We Used Lions Against Iraqis?

That's what WaPo is reporting this morning:

Two Iraqi men who were arrested in Iraq in 2003 but never charged with crimes say that U.S. troops put them in a cage with lions, pretended to execute them in a firing line and humiliated them during interrogations at multiple detention facilities.

Sherzad Khalid, 35, and Thahe Sabber, 37, say they were brutally beaten over several months at U.S. facilities such as Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib prison and another detention facility at the Baghdad airport. They said the abuse occurred when they were unable to tell U.S. troops where Saddam Hussein was hiding and did not know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Both are businessmen who were arrested in a July 17, 2003, raid in Baghdad while Khalid, of Kurdistan, was visiting friends. Both said they were supporters of the U.S. invasion.

The two men are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and top military commanders in Iraq. The suit contends that U.S. policies during the war allowed abuse and torture. Both men say that they were tortured and degraded for months before they were released.

"That was a terrifying period for me," Khalid said through an interpreter yesterday, slowly recounting being shoved into a lion's cage at one of the presidential palaces in Baghdad three times before soldiers lined him up for a mock execution. "I was wondering if it could be real that the American army would act this way."

(more at link)

I would have thought this beyond the scope of what the US would do during interrogations, but given the revelations of the past year and a half, I do not know what to believe. I don't think it is beyond imagination to accede that these types of - we dare not call it torture - interrogation techniques were used on these men. These men who were never charged with criminal activity.

One of the two men, Mr. Sabber, reportedly said this about their treatment: "They just wanted to humiliate us in any shape or form they could. I wish I knew why. I was sure, however, that their actions were not the same as the values and morals of the American people."

Most generous of him. If the story is true, I too want to know why these two men were treated in this manner.