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<dd>After Abu Ghraib: "I Hate Them" <br><br>
<dd>Huda Alazawi was one of the few women held in solitary in the
notorious Iraqi prison. Following her release, she talks for the first
time to Luke Harding about her ordeal <br><br>
<dd>Monday September 20, 2004<br><br>
<br>
<dd><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">The Guardian</a> <br><br>
<dd>It began with a phone call. In November last year 39-year-old Huda
Alazawi, a wealthy Baghdad businesswoman, received a demand from an Iraqi
informant. He was working for the Americans in Adhamiya, a Sunni district
of Baghdad well known for its hostility towards the US occupation. His
demand was simple: Madame Huda, as her friends and family know her, had
to give him $10,000. If she failed to pay up, he would write a report
claiming that she and her family were working for the Iraqi resistance.
He would pass it to the US military and they would arrest her.
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<dd><font size=3>"It was clearly blackmail," Alazawi says,
speaking in the Baghdad office of her trading company. "We knew that
if we gave in, there would be other demands." The informant was as
good as his word. In November 2003, he wrote a report that prompted US
soldiers to interrogate Alazawi's brother, Ali, and her older sister,
Nahla, now 45. Wearing a balaclava, he also led several raids with US
soldiers on the families' antique-filled Baghdad properties.<br><br>
<dd> <br><br>
<dd>On December 23, the Americans arrested another of Alazawi's brothers,
Ayad, 44. It was at this point that she decided to confront the Americans
directly. She marched into the US base in Adhamiya, one of Saddam
Hussein's former palaces. "A US captain told me to come back with my
two other brothers. He said we could talk after that." On Christmas
Eve she returned with her brothers, Ali and Mu'taz. "I waited for
four hours. An American captain finally interrogated me. After 10 minutes
he announced that I was under arrest." Like thousands of other
Iraqis detained by the Americans since last year's invasion, Alazawi was
about to experience the reality of the Bush administration's "war on
terror". <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>"They handcuffed me and blindfolded me and put a
piece of white cloth over my eyes. They bundled me into a Humvee and took
me to a place inside the palace. I was dumped in a room with a single
wooden chair. It was extremely cold. After five hours they brought my
sister in. I couldn't see anything but I could recognise her from her
crying."<br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Alazawi says that US guards left her sitting on the
chair overnight, and that the next day they took her to a room known by
detainees as "the torturing place". "The US officer told
us: 'If you don't confess we will torture you. So you have to confess.'
My hands were handcuffed. They took off my boots and stood me in the mud
with my face against the wall. I could hear women and men shouting and
weeping. I recognised one of the cries as my brother Mu'taz. I wanted to
see what was going on so I tried to move the cloth from my eyes. When I
did, I fainted."<br><br>
<dd> <br><br>
<dd>Like most Iraqi women, Alazawi is reluctant to talk about what she
saw but says that her brother Mu'taz was brutally sexually assaulted.
Then it was her turn to be interrogated. "The informant and an
American officer were both in the room. The informant started talking. He
said, 'You are the lady who funds your brothers to attack the Americans.'
I speak some English so I replied: 'He is a liar.' The American officer
then hit me on both cheeks. I fell to the ground. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Alazawi says that American guards then made her stand
with her face against the wall for 12 hours, from noon until midnight.
Afterwards they returned her to her cell. "The cell had no ceiling.
It was raining. At midnight they threw something at my sister's feet. It
was my brother Ayad. He was bleeding from his legs, knees and forehead. I
told my sister: 'Find out if he's still breathing.' She said: 'No.
Nothing.' I started crying. The next day they took away his body."
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<dd><font size=3>The US military later issued a death certificate, seen
by the Guardian, citing the cause of death as "cardiac arrest of
unknown etiology". The American doctor who signed the certificate
did not print his name, and his signature is illegible. The body was
returned to the family four months later, on April 3, after the Abu
Ghraib torture scandal broke. The family took photographs of the body,
also seen by the Guardian, which revealed extensive bruising to the chest
and arms, and a severe head wound above the left eye. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>After Ayad's body had been taken away, Alazawi says that
she and 18 other Iraqi detainees were put in a minibus inside the
military compound. "The Americans told us: 'Nobody is going to sleep
tonight.' They played scary music continuously with loud voices. As soon
as someone fell asleep they started beating on the door. It was
Christmas. They kept us there for three days. Many of the US soldiers
were drunk." <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Finally, after a US guard broke her shoulder as she left
the lavatory, Alazawi and her surviving siblings were transferred - first
to a police academy in Baghdad's interior ministry and then, on January
4, 2004, to Abu Ghraib prison. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Alazawi, who has a 20-year-old daughter, Farah, and a
four-year-old granddaughter, Safat, spent the next 156 days in solitary
confinement. Along with five other Iraqi women, she was held in Abu
Ghraib's infamous "hard site" - the prison block inside the
compound where photographs of American guards sexually humiliating Iraqi
prisoners had been taken two months previously. The women were kept in
the upstairs cellblock; male detainees regarded as "difficult"
were held downstairs. The vast majority of inmates lived in a series of
open tents surrounded by razor wire and US guard posts. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>In her first weeks at Abu Ghraib, before the US military
launched its internal investigation into prisoner abuse, torture was
commonplace, she says. "The guards used wild dogs. I saw one of the
guards allow his dog to bite a 14-year-old boy on the leg. The boy's name
was Adil. Other guards frequently beat the men. I could see the blood
running from their noses. They would also take them for compulsory cold
showers even though it was January and February. From the very beginning,
it was mental and psychological war." <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Alazawi is reticent about the question of sexual abuse
of Iraqi women but says that neither she nor any of the other women in
Abu Ghraib at the time were sexually assaulted by US guards. In his
subsequent report into the scandal, however, Major General Antonio Taquba
found that at least one US military policemen had raped a female inmate
inside Abu Ghraib; a letter smuggled out of the prison by a woman known
only as "Noor", containing allegations of rape, was found to be
entirely accurate. Other witnesses interviewed by the Guardian have said
that US guards "repeatedly" raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl who
was held in the block last year. They also said that guards made several
of the women inmates parade naked in front of male prisoners. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Alazawi says that she was held in a two-metre-square
cell, initially with no bed and a bucket for a toilet. For the first
three weeks she was entirely "mute" after being told that
talking was forbidden. The US guards gave her only one book, a Koran. She
managed to steal a pen, and recorded incidents of abuse, with dates, in
its margins. During her first few months in custody, the US soldiers were
brutal, petty and tyrannous, she says. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>"Because I could speak a bit of English I was given
the job of emptying the rubbish. There was never enough food and one day
I came across an old woman who had collapsed from hunger. The Americans
were always eating lots of hot food. I found some in a packet in a bin
and gave it to her. They caught me and threw me in a one-metre-square
punishment cell. They then poured cold water on me for four hours."
