With confirmation from Britain’s Ministry of Defence that about $47.5-million (U.S.) has been donated in “gift aid” to the Iraqi security forces, an investigation by The Observer revealed that weapons, vehicles and equipment tagged for the Iraqi Police is instead being snatched up by counter-insurgency troops, who are accused of wanton thuggery and carrying on like rabid scum.

Evidence has been gathered of secret detention centres and interrogations involving physical and sexual torture, with some abuses being carried out within the walls of Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior. Even Iraqi police are getting in on the good times, allegedly co-operating with unofficial detainment centres and carrying out extra-judicial murders.

Calling any abuse “unacceptable,” the British Foreign Office claims it raises every abuse complaint “at the highest levels in Basra and Baghdad.”

In the meantime, Iraqi and international critics say torture is far more widespread since Iraq’s first democratically-elected government was sworn in.

» Scott Saxon