伊拉克虐囚事件(1/4)
The Scandal's Growing Stain
丑闻已升级为污点
By JOHANNA MCGEARY
Haider Sabbar Abed al-Abbadi kept his shame to himself until the world saw him stripped naked, his head in a hood, a nude fellow prisoner kneeling before him simulating oral sex. "That is me," he claims to a TIME reporter, as one of the lurid photographs of detained Iraqis suffering sexual humiliation at the hands of U.S. soldiers scrolls down a computer screen. "I felt a mouth close around my penis. It was only when they took the bag off my head that I saw it was my friend." In the nine months he spent in detention, al-Abbadi says he was never charged and never interrogated. On that awful November night, four months after his arrest, he thought he and six other prisoners were being punished for a petty scuffle.
Haider Sabbar Abed al-Abbadi对自己所受的侮辱一直保持沉默，直到他被剥光衣服，套着头罩，另一个裸身的囚犯跪在他身前模仿口交的照片公之天下之后，他才对《时代周刊》的记者说：“照片里的人是我。”这张耸人听闻的照片仅仅还是美国士兵在伊拉克对囚犯进行性虐待的长篇累牍证据中的一份。“我感觉到有张嘴含住了我的阴茎，当他们拿掉我的头套时，我才发现那个人是我的朋友。” al-Abbadi被拘留了整整9个月，期间他即没有被控告，也没有被审问。 就在他被捕4个月后那个可怕的11月夜晚，他才意识到他和他6个朋友所遭受的这一切惩罚仅仅是因为一次很小的混战。
They were herded into Cellblock 1A. The guards cut off their clothes, and then the degrading demands began. Through it all, al-Abbadi knew the Americans were taking photos, he says, "because I saw the flashbulbs go off through the bag over my head." He says he is the hooded man in the picture in which a petite, dark-haired woman in camouflage pants and an Army T shirt gives a thumbs-up as she points to a prisoner's genitals. He says he was in the pileup of naked men ordered to lie on the backs of other detainees as a smiling soldier in glasses looks on. And al-Abbadi says he was told to masturbate, though he was too scared to do more than pretend, as a female soldier flaunted her bare breasts.
他们被赶到1A号囚室，警卫撕掉他们的衣服，接着又开始下达各种侮辱性的命令。自始至终，al-Abbadi都知道他们在照相，他说，“因为透过头罩我能看见相机闪光灯的闪光。”他说他就是照片中戴着头罩的人，同时照片里还有个小个子黑发女人，身穿一条伪装短裤和一件军队T恤，冲着囚犯的生殖器竖起大拇指。一个旁观戴眼镜的士兵笑着命令他们和另一些未判刑的囚犯背靠背地躺下。al-Abbadi 说他们命令他手淫，有个女士兵在他面前抖动自己裸露的乳房，他害怕得只能假装按他们的意思办。
Those scenes, caught in shocking candor by someone's digital camera, played over and over last week in the world's newspapers and magazines and across the airwaves. Jarring new examples emerged: the same female soldier, holding a leash wrapped around the neck of a naked prisoner cringing at her feet. Even when the shots were pixilated or cropped for modesty, nothing could hide the raw cruelty of U.S. soldiers ridiculing the manhood of Iraqi captives. Of all places, these atrocities occurred at Abu Ghraib prison, once the infamous home of Saddam Hussein's torture chambers.
这些场景被有些人用数码相机以令人发指地坦率拍摄下来，上周在世界各大报纸、杂志，甚至是电视上一遍一遍地播放。接着新的证据又爆出来：同一位女士兵用皮带勒住一个裸体囚犯的脖子，让他伏在自己的脚边。即便这些照片因拍摄者当时失常的精神状态或者出于假正经而拍得切掉一些，但是这些都不能抹煞美国士兵对伊拉克战俘嘲弄奚落和赤裸裸地折磨。这些暴行发生在Abu Ghraib监狱，这里曾经是萨达姆 侯赛因臭名昭著的刑讯室。
The accounts of these misdeeds would be sickening in the best of times. But with each new revelation of abuses inflicted by U.S. troops in Iraq, it seems evident that the damage goes far beyond the appalling acts of a few miscreants. As public doubts about the war grow, the images of sadism symbolized all that is going wrong with the U.S. venture in Iraq. The photos touched off a global outcry, especially in the Arab world, where they provoked fresh fury among millions of Muslims opposed to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq and provided grist for every conspiracy theorist who claims the U.S. is bent on debasing Islam and humiliating Arabs. "We're going to live with the consequences of this for the next 40 years," says a senior White House official, and few would accuse him of exaggeration. Most immediately, the scandal has imperiled the U.S. effort to pacify Iraq by turning even more ordinary Iraqis against the occupation and reinforcing the sense that control is slipping everywhere, less than two months before the U.S. is due to hand sovereignty back to the nation.