She wrote the date down in her Koran: February 24, 2004. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>For the first four months, apart from frequent
interrogations, she was not allowed out of the block. Alazawi says she
was repeatedly asked whether she was in the Resistance and whether she
had fired rockets at US soldiers (she is 5ft 3in tall). "It became a
running joke. The other women began to nickname me the Queen of the RPG
[rocket-propelled grenade]. The American interrogators were entirely
ignorant and knew nothing about Iraqi people. The vast majority of people
there were innocent." <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>After the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April, Alazawi was
allowed to exercise in the scrubby yard outside for 10 minutes a day. She
got a bed. She was also assigned a new female guard, "Mrs
Palmer", who helped the women with their English and in turn tried
to learn Arabic. In May, Major General Geoffrey Miller, assigned to Abu
Ghraib by Washington in the aftermath of the torture scandal, escorted a
large group of journalists around the prison for the first time. The
previous night, Alazawi says, US guards evacuated all the juveniles and
male detainees from her cellblock, leaving only her and a handful of
other women upstairs. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>"Mrs Palmer told us that during the inspection we
had to lie quietly on our beds. She said that if we behaved we would be
allowed to spend more time out of our cells in the sun. The following day
General Miller turned up with a huge number of journalists. I heard him
telling them that some of the people kept in here were murderers. I
shouted out: 'We are not the killers. You are the killers. This is our
country. You have invaded it.' After that they didn't let me out of my
cell for an entire month. A US officer came to me and said: 'Because of
you we have all been punished'." <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Alazawi says she was unimpressed by Miller. "It was
obvious he liked having his photo taken," she says. Over the next
few weeks, the US military began releasing hundreds of Abu Ghraib
detainees as part of a damage limitation exercise. Alazawi and her sister
were moved from their cells to a tent. Three generals also came to
interview her and asked her to describe what had happened to Ayad, her
brother. They did not, however, offer an apology. The other women were
gradually released, including her sister. Finally, on July 19, a
helicopter took Alazawi to Al Taji, a military base just north of
Baghdad. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>"After eight months in prison they suddenly treated
me like a queen. It was weird," she says. "They offered me some
Pepsi. I could take a shower. There was air conditioning. There were four
female soldiers to look after me. The doctor came to see me four times in
24 hours. They made me sign a piece of paper promising not to leave the
country. And then I was free." <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>A US military spokesman said that Alazawi was known to
him, but disputed her claim to have been held in solitary for 157
days:"She and her sister, which [sic] were the last two females we
detained at Abu Ghraib, were separated from the male detainees in keeping
with the cultural sensitivities." He added, "The fact that
abuses occurred isn't really news any more. We know they did and those
who are accused are being prosecuted for it." <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>Now Alazawi is trying to piece her life back together.
She is back at work in Baghdad, where she runs businesses importing
foreign cars and electrical goods, surrounded by respectful staff who
bring endless cups of sweet Iraqi coffee. Business appears to be
flourishing. Friends of the family in Arab dish-dash - many of whom come
from Iraq's Sunni elite - drop in and exchange gossip on her white
leather sofas. But after her release, her millionaire husband announced
that he was divorcing her. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>"For a woman in an eastern society to spend months
in US custody is very difficult," she says. Several of the other
former women detainees in Abu Ghraib are believed to have disappeared;
others have husbands who have also disowned them. Alazawi's surviving
brothers, Ali - prisoner number 156215 - and Mu'taz - 156216 - are still
inside Abu Ghraib. The US military continues to detain them and 2,400
other prisoners without charge or legal access, in contravention of the
Geneva Convention. Alazawi says that she has hired lawyers to pursue the
Iraqi informant whom she blames for her brother's death. <br><br>
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<dd><font size=2> <br><br>
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<dd><font size=3>All the other women detainees, meanwhile, have refused
to talk about their ordeal; she is the first to give testimony. As Iraq
lurches from disaster to disaster, from kidnapping to suicide bombing,
from insurgency towards civil war, from death to death, what does she
think of the Americans now? "I hate them," she says. <br><br>
<dd> <br><br>
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