Hardly Tortured Anyone Who Did Not Deserve It, Officials Say

The State Department on Monday detailed an array of human rights abuses last year by the Iraqi government, including torture, rape and illegal detentions by police officers and functionaries of the interim administration that took power in June.

A U.S. report on human rights violations throughout the world lauded the interim Iraqi government for "as scrupulously respecting human rights as the United States" during 2004. The report noted that "in certain areas" the Iraqi government had even exceeded the standards set by the United States, in that the Iraqi government "hardly waterboarded anyone" and "pretty much refrained from building human pyramids of any kind."

"The Iraqi government only raped and tortured individuals who were either suspected to be insurgents or were wrongly thought to be insurgents," said Harold Glipner, a State Department spokesperson. "We were very pleased."

In a joint press conference, Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzalez praised Iraq's human rights record, saying, "We could not have done a better job if we'd done it ourselves."

Iraqi detainees themselves also praised the interim government's human rights record after hours of sensory deprivation and sexual humiliation. "Yes, yes," said an unidentified figure somewhere near Basra.