Australian elite troops are undergoing training that includes being stripped naked and threatened with dogs to prepare them to withstand torture if they are captured by enemy forces, the government said.
Explaining the so-called resistance to interrogation, or RTI, training sessions in a written answer to a lawmaker's question, Defense Minister Robert Hill said dogs are used to simulate torture conditions troops could face.
"When approved by the Exercise Director, working military dogs that are muzzled and short-leashed may be used during advanced RTI training, in the presence of RTI trainees (including naked trainees), in order to create realism," Hill said in a written response to a parliamentary question, seen Saturday by The Associated Press.
Australia has hundreds of troops serving in Iraq. Canberra also is preparing to send 190 special forces to Afghanistan to quell an insurgency by forces loyal to the former Taliban regime in the countdown to Sept. 18 parliamentary and provincial assembly elections that are seen as the next step in building Afghanistan's democracy after a quarter-century of civil strife and war.
Defense Department spokesman Michael Weaver said the training is a standard part of preparations for Australian Defense Force troops deemed at higher risk of capture while serving overseas.
"It teaches ADF personnel coping strategies should they be subjected to various forms of handling and questioning," he said Saturday. "Not all combatants faced by the ADF abide by the Geneva Convention and the laws of armed conflict."
Weaver declined to give details of how many troops underwent the training.
Cameron Murphy, president of New South Wales state Council for Civil Liberties told The Weekend Australian the training should be stopped.
"The government needs to stamp out any training techniques that treat our soldiers in a degrading and humiliating fashion," he said. "We've learned nothing from the problems in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and there's no excuse for treating our soldiers in this way."
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