Jail find wins U.S. more regard from Sunnis

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. troops' discovery of 173 mostly Sunni Arab men beaten and malnourished in a secret Interior Ministry jail has sent a jolt of optimism through Baghdad's disaffected Sunni minority.

"This is like a dream — the American forces free Iraqi prisoners tortured by the government?" said Huthayfa Mohammed, 20, a Sunni Arab who can't find his brother after Iraqi police detained him. "This is brand new."

The men weren't actually freed but were taken from the jail in Jadriyah, a south central Baghdad neighborhood, and given medical treatment.

Like Mohammed, much of the Sunni Arab minority has taken heart in the recent discovery, which was announced Tuesday. The U.S. military's intercession has given them a boost in confidence that the parliamentary elections in December could make them players in the next government.

Sunnis, who dominated the government under Saddam Hussein, largely stayed away from the polls in January. Some were boycotting the parliamentary election and others were afraid of potential violence, but their absence essentially handed the government to their traditional rivals, the Shiites.

The discovery of the jail appeared to confirm Sunni suspicions that members of Shiite militia groups connected to the Interior Ministry were kidnapping and torturing Sunni men.

Amid the swirl of political intrigue in Baghdad, few took discovery of the prison at face value. Shiite Iraqis saw it as an effort by the U.S. military to undermine the Shiite-dominated transitional government just one month before the Dec. 15 elections.

"The Americans want another government. They are doing the same thing as they did in 1991 when they used Shiites and then dumped them," said Qassem Darwish, a Shiite street vendor in Karrada, referring to a U.S.-inspired Shiite uprising in the southern port city of Basra against Saddam. Saddam crushed the rebellion and slaughtered its participants while the United States did nothing to help.

Maj. Gen. William Webster, who commands U.S.-led forces in Baghdad, said Wednesday that the U.S. military would "coordinate with the Iraqis and inspect any detention facility that we find out about."

"We're getting some feedback that this inquiry into Jadriyah has meant an awful lot to people in the Sunni community towards supporting the electoral process," Webster said.

In Baghdad, Omar Heikal of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political party in Iraq, said it was now clear that majority Shiites in the U.S.-backed government were trying to suppress minority Sunnis ahead of the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.

"Our information indicates that this is not the only place where torture is taking place," he said, reading an official party statement. The party "calls on the United Nations, the Arab League and humanitarian bodies to denounce these clear human-rights violations, and we demand a fair, international probe so that all those who are involved in such practices will get their just punishment."

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari formed two investigative committees on Tuesday, one to look into the Jadriyah incident and the second to inspect other Iraqi prisons for signs of abuse.

The marjaiya, Shiite religious authorities, typically calls for Sunni groups to condemn terrorist actions. The role was reversed on Wednesday.

"If the Ministry of Interior is proved to be involved, I demand the marjaiya and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to condemn these actions," said Tariq al Hashemi, secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, referring to the most powerful Shiite leader.

The 173 men were discovered when the U.S. military went into an Interior Ministry building in Jadriyah, they said, in search of a teenage boy. They found mostly Sunni men inside.

An Iraqi police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and Sunni groups said the men had been detained without warrants, but the Ministry of Interior denied that.

In a related development, at least four Iraqi policemen were treated at Yarmouk Hospital for injuries they said were suffered in beatings by men who identified themselves as Interior Ministry commandos after they were stopped Monday on patrol in the Dora neighborhood of southwest Baghdad.

An Associated Press photographer and an AP Television News cameraman saw long, thin black and blue bruises and welts on their backs and shoulders. None of them appeared to be so seriously injured as to require hospitalization.

The men were visibly nervous and refused to speak in detail about their ordeal, fearing reprisals.

They told AP journalists that they were blindfolded and taken to an unknown location but were released after the "Americans interfered." They refused to give their names or say more.

AP attempts to get comment Wednesday from the Interior Ministry were unsuccessful because the ministry had closed for the day and senior officials had switched off their mobile phones.