The shame of the Baha Mousa inquiry

The Baha Mousa inquiry opened this week with shocking video footage of a British soldier subjecting Baha Mousa, (a 26 year old Basra hotel receptionist, sustained 93 injuries while in the custody of British troops) and five of his hotel colleagues to brutal ill treatment. The one-minute video taken by an Unknown Soldier shows Corporal Donald Payne repeatedly forcing the hooded and plasti-cuffed Iraqis into the excruciatingly painful "ski" stress position.What is also unbearable to watch is Payne "beasting" the Iraqis - his abusive shouting is very loud - while pulling them up by their heads.

Five "conditioning techniques" - hooding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, food and water deprivation, and white noise - inflicted on IRA suspects and banned in 1972 by the then prime minister, Edward Heath, were used on Iraqi detainees.

What is of plain evidential fact from the Baha Mousa court martial is that the UK rushed to an illegal war. Part of the consequent failure to plan included the lack of a lawful detention policy. There was complete chaos on the ground, with all captured persons sent up to the British theatre internment facility at Umm Qasr where there were no facilities. The head of army legal at the time, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Mercer, complained bitterly of seeing "about 40 Iraqis hooded kneeling in the hot sun near a noisy generator".

When the interrogators at Umm Qasr could not cope with the numbers, a policy was made up on the hoof so untrained questioners could interrogate at Battle Group level. That is what was happening to Mousa and his colleagues in the 36 hours before he died: the euphemisms of "conditioning techniques" and "maintaining the shock of capture" masking a UK policy of brutal ill-treatment in breach of every legal standard prohibiting torture.

Lastly, the cover-up is staggering to behold. This video was shown three years ago at the court martial, but has been kept secret until today on the flimsiest of public interest excuses concerning troop security.