Steven Vincent is the author of the book "In The Red Zone" as well as the blog of the same name. He has appeared as a guest twice on the Northern Alliance Radio Network with us, and his accounts of traveling around Iraq are riveting. He's back in the country once again and shares the story of an Iraqi stringer in this piece at NRO:
Months went by, and the government refused to say what happened to Samir. With his family growing increasingly distraught, Ali took the hazardous step of visiting the party's Basra headquarters to ask about his brother's whereabouts. In response to his query, the Baathists arrested Ali, accusing him of belong to the Shia opposition group, Dawa Islamiyya -- as had, so they claimed, Samir. (Accusing someone of membership in Dawa was an all-purpose charge the regime used to "disappear" its citizens.) "I was sent to prison for trying to find out if my brother was alive or dead," Ali says.
At one point in his imprisonment, the Baathists took Ali to a "special" interrogation room, and ordered him to strip off his clothing. The interrogator then offered Ali a choice -- either he allowed torturers to shove a large bottle up his rectum, or hammer a nail into his back. "I chose the nail," Ali recounts in a flat tone. Twisting in his chair, he lifts up his t-shirt to exhibit a quarter-sized lump in his shoulder blade. "Believe me, sir, you have not felt such pain."
At least they didn't drop his Koran on the floor, disturb his sleep, or put underwear around his neck. 'Cause you know, THAT would have been torture.
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