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I try not to cut & paste whole news articles - you should pay for the subscription - but the following is such a strong rejection of the Iraqi evidence that it's worth a look. I cannot decide whether the Iraqi witnesses, described as “wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility” were that way because of nationality, race or opportunism. Also, a special mention to Phil Shiner of Public Interest Law, who specialises in drumming up this sort of case. For tax payer's money. The enquiry costs £25,000,000 including the legal costs. A public inquiry has completely rejected claims that British soldiers murdered Iraqi prisoners after a 2004 battle and exonerated them of all but “relatively minor” allegations of later mistreatment of captives. The report offered sustained criticism of Iraqi witnesses who were accused of systematic lies and collusion to mislead the inquiry – raising serious questions over whether the inquiry – which cost taxpayers £25 million – should ever have been allowed to take place. Sir Thayne Forbes, chairman of the inquiry, described the claims by Iraqi witnesses as “wholly without foundation and entirely the product of deliberate lies, reckless speculation and ingrained hostility”. He added: “As I make clear, there some instances of ill-treatment by the British military but these were relatively minor when compared to the original very serious allegations. I have also come to the conclusion that the overall approach of the detainees and that of a number of other Iraqi witnesses to the giving of their evidence, was both unprincipled in the extreme and wholly without regard for the truth.” Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has already expressed anger over the costly process to expose what he described as “barefaced lies”. He is expected to make a statement in the Commons today. The inquiry was ordered by the previous Labour government in 2009 after claims from Iraqi families that up to 20 men were taken prisoner and later murdered after the “Battle of Danny Boy” — named after a British checkpoint near the town of Majar al-Kabir in southern Iraq — on May 14, 2004. It also examined related allegations of mistreatment brought by five men captured after the battle and held at Camp Abu Naji and later at Shaibah logistics base before being released. Part way through the lengthy evidence process, lawyers acting for the families of the alleged victims dramatically dropped the murder claims after admitting that there was no evidence that the killings had happened away from the battlefield – a central point in the argument. No one disputes that the men met with particularly violent deaths. However the British military has always maintained that the killings took place during a bloody, chaotic and legitimate battle. The battle attracted widespread publicity and several soldiers were awarded gallantry honours. But a claim that the battle included bayonet charges were rejected by the inquiry. Many of the dead had such extensive injuries that images of their corpses were deemed too gruesome to be released. Several bodies were missing eyes and in one case a victim’s penis had been severed. Adding to the confusion, a highly unusual order was given to remove dead bodies from the battlefield for identification — apparently with the hope of identifying a known insurgent involved in the previous killing of six Royal Military Policemen. British witnesses said the bodies were piled in vehicles and returned to their families more than 24 hours later. Ballistics experts called before the inquiry testified that photographs of the dead, taken by a British officer, suggested injuries consistent with the battlefield. Public Interest Law (PiL) brought the claim on behalf of the Iraqi detainees against the MoD. The firm and ts award-winning lead solicitor Phil Shiner led the successful claim by the family of Baha Mousa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist who was beaten to death by British troops in 2004. It is pursuing dozens of other claims by Iraqis of abuse by British forces. The inquiry was named after Hamid Al-Sweady, whose father Mizal Karim Al-Sweady claimed that the 19-year-old had been tortured and murdered. The inquiry heard that evidence given by the victim’s father and other witnesses had been inconsistent and deliberately invented. These included unfounded claims that British forces had used chemical weapons on the battlefield. The prisoners all alleged that they were innocent bystanders caught up in fighting. However, a document released to the inquiry in 2013 and originating from the files of an insurgent group called the Mahdi Army named all nine Iraqi witnesses who were captured by the British as members of their group. The inquiry also heard claims from three British army personnel that they had witnessed prisoners being struck and verbally abused in the aftermath of the battle and that in one case a soldier had emptied his weapon into a pile of dead or grievously injured Iraqis. Those claims were largely rejected by the inquiry chairman as the product of exaggeration, imperfect memory or a desire on the part of three soldiers to draw attention to themselves – including in a BBC Panorama investigation of the battle and its aftermath. The inquiry concluded there was “no deliberate mistreatment” of prisoners on the battlefield or in their transfer to a British camp. Death certificates which recorded evidence of torture following post-mortem examinations by two Iraqi doctors were also rejected. The inquiry heard that Captain James Rands, the intelligence officer for the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, had thrown a computer containing images of dead Iraqis from a ferry in the English Channel. Lawyers for the Iraqis alleged that it was because he had altered time signatures of the original photographs. The inquiry accepted Captain Rands’s claim that the photographs were not tampered with after the event and were a true record of events and consistent with the men dying in battle. It also accepted his claim that he had thrown the computer away because it was broken and he was worried that he had broken army rules by keeping sensitive material on it. The episode began on 14 May, 2004 when Iraqi insurgents ambushed vehicles belonging to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders near a vehicle checkpoint known as Danny Boy. A fierce battle erupted, also drawing in soldiers from the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. A total of 28 Iraqi combatants were killed, while two British soldiers were wounded. Eight Iraqi men were detained. Only five later reported having been mistreated. The MoD has admitted there had been “some instances” where the conduct of British soldiers fell below expected standards, such as a detainee being shouted at and plasticuffs being applied incorrectly. However, it insists that these lapses were on a different scale to the allegations of murder, torture and mutilation put forward by the Iraqis. The report was however, critical of a series of practices employed by British interrogators who conducted “tactical questioning” on the evening after the battle. These included the use of a strip search, the use of blackout goggles on prisoners, the failure to provide adequate food and water and what amounted to sleep deprivation. The inquiry concluded these amounted to “a form of mistreatment”. More serious was the use of a process called “harshing” in interrogation. Sir Thayne was critical of a soldier known by the cypher M004, expressing concerns about his training in techniques which have now been withdrawn from use by the British Army. The soldier told the inquiry that he had kept prisoners blindfolded and then blew on the neck of prisoners while walking around them prior to questioning. He also used a tent peg to strike a table behind the prisoners with the intention of scaring them. The technique, with the use of shouting, amounted to ill-treatment. Similar practices were previously criticised in a report into the death of Baha Mousa. The inquiry started oral hearings in March 2013 and heard from 282 witnesses. According to the inquiry’s website, investigation and expert services costs have amounted to £7,332,477. Running costs including IT and accommodation are at £6,475,324; counsel and legal services cost £5,612,484; witness costs are at £2,990,251 and general staffing cost £2,187,836. Sir Thayne’s full report runs to 1,250 pages after the inquiry considered around 5,000 documents following a “massive” disclosure exercise. PiL issued a statement defending the need for the “important and worthwhile” inquiry. “It found that on a number of occasions Geneva Convention provisions had been breached including the use of improper and proscribed interrogation techniques and that deficient medical treatment had been provided,” PIL claimed. “Of particular concern to us are findings that four of the five techniques banned from Northern Ireland are once again found to have been used by UK personnel in Iraq. These are sleep deprivation, sight restriction, dietary deprivation and the use of noise.”