IRAQ

MSNBC: Iraq's Disappeared

As many as 8,000 people have disappeared since Saddam's regime collapsed,
and many relatives are searching for answers about their fate. More than
5,000 are in U.S. custody; others may be among those killed by fellow
Iraqis, and in some cases by American troops. Those who have been detained
are nearly always held incommunicado, without access to lawyers or even the
right to contact their families. In most cases their loved ones can't find
out where they are. With Iraqi prisons looted and destroyed, captives are
jailed in barbed-wire compounds, converted warehouses and vast tent camps.

Conditions are primitive; at their worst they amount to what Amnesty
International describes as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." But the
lack of a proper justice system is not just a human-rights issue. It also
raises questions about whether the U.S. military, in its campaign to stamp
out the Iraqi resistance, is creating new enemies.

"Es hat sich viel geändert seit Saddam weg ist. Die Amerikaner lassen die Leute noch schneller verschwinden als der Ex-Diktator"