A year on from the day United States President George W Bush triumphantly declared his task of liberating Iraq over, his promise to go on and "win the hearts and minds of Iraqis" seems full of cruel irony in view of the latest scandal over American and British soldiers' brutality against Iraqi prisoners.

On Thursday, American TV network CBS broadcast a series of photographs which not only confirmed some of the worst allegations of coalition troops' conduct in Iraq but exposed some of the dirtiest secrets of the US-led occupation.

In one picture, a hooded prisoner was seen standing on a small box with wires attached to his body. The man had apparently been told that he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box.

Other more graphic images, taken at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, included those of naked Iraqi prisoners piled in a human pyramid and detainees ordered to stand in humiliating positions while soldiers posed for the camera with thumbs-up signs.

The Americans were not the only guilty ones. UK tabloid the Daily Mirror came up with its own scoop a day later of British soldiers torturing a young Iraqi prisoner for eight hours before tossing him off the back of a moving truck.

In face of the uproar that the pictures provoked, military commanders from both countries were predictably full of remorse.

Interrogators-for-hire

US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq, said he was embarrassed by what had happened while British Chief of the General Staff General Sir Michael Jackson pledged an urgent investigation into the incident involving men who have "besmirched the good name of the Army and its honour".

The two senior commanders revealed something else. Military officials have been aware of these havey-cavey on-goings for some time now.

According to the Mirror , Britain's Ministry of Defence conceded that it was investigating eight cases of alleged mistreatment of Iraqis by British personnel.

Kimmitt, meanwhile, told CBS current affairs programme '60 minutes II' that a military inquiry into Abu Ghraib was ordered in January after a soldier, disturbed by the actions of some of his comrades, reported the abuses and handed over photographic evidence.

As if this was not enough, the probe opened up another can of worms. For the first time, it has been uncovered that private contractors have been hired for purposes of intelligence gathering and interrogation of detainees.

Investigators into the Abu Ghraib case found that while action could be taken against a general and six soldiers posted at the prison, the military had no authority over a number of other perpetrators since they were not officially employed by the US Army.

The Guardian

newspaper, which obtained parts of the US military report, said some of those suspected of abusing prisoners included hired guns from a wide array of private security firms which have been assigned central roles in occupied Iraq. Two US-based contractors - CACI International and Titan Corporation - were identified in the report for their involvement in Abu Ghraib.

Titan, in its website , describes itself as "a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for national securityserving the (US) Department of Defence, intelligence agencies and other government customers"

CACI, on the other hand, claims to "offer all possible support to (US) Homeland Security and our continuing war on terrorism".

Guantanamo experience

What makes the latest scandal so offensive is not only the shock value of the torture revelations but also that it represents yet more trespasses against established international norms.

The torture of the Iraqi prisoners makes clear mockery of states' obligations under the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, to which both the US and Britain are signatories. It also blatantly violates the United Nations Convention against Torture.

Specifically, Article 13 of the 1949 Geneva Convention prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners and of any act or omission by the detaining power that may cause death or seriously endanger the health of a prisoner of war.

That the obligations are binding is not in doubt. One of the six US soldiers charged with the Abu Ghraib abuses even drew on the convention for his defence.

Staff Sgt Chip Frederick, who has been accused of committing an indecent act on a detainee and assaulting several of them, claimed that he did not have the opportunity to read the Geneva Convention before being put on guard duty.

While it may strike one as odd why anyone would require a reading of the UN documents to realise the wrongfulness of assaulting another person, this line of reasoning does makes perverse sense when viewed against the backdrop of US actions since the fateful terrorist attacks on Sept 11, 2001.

For one, there is the matter of the orange-clad Taliban and al Qaeda suspects locked up in cages under the glaring sun at Guantanamo Bay. Enough survivors of Camp X-Ray have testified unchallenged that they were subjected to physical and psychological torture while in detention.

There were also the allegations that US forces had been handing over suspected terrorists to less transparent Middle Eastern governments for purposes of information extraction, by whatever means.

In face of international criticism, Washington did not reject its obligations under the Geneva Conventions. Instead, it went about the circuitous route to re-label detained terror suspects as "unlawful combatants" and not prisoners of war.

So with this overt sanction for the use of force against enemies of America, how then, can US soldiers be expected to behave any differently in Iraq?

Legal black hole

The employment of private contractors (read: mercenaries) in Iraq also raises related issues but with far wider implications.

Security-for-hire addresses some of the problems faced by the US-led coalition in terms of politically sensitive deployment of more troops. If killed in action, the deaths of mercenaries can be conveniently left out of official statistics.

In cases where illegal actions take place, as in Abu Ghraib, it allows governments to feign ignorance and deny responsibility over the methods used.

For instance, US central command spokesperson Colonel Jill Morgenthaler was quoted in The Guardian as saying that one man hired by a contractor was among those accused of ill-treating the Abu Ghraib prisoners. However, he was not charged with any crime because the military could only deal with its own.

"We had no jurisdiction over him. It was left to the contractor (company) on how to deal with him," she said. The newspaper, citing sources, said the man had raped an Iraqi boy in his mid-teens.

The unspoken implication of this arrangement is that it would allow the US government to re-create the same sort of legal black hole whereby Iraqi prisoners of war are stripped of their rights in the same way as the Guantanamo detainees.

Military personnel aside, when a private contractor commits a crime in US-governed Iraq against an Iraqi citizen, who has jurisdiction to punish him?

A quick answer would be the Iraqi governing council in Iraqi courts. But how can this take place when the country remains in shambles without a functioning law and order system?

The next applicable authority would be the US government which holds control (or at least claims to) over the country. Yet, from the statements that have emanated from the White House, it appears that the Bush administration is satisfied with having the six soldiers tried by its own military courts while allowing equally suspect contractors to escape with impunity.

What about the abused Iraqi prisoners? Where can they or their families seek justice and/or compensation?

Military courts are established to enable the armed forces to punish indiscipline in its ranks, not for civilians to seek justice. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the bitter experience of Japan's Okinawa residents, they often prove to be far too keen on protecting their own kind.

Aggrieved detainees may be able to bring civil actions in US courts against the contractors and by extension the government that hired them but how are they ever going to make it onto American soil to file their claims? At the moment, their identities and fates remain unknown to the outside world.

Kamunting parallel

Finally, there is always the obligatory inward assessment. The thought of Iraqis being tortured by a supposedly liberating force will enrage and shock many Malaysians who have been against the Iraq war from the outset.

But lest we think the treatment meted out by the rogue US soldiers affect only Iraqi prisoners, think again. The same parallel can be drawn to the experiences of some of our own citizens but this time, at the hands of our security forces.

Several months ago, Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees at the Kamunting detention camp issued a statement through a support group detailing the many indignities they suffered at the hands of the authorities.

Disturbingly similar allegations as in the Iraq case were made. Detainees claimed they were made to strip bare during interrogation sessions. Some said they were spat upon and assaulted. Others alleged that they had their beards burnt.

The question that we should ask ourselves is this: Are we willing to stand up for their rights as vocally as we have been in expressing support for the Iraqis and outrage over their ill-treatment?

YAP MUN CHING, a former malaysiakini journalist, is currently pursuing further studies in the United Kingdom.