U.S. Troops Tortured Iraqis in Mosul, Documents Show

American soldiers tortured Iraqi prisoners at a military base in Mosul but nobody was court martialed over the abuse, U.S. army documents say. The documents show that mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was not confined to the Abu Ghraib jail, where abuse and sexual humiliation of inmates caused worldwide outrage last year. An investigation by a U.S. officer after an Iraqi prisoner's jaw was broken at the base in Mosul found that "detainees were being systematically and intentionally mistreated" in late 2003. Inmates were hit with water bottles, forced to do exhausting physical exercises until they collapsed, deprived of sleep and subjected to deafening noise, the investigation report found. One prisoner died in December 2003 after four days of repeatedly having to do physical exercises as a punishment, according to the documents, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act. The Mosul investigation began after 20-year-old Salah Salih Jassim had his jaw broken in detention. He was not suspected of any crime but had been arrested along with his father, an officer in Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia. "All night they were throwing water on us and making us stand and squat. From the night to the next day ... they were beating us," Jassim said in testimony to investigators. [more] and [more]

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• Pictured above: A library photo of an American soldier humiliating Iraqi prisoners.