Concern that UK Army covered up the most serious accusation of war crimes it has faced

From: Army faces inquiry over 'Battle of Danny Boy' torture claims

Claims that British soldiers tortured and murdered up to 20 prisoners after a battle with Iraqi insurgents are to be scrutinised at a public inquiry.

Concern that the Army covered up the most serious accusation of war crimes that it has faced has prompted Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, to order the independent inquiry.

Mr Ainsworth is due to tell MPs next week that the inquiry will centre on an incident known as the Battle of Danny Boy. It took place in May 2004 and involved soldiers from the Argyll and Southern Highlanders and the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment.

The Ministry of Defence said that 20 insurgents were killed “on the battlefield” after an exchange of fire during an attack on an Army vehicle and checkpoint. However, Iraqi families claim that some of those killed had been captured alive before being tortured and murdered by troops at Camp Abu Naji, a British base.

Evidence indicating torture and mutilation allegedly includes close-range bullet wounds, the removal of eyes and stab wounds, human rights lawyers have claimed.

Army sources say that, at a checkpoint called Danny Boy, heavily outnumbered troops mounted a heroic defence. The battle took place five miles from the town of Majar al-Kabir in Maysan Province, where six British military policemen, known as Red Caps, were murdered the year before.

The Army claims that 20 bodies were removed from the battlefield for identification before being returned to their families, with no evidence of torture. It insists that nine prisoners were taken for questioning and were not mistreated.

Lawyers for the family of Hamid al-Sweady, 19, have demanded an independent investigation into claims that he was killed after being taken prisoner. They also represent five prisoners who claim that they were subject to unlawful interrogation methods, The Ministry of Defence had opposed a public inquiry into the allegations arguing that an investigation by the Royal Military Police (RMP) had concluded that the claims of torture and murder were groundless.

Bill Rammell, the Armed Forces Minister, has insisted that there is no evidence of abuse and murder. “For these allegations to be true, it would have involved a massive conspiracy involving huge numbers of people.”

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Catherine Austin Fitts on Alex Jones TV

Catherine Austin Fitts is the former managing director and member of the board of directors of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon, Read & Co. and commissioner to the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration. She talks about the hijacking of the economy by the banker cartel and Wall Street.



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Canadian diplomat alleges troops in Afghanistan were complicit in torture

The Canadian government was fending off calls for a public inquiry on torture today after allegations from one of its senior diplomats that Canada was complicit in the torture of Afghan detainees.

Richard Colvin, who was second in command at Canada's Kabul embassy in 2006 and 2007, said that Afghans swept up in security sweeps by Canadian troops during that time were routinely handed over to the Afghan intelligence services.

"According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured," Colvin told Canada's parliament. "For interrogators in Kandahar, it was standard operating procedure.

"In other words, we detained, and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people."

Colvin said his frequent memos about the abuse were ignored and that senior officials attempted to cover up Canada's complicity until prisoner transfer procedures were changed in 2007, partly as a result of his complaints.

The allegations have shocked a country that generally regards itself as an upholder of humanitarian values and intensified scrutiny of Canada's military presence in Afghanistan. Canada has about 2,800 troops based in Kandahar province, who are due to be withdrawn in 2011.

The government has denied the allegations and attacked Colvin's credibility.

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My Lai photographer Ron Haeberle exposed a Vietnam massacre 40 years ago today in The Plain Dealer

Photographer remembers My Lai Massacre

Forty years ago today, black-and-white photographs of slaughtered women, children and old men in a Vietnamese village shocked the world -- or that portion of the world willing to believe American soldiers could gun down unarmed peasants and leave them to die in streets and ditches.

The Plain Dealer, in an international exclusive, was the first news outlet to publish the images of what infamously became known as the My Lai massacre, which had taken place on March 16, 1968.

"A clump of bodies," read the description on the front page of The Plain Dealer's Nov. 20, 1969, edition. At first some people were in denial about how these South Vietnamese civilians were killed, even after seeing the pictures.

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China’s new missile may create a ‘no-go zone’ for U.S. fleet

China's military is close to fielding the world's first anti-ship ballistic missile, according to U.S. Navy intelligence.

The missile, with a range of almost 900 miles (1,500 kilometers), would be fired from mobile, land-based launchers and is “specifically designed to defeat U.S. carrier strike groups,” the Office of Naval Intelligence reported.

Five of the U.S. Navy's 11 carriers are based in the Pacific and operate freely in international waters near China. Their mission includes defending Taiwan should China seek to exercise by force its claim to the island democracy, which it considers a breakaway province.

The missile could turn this region into a “no-go zone” for U.S. carriers, said Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessments in Washington.

Scott Bray, who wrote the ONI report on China's Navy, said China has made “remarkable progress” on the missile. “In little over a decade, China has taken the program from the conceptual phase” to “near fielding a combat-ready missile,” he said. Bray's report, issued in July, was provided to Bloomberg News on request.

China also is developing an over-the-horizon radar network to spot U.S. ships at great distances from its mainland, and its navy since 2000 has tripled to 36 from 12 the number of vessels carrying anti-ship weapons, Bray, the ONI's senior officer for intelligence on China, said in an e-mail.

China's Strategy

The new missile would support China's “anti-access” strategy to detect and if necessary attack U.S. warships “at progressively greater distances” from its mainland, Krepinevich said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a Sept. 16 speech, said China's “investments in anti-ship weaponry and ballistic missiles could threaten America's primary way to project power and help allies in the Pacific -- particularly our forward bases and carrier strike groups.”

Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of U.S. naval operations, says the new Chinese missile was one factor in his 2008 decision to cut the DDG-1000 destroyer program from eight ships to three because the vessels lack a missile-defense capability.

The Navy instead plans to build up to seven more Lockheed Martin Corp. Aegis-class DDG-51 destroyers and equip them with the newest radar and missiles.

China's ballistic missile “portends the sophistication of the threats that we're going to see,” Roughead said in an interview earlier this year.

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