Under Saddam Hussein's orders, the security apparatus in Iraq routinely and systematically tortures its citizens. Beatings, rape, breaking of limbs, and denial of food and water are commonplace in Iraqi detention centers. Saddam Hussein's regime has also invented unique and horrific methods of torture including electric shocks to a male's genitals, pulling out fingernails, suspending individuals from rotating ceiling fans, dripping acid on a victim's skin, gouging out eyes, and burning victims with a hot iron or blowtorch.

Gwynne Roberts, a reporter for the London-based Independent, describes her experience in a torture center in northern Iraq:

In one cell pieces of human flesh — ear lobes — were nailed to the wall, and blood spattered the ceiling. A large metal fan hung from the ceiling, and my guide told me prisoners were attached to the fan and beaten with clubs as they twirled. There were hooks in the ceiling used to suspend victims. A torture victim told me that prisoners were also crucified, nails driven through their hands into the wall. A favorite technique was to hang men from the hooks and attach a heavy weight to their testicles.

— Independent, March 29, 1991

Foreign citizens are not spared the brutality either. Large numbers of Kuwaiti citizens were murdered, tortured, and raped during the Gulf War. More than two dozen torture centers in Kuwait City have been discovered, and photographic evidence confirms reports of electric shocks, acid baths, summary execution, and the use of electric drills to penetrate a victim's body. Many innocent civilian citizens were also used as human shields.

Branding and amputations have been routine in Iraqi hospitals. In 1994, the Iraqi government issued at least nine decrees that established cruel penalties such as branding. Amputation has been used against citizens convicted of military desertion. One citizen whose hand was cut off was paraded on national television as a method of instilling fear in the people.

In 1994 and 1995 alone, large numbers of soldiers had portions of their ears cut off for deserting the army. The government branded an "X" on the foreheads of these soldiers so that Iraqi citizens did not think that these soldiers were wounded war heroes. Doctors who refused to perform the operations were threatened with reprisals, and many have been arrested and detained. The Iraqi authorities also issued a decree in 1994 making it illegal for doctors to perform plastic or corrective surgery for victims of branding and amputation. In 2000, a new Iraqi decree was issued authorizing the government to amputate the tongues of citizens who criticize Saddam Hussein or his government.

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