Routine Brutality Reported at Iraqi POW Camps During War With Iran : Captives: Guards used torture to punish, intimidate and extract information, U.N. investigators found.

A special report of the United Nations secretary general during the height of the Iran-Iraq War in 1985 concluded that physical brutality was common in Iraqi prisoner of war camps.

Some prisoners complained to U.N. investigators that they were beaten by batons, truncheons and wire cables. Others told of being suspended upside down from ceilings and being whipped in special interrogation centers. And some reported attempts to force them to give interviews critical of Iran and its leaders on radio and television.

In several of the camps, the secretary general’s mission was told that loudspeakers were installed in dormitories so propaganda could be played day and night.

“During our visits to the POW camps in Iraq, we saw and heard much evidence of physical violence and ill treatment in the camps, attributed mainly to prison guards but also on occasions to those POWs who enjoyed the confidence of the authorities,” the three-member commission appointed by Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said.

“Shortness of time did not allow us to examine and verify the truth of all such allegations, though their frequency and similarity leads us to the conclusion that brutality by guards in most POW camps is common.”

It is not clear that such treatment is in store for allied pilots captured in the Persian Gulf War. A senior U.N. official said that in one aspect the parading of recently taken prisoners on Baghdad television should be regarded as a plus because their names have been made known to the world and the International Red Cross can begin to follow their cases almost immediately.

But some prisoners captured by Iraq might not receive such publicity and could get far worse treatment, particularly if they were secretly confined and interrogated, the official said.

At the United Nations on Monday, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said his organization was seeking to get in touch with prisoners taken by Iraq. The committee is charged with the responsibility of supervising the Geneva Convention covering the treatment of war prisoners.

The Red Cross has eight employees in Baghdad, and they were instructed to make contact with Saddam Hussein’s government.

The 1985 report presented to the Security Council said that Iranian prisoners who spent time in Iraqi interrogation centers stated that torture was frequently used for punishment, to extract information or simply to intimidate.

The report said the allegations most frequently heard related to blows on the head.

“In almost all of the camps visited, we met POWs who had had their hearing impaired, including several who had lost their hearing in one ear or even some who had become totally deaf, as a result of blows on their head or ears,” the commission said.

“We were also told that some POWs had lost their sight or had had it seriously impaired as a result of beatings. We noticed scars, bruises, broken teeth and other bodily marks which appeared to be consistent with the stories told to us by the prisoners.

“Other frequent forms of punishment mentioned to us included confinement in punishment cells for periods up to a month, and individual and collective deprivation of food.”

Some of the prisoners in the eight camps in Iraq visited by the U.N. fact finders in January, 1985, complained they were beaten or punished for talking to the Red Cross.

Prisoners told U.N. investigators of being suspended upside down from ceilings or ventilators, of having the soles of their feet whipped or beaten, of electric shocks administered to various parts of their bodies, of being burned by cigarettes.

They said the guards sometimes staged mock executions.

“We met several POWs who alleged that they had become impotent as a result of torture and heard allegations about cases of castrations,” the investigators said. “ . . . We were also told of instances of sexual assaults.

” . . . Even taking into account the possibility of exaggeration, we were struck by the consistent pattern of many of the allegations,” they said.

Perez de Cuellar commissioned the report after charges by Iran and Iraq of mistreatment of prisoners in camps set up in both nations. The report also said Iranian prison guards mistreated Iraqi captives.

It said that most of the problems confronted by prisoners in both countries were identical-- difficult living conditions, frequently harsh treatment by some camp guards and uncertainty about the length of captivity.

But the U.N. fact finders said incidents marked by violence were greater in Iraq.

“Physical violence appeared to be particularly common in POW camps in Iraq,” the investigators concluded.

In several of the camps in Iraq, the U.N. team said it heard allegations of attempts to influence POWs politically and ideologically.

Prisoners complained of being forced to listen to propaganda morning and night over loudspeakers installed in every dormitory.

“Other POWs told us of attempts to force them to give interviews critical of the Iranian leaders on radio or television,” the report said.

Many prisoners complained about inadequate medical care and about meals being withheld as group punishment.