The US Army today replaced Maj Gen George Fay with a more senior general as chief investigator of the role of military intelligence in the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

A private interrogator accused of abuses at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison has told investigators that he and military intelligence operatives directed prison guards to keep Iraqi prisoners awake for as much as 20 hours a day.

THE US Army general who first investigated prisoner abuse in an Iraqi prison told the US Congress yesterday, the mistreatment resulted from faulty leadership, a “lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision.”

The prisoner abuse scandal has so tarnished the US Army’s 800th Military Police Brigade that soldiers recommended for an Army Bronze Star medal have been dropped from the list, the brigade’s commander says.