种种这些罪行发生在当前盛世简直令人作呕。但是随着每一桩美国军队在伊拉克进行的虐待事件的曝光，有一点很明显：这种伤害远远超过了个别异端分子骇人听闻的行为所带来的伤害。当公众还在怀疑战争的走向时，这张虐待狂的照片映征了美国在伊拉克所进行的所有冒险完全是个错误。这些照片激起了全世界的大声疾呼，尤其是在阿拉伯世界，上百万穆斯林被这些照片挑动起来对抗George W. Bush的入侵，并且还向那些宣称美国意在贬低和侮辱伊斯兰教的阴谋理论家提供粮食。“这件事造成的影响将陪伴我们今后40年的生活。”白宫一位高级官员如是说，可能还有个别人会因为他这通夸大其词而控告他。这条丑闻直接将美国试图安抚伊拉克情绪的努力付之东流，美国本来想还伊拉克人一个更加平凡的伊拉克而不是被占领的伊拉克，并且还强制推行对各地的控制正在逐渐变弱，就在不到两个月前，美国还计划将主权归还这个国家。
Nothing the Bush Administration said or did could contain the damage. The President, who says he first learned of the existence of the photographs when they were aired two weeks ago on CBS's 60 Minutes II, went on Arab television to proclaim the abusive treatment "abhorrent" behavior that "does not represent the America that I know." His words weren't enough to dent the outrage of Muslims who wondered why he failed to apologize. A day later Bush finally said he was sorry, but America's image in much of the Arab world may well be irredeemable. U.S. officials tried to portray the sordid scenes as the isolated acts of a few low-ranking soldiers who were violating U.S. policy. The military, they pointed out, has already rooted out the offenders and is disciplining them. "Please don't for a moment think that's the entire U.S. military, because it's not," said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for coalition forces in Iraq.
不论布什政府做什么或说什么也不能挽回这种伤害。总统说他第一次得知这些照片是两周前美国哥伦比亚广播公司60分II播出这些照片时，紧接着他就在阿拉伯电视台宣布这种滥施酷刑的做法，如此“让人深恶痛绝的行为并不能代表我所熟知的美国。”然而他的话根本不足以熄灭穆斯林的怒火，他们不解他为什么不道歉。次日布什终于表示了歉意，但是美国形象在阿拉伯世界已经彻底无法挽回。美国官方试图将这种肮脏的行为描述为少数违反美军军纪的低级士兵的独立行为。他们指出军方已查出罪犯并军纪惩罚。“请不要认为这是全体美国军队所为，因为这并不是。”伊拉克盟军发言人Mark Kimmitt准将说。
But the horror stories keep coming. An Army investigation of conditions at Abu Ghraib concluded that prison guards had carried out "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton abuse" for months. The Army is investigating reports of crimes committed at other detention facilities in Iraq. Testifying before the Senate last Friday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon has obtained more photos and video footage that show U.S. troops engaged in even worse behavior. "We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience," Senator Lindsey Graham said. "We're talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges." A senior Pentagon official tells TIME that the Pentagon is considering the possibility of showing the unseen material to members of Congress.
但是可怕的故事还在继续。Abu Ghraib监狱的美国调查专员总结说这所监狱的守卫数月来实施了无数次残酷、喧闹、荒唐的虐待。军方正在调查在伊拉克其它拘留地的犯罪报告。上周五证据在上议院公布，辩护秘书Donald Rumsfeld说五角大楼已经掌握了更多的照片和视频底片，这些证据揭露了美国军队的更加恶劣的行为。“这些行为不仅仅是给人一次屈辱经历，这是强奸和谋杀，是非常严厉的控诉。”Lindsey Graham议员说。五角大楼的高级官员对《时代周刊》说五角大楼正在考虑是否将这些从未公布的材料交给众议院议员。
The scandal has metastasized into a full-blown political crisis as Washington tries to figure out who to blame. The seven reservists involved in the photographed abuses have been charged with conspiracy, maltreatment and indecent acts, and six additional soldiers up the chain of command have been severely reprimanded and one was admonished. But many are looking for accountability higher up. Rumsfeld took most of the fire after the White House put out word he had been chastised by Bush for not reporting how bad the allegations were or warning that the photos were about to break on 60 Minutes II. Called on the carpet by furious members of Congress, Rumsfeld conceded, "I failed to identify the catastrophic damage that the allegations of abuse could do to our operations in the theater, to the safety of our troops in the field, to the cause to which we are committed."
当华盛顿试图确定该给谁定罪时，这个丑闻已经转移为全局的政治危机。虐囚照片涉及的七名伊拉克驻兵已因虐待猥亵同谋罪被起诉，另外六名下达命令的上一级士官已受到严厉斥责，一名被记警告。但是还有很多人在向上追查责任。白宫发言后，拉姆斯菲尔成了众矢之的，布什曾严厉指责他没有上报这些辩解所带来的恶劣影响，也没有警告60 Minutes II不得播出这些照片。为了应对愤怒的众议院，拉姆斯菲尔德让步说：“我未能意识到这一虐囚事件会对全体观众、对我们在伊拉克驻军的安全、对我们努力要实现的目标会造成如此灾难性的伤害。