THE blatant anti-Americanism in some of the letters you’ve published in recent week is simply ridiculous.

I TAKE exception to the letter from Lt Col Bill Hurley, formerly of the US Marines (Irish Examiner, June 13).

The United Nations has told the US that it must set a better example in combating torture and cannot hide behind intelligence activities in refusing to discuss violations of the global ban on prisoner abuse in the war on terror.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions today called on the United States-led coalition in Iraq to commit to withdrawing troops from the war torn country.

A suicide truck bomb today ripped through a line of vehicles waiting at a checkpoint in Fallujah and killed at least seven Iraqi civilians.

The Republican-controlled Senate has voted to impose restrictions on how terrorism suspects can be treated, in a rare wartime rebuke to President George Bush.

Two former guards convicted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal testified at US Army Pfc. Lynndie England’s military trial that she was impressionable and under the sway of her soldier boyfriend, Private Charles Graner, labelled the ringleader of detainee abuse by the prosecution.

THE United States must close Guantanamo prison, where its treatment of some 500 terrorism suspects encourages hatred toward the West and bolsters Muslim membership of the al Qaida network, a new report concludes.

TWO armed gardaí, one of whom was drinking on the job, have been suspended from the force after becoming involved in a fracas outside the US embassy in Dublin.

A military jury convicted US army reservist Sabrina Harman early today on all but one of the seven charges she faced for her role in abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

President George Bush has rubber-stamped the demotion of Army Reserve Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, whose unit was in charge during the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuses in 2003.

Attacks against Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison may force the US military to return the facility to Iraq’s government and take their own high-security prisoners to a safer place, a US military official said.

The soldier labelled the ringleader in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal started a 10-year prison sentence today, following his conviction by a military jury.

A US ARMY investigator yesterday told a hearing for Private Lynndie England, accused of abusing Iraqi inmates, that her boyfriend was a “ringleader” at Abu Ghraib prison.

LISTENING to Carol Coleman’s interview with George Bush on Air America (accessible to Irish citizens via the internet) sharply defined the difference between his treatment by real journalists, such as Ms Coleman, and the network hacks we are saddled with here who have spent the last three years asking ‘how high?’ every time Bush commands: ‘jump!’

Political Editor Harry McGee says after our successful presidency, thoughts now turn to domestic affairs.

THE American general who was in charge of Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib was yesterday involved in an astonishing war of words with her superiors after she said the commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre told her to treat the prisoners “like dogs”.

The American general who was in charge of Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib was today involved in an astonishing war of words with her superiors, who accused her of lying.

GEORGE BUSH has said that the notorious Abu Ghraib prison where non-convicted — ie, innocent — prisoners were tortured by both Saddam’s and Bush’s henchmen is soon to be demolished.

Videos capturing the actions of a US military squad assigned to subdue disobedient prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have emerged as key pieces of evidence as American politicians look into complaints of abuse.

Interrogators at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison viewed sleep deprivation, stripping inmates naked and threatening them with dogs as normal ways of dealing with ”the enemy”, a soldier attached to military intelligence there said.

AS US President George W Bush’s job-approval numbers hit a new low, he’s turning to his wife to help him make the case for his re-election.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised the expansion of a secret programme that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, a US magazine claims.

What does a US politician under severe pressure do to counter the welter of negative publicity and resignation demands?

THIRTY-THREE years ago, Donald Rumsfeld, then a domestic policy official in the Nixon administration, became involved in foreign policy by volunteering to run the post Vietnam War reconstruction effort.

The US military will next week begin the first in a series of courts-martial in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse allegations, trials that could bring new revelations on whether the mistreatment of Iraqis was an aberration or stemmed from pressure from commanders.

Military chiefs responsible for running the Guantanamo Bay prison housing Taliban and al-Qaida suspects said cases of prisoner abuse were dealt with quickly to prevent the type of scandal plaguing US officials in Iraq.

PHOTOGRAPHS of Iraqi prisoners, naked except for hoods covering their heads, stacked in a human pyramid, have been shown on prime time US TV.