Hell, in Iraq, erupts at night.

First, they break down your door and clamber inside - large, Yankee soldiers in combat gear with automatic rifles.

They bark orders, wrest men, women and children from their beds, assemble everyone in a single room. They start smashing your possessions in front of you - cabinets, chairs, tables, anything.

They shout insults, brandish their weapons, kick and punch their captives, striking out with their rifle barrels at anyone who resists.

They handcuff those they want - typically, anyone who happens to be male, no matter how old or infirm.

They hustle their prisoners, generally clad only in pyjamas or underwear, out into the dark Iraqi night. Essential items, such as eyeglasses or medicine, are invariably left behind.

They don't say where they are taking you, they don't say why, and they probably never will.

You are terrified, practically naked, already in acute physical distress, and almost certainly innocent of wrongdoing, but that doesn't seem to matter a whit.

This - as depicted in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross - is merely the first circle of hell in an Iraq under occupation by U.S.-led military forces, and your torment has barely begun.

It gets far, far worse.

...hell in Iraq.

One naked detainee is forced to stand on a box with a sandbag on his head and with wires attached to his fingers, toes and penis to simulate electrical-shock torture.

A male military guard rapes a female detainee.

A guard smashes a chemical light and pours the phosphoric liquid on several detainees.

A detainee is beaten with a broom handle and a chair.

A detainee has his head slammed against a wall and his guard promptly stitches up the wound himself.

A hooded detainee is made to lie down on what is likely a running truck engine, burning him so badly he requires three months in hospital, extensive skin grafts over much of his body and the amputation of a finger.

A detainee is force-fed a baseball bat, which is then secured in place with a scarf.

Male detainees are forced to parade naked in public, with women's underwear wrapped over their heads.

Detainees are made to sit for hours in direct sunlight in 50-degree temperatures or forced to remain in awkward positions for hours at a time.

Detainees are kept naked in solitary confinement without light for days at a time.

A 28-year-old detainee, married with two children, is beaten to death by his captors, and his death is officially attributed to cardio-respiratory arrest-asphyxia, cause unknown.

The litany of horrors goes on and on, and the abuses continued unabated last year even though the Red Cross regularly expressed its concerns to coalition forces, making it difficult to reach any conclusion except the Red Cross' own ? that this harsh and inhuman treatment has been encouraged or at least tolerated at senior levels of the occupying armies.