Monday, February 7 2005 10:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New York: The US' infamous Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq was the setting for numerous goings on that, even without the appalling abuse of the detainees, would make a whopping scandal on their own, says a media report published yesterday (Feb 06, 2005).

Tethers were put to use at Abu Ghraib to control unruly or mentally disturbed detainees, sometimes with the concurrence of a doctor, and there were risible medical facilities for the detainees with non-doctors performing amputations and chest tubes being recycled from the dead to the living, the 'Time' magazine reports, quoting medical personnel and others who worked at the detention center.

By one account, a medic was ordered once to cover up a homicide.

"That in itself would have made Abu Ghraib a scandal even without the acts of torture inflicted on the inmates by their guards," Time notes.

Although the prison was at times crowded with as many as 7,000 detainees, no US doctor was in residence for most of 2003. Military officials say a few Iraqi doctors saw to minor illnesses but not major traumas.

In a statement obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, an Army medic based at Abu Ghraib spoke of examining from 800 to 900 detainees daily as they were admitted. If he worked a 12-hour day, that gave him less than a minute for each exam.