Video Shows U.S. Soldiers in 'Ramadi Madness' Abuse

Mon Mar 7, 2005 08:12 PM ET

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army soldiers in Iraq filmed themselves kicking a gravely wounded prisoner in the face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave, then titled the effort "Ramadi Madness" after the city where it was made.

The video, made public on Monday, was shot by Florida National Guard soldiers. They edited and compiled it into a DVD in January 2004, with various sections bearing titles such as "Those Crafty Little Bastards" and "Another Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag."

The soldiers' unit served in the restive Sunni Muslim city Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad, before returning home a year ago.

The video's existence had been revealed in Army documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under court order through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Pentagon did not release the video, saying it believed it had been destroyed. But a Florida newspaper, The Palm Beach Post, obtained it and posted some of it on its Web site on Monday.

The ACLU has obtained thousands of pages of documents from the Pentagon and said they show an pattern of widespread abuses of detainees by military forces in Iraq. Digital pictures that were disclosed last year of U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison drew international condemnation.

Soldiers depicted in the new video would not face criminal charges, the Pentagon said.

One section of the video showed a bound and wounded prisoner sprawled on the ground, and showed his bullet entry and exit wounds. At one point, a U.S. soldier kicked the prisoner in the face.

Army documents quoted a soldier at the scene as saying he "thought the dude eventually died. We weren't in any hurry to call the medics."

WAVING CORPSE

In another part of the video, a soldier grabbed the arm of a truck driver who had just be shot dead and makes the corpse wave to the camera.

The events that preceded the incident were not shown on the video. The newspaper reported that U.S. troops had stopped the truck and ordered the driver to step out, but he ran back into the vehicle and sped away only to be shot dead by an American soldier. It said the booby-trapped rear door of the truck exploded.

Documents released by the Pentagon showed that Army criminal investigators looked into the matter and decided no criminal charges were warranted against the soldiers. Documents showed that the Army deemed the actions shown on the video "inappropriate" rather than criminal.

"It didn't rise to the level of criminal abuse, according to the investigations," said Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. "Clearly, the soldiers probably exercised poor judgment ... and I'm sure that they were admonished by their command for their actions."

Ramadi has been a flash point in the guerrilla war that followed the U.S.-led ouster of President Saddam Hussein in 2003. More than 1,500 U.S. troops have been killed in the war.

ACCOUNTABILITY

ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer said the Army documents indicated that a soldier stated he destroyed disks containing the video to avoid having it released to the news media, and a colonel stated the unit's leaders likely would destroy copies.

"It's difficult for me to understand why nobody was held accountable for the abuse of detainees here. There's no justification for kicking an enemy prisoner of war when he's wounded on the ground in front of you and about to die," Jaffer said.

"Clearly, there's some stuff in this video that's inappropriate but not criminal. But then there's quite a lot of other stuff in here that does seem to be criminal," Jaffer added.

The Palm Beach Post stated on its Web site it did not post video showing the gruesome aftermath of a suicide bombing and excluded the audio portion because of profane language.

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