and held in dank concrete jails without medical attention, POWs from the 1991 Gulf War said on Sunday based on their own experiences in Iraqi hands.

Iraqi television filmed five shaken U.S. soldiers -- one an injured woman -- and the bloodied bodies of up to eight uniformed men, all apparently captured or killed near Nassiriya in southern Iraq. At least two of the dead had wounds to the head.

The footage of the first known U.S. prisoners of war in the conflict included brief interviews with the five and was relayed internationally by Arabic network Al-Jazeera.

American who were prisoners of war in the 1991 conflict with Iraq said the U.S. captives faced grim conditions. "The first few days are usually the worst. The physical beatings, most of them were in the first few days," Lt. Col. Dale Storr, who was held for 33 days in Iraq in 1991, recalled in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

Sunday's images revived memories of how in 1991 three Americans, two Britons, an Italian and a Kuwaiti, bruised and disoriented, were shown by Baghdad in televised messages seen around the world.

"I think our leaders and our people have wrongly attacked the peaceful people of Iraq," Navy Lt. Jeffrey Zaun said in that 1991 broadcast. And Guy Hunter of the Marine Corps called the war, "An aggression against peaceful Iraq."

President Bush demanded that the latest captured Americans be treated humanely as dictated by the Geneva Convention, and Iraqi officials promised they would respect the convention in their treatment of the prisoners.

But American soldiers who had a similar experience during the 1991 Gulf War expect no compassion from Baghdad.

Zaun, whose battered face became one of Americans' most memorable images of the 1991 war, told NBC television news, "This kind of thing shouldn't be unexpected." Zaun said he was isolated for weeks at a time and then regularly subjected to karate chops to the throat and blindfolded for mock executions.

'TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE THING'

Asked if he expected Iraq to honor the Geneva Convention while holding the latest U.S. prisoners, Storr replied, "No. I don't. It is a terrible, terrible thing. I feel so sorry for those guys. My heart goes out to them and their families."

Storr said his captors broke his leg, dislocated his shoulder, left him handcuffed and permanently blindfolded, walked him into concrete walls, urinated on him, tortured him and left him without medical attention or the use of a latrine even though he was vomiting and suffered diarrhea.

But Storr offered a morsel of hope to those in captivity.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the latest video Iraqi propaganda and a violation of the Geneva Convention. The convention requires the humane treatment of POWs and states they must be protected against "violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity."

Another POW during the last Gulf War detailed the misery he lived through during his 37 days of captivity. Marine Capt. Craig Berryman said his captors broke his left leg with a metal pipe, beat him with an ax handle and pressed burning cigarettes into open wounds. Like Storr, Berryman had little hope that conditions will be different for the POWs of this war.

Speaking before the conflict began about potential POWs, Berryman told New York's Daily News recently: "You can probably expect their treatment won't be any better than what we had. The military guys and girls over there will pay a price. But this is what we signed up to do."

For many Americans, the mention of prisoners of war revives bleak memories of the Vietnam war, when countless U.S. troops were held captive and subjected to torture. Decades later, the black flag "POW-MIA" (Prisoner of War-Missing In Action) can still be seen on lawns across America.

Iraq's record of treating POWs is less than perfect. During the 1980-1988 war with Iran, Baghdad took about 70,000 Iranian prisoners. Experts have said Iraq housed those prisoners in secret camps where beatings with metal pipes or whips, electric shocks and shootings were common."