Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

Babylonian Lion, March 1875.

Six American soldiers, including a general, were facing court martial over the torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison, which was famous for its torture chambers under Saddam Hussein. Photographs of the abuse were broadcast on U.S. television; one image depicted a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his genitals.¹ Other photos showed prisoners masturbating; several showed U.S. soldiers smiling and posing next to their victims.² Some of the soldiers blamed mercenaries for the abuses;³ others said that military intelligence was in control of that cellblock.⁴ Photographs were published of British troops beating an Iraqi man and urinating on him; the pictures also showed a soldier striking the man in the genitals with a rifle; the victim's jaw was reportedly broken and his teeth were smashed before he was thrown off the back of a moving truck.⁵ President Bush condemned the abuse. "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people," he said. "That's not the way we do things in America."⁶ The Urban Institute released a study showing that in some U.S. counties 30 percent of the population is in prison, and an⁷ abortion provider in Kansas City was accused of practicing fetal cannibalism.⁸ The United States used F-15E and F-16 warplanes, F-14 and F-18 fighter-bombers, AC-130 gunships, and AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters to bomb Fallujah. British Tornados were also used. Some three dozen laser-guided 500-pound bombs were dropped, and at least one building was blown up by accident.⁹ A Cobra helicopter fired a missile at a mosque and knocked over its minaret.¹⁰ U.S. forces, fearing a public relations disaster, pulled back from the city and left a new Iraqi force in charge under the command of General Jasim Muhammad Saleh, who served in the Republican Guard under Saddam Hussein. There was some confusion among American officials, however, as to whether the general was really in charge and whether he had actually served in the Republican Guard.¹¹ Iraq's Governing Council unveiled a new national flag that was immediately condemned for its strong resemblance to the flag of Israel, which features the same shade of blue.¹²

"Brother Guide" Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya arrived in Brussels, along with his white stretch Mercedes limo and four female bodyguards wearing tight uniforms, to meet with European officials. He called on the United States and China to rid themselves of nuclear and chemical weapons. "Hopefully," he said, "nothing will force us to go back to the days when we used our cars and explosive belts."¹³ Terrorists in Syria fought with police and blew up a bomb outside a former United Nations office in Damascus, and militants¹⁴ in Saudi Arabia attacked the offices of a Western engineering company and killed several people; one American engineer was dragged away behind a car.¹⁵ The United Nations Security Council voted to ban "non-state actors" from possessing nuclear weapons.¹⁶ Police killed more than 100 Muslim militants armed with machetes in southern Thailand.¹⁷ Vandals defaced 127 graves with swastikas and other Nazi symbols in a Jewish cemetery in Alsace, and the¹⁸ Anti-Defamation League released a report showing that European anti-Semitism is on the decline, though negative attitudes toward Israel are up.¹⁹ The Likud Party, in a referendum, rejected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip, where a pregnant Israeli woman and her four daughters, ages two to 11, were murdered by Palestinian gunmen.²⁰ Child abductions were on the rise in Afghanistan, and the United Nations was having a hard time recruiting peacekeepers for its mission in Haiti.²¹

President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney met for several hours with the 9/11 commission, though they refused to permit the interview to be recorded or transcribed; two Democratic members of the commission had to leave early because they had other appointments.²² It was reported that more than $5 billion in antiterrorism money for local governments and agencies has been held up by red tape, and²³ that last year the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control assigned only four employees to work on terrorist cases; in contrast, almost two dozen were investigating violations of the Cuban embargo. Since 1990, the office has opened 93 investigations into terrorist finances and 10,683 relating to Cuba.²⁴ President Bush declined to investigate China's unfair trade practices, and ten²⁵ new countries joined the European Union.²⁶ Bosnian Serb officials revealed six new mass graves containing victims of the Srebrenica massacre.²⁷ California banned Diebold's electronic voting machines, and experts²⁸ said that the United States is losing its dominance in science and technology.²⁹ Scientists developed a type of computer made of DNA that they hope could someday diagnose and treat diseases from inside the particular human cells that require treatment.³⁰ SARS continued to spread in China.³¹ Researchers discovered a molecule, used by some cancer tumors, that prevents cells from dying.³² Archaeologists found an underground Egyptian maze filled with mummies, and scientists³³ discovered that women tend to marry men who look like their fathers.³⁴ A Russian museum of erotica announced an exhibit featuring Grigory Rasputin's penis.³⁵