US soldiers 'told to abuse Iraq prisoners'

ABUSE of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers may be widespread and orchestrated by US intelligence agencies including the CIA, it was claimed yesterday.

A secret investigation by a US general into abuse allegations uncovered "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" of prisoners to soften them up for interrogation.

Meanwhile, lawyers for some of the soldiers shown humiliating Iraqi detainees in photographs claimed that the service men and women were following orders.

And US Senator Edward Kennedy, said after a crisis meeting in Washington: "This does not appear to be an isolated incident."

He suggested that similar abuses may be occurring in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where Taliban and al-Qaida suspects are held.

A damning report into US Army detention of prisoners was published by Major General Antonio Taguba in February, but never released publicly.

According to his report, obtained first by the New Yorker magazine, and then by other US media including CNN, soldiers were ordered to break the will of detainees before interrogation sessions.

The methods included threatening men with rape, assaulting prisoners with broom handles and fluorescent lights, allowing a guard to stitch the wound of a prisoner and using military dogs to terrify detainees.

Maj Gen Taguba wrote that there was "detailed witness statements" and "extremely graphic photographic evidence".

His report stated that army intelligence officers, CIA agents and private contractors "actively requested that military police guards set physical and mental conditions for favourable interrogation of witnesses".

At the weekend, photographs were shown on the CBS 60 Minutes programme depicting the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

One detainee was made to stand on a box, attached to wires and told he would be electrocuted if he fell.

In another picture, naked prisoners are stacked in a human pyramid while American guards stand by smiling.

One of several US soldiers under investigation for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick, will claim he was following orders in particular from military intelligence his lawyer said.

In an email which will be presented in his defence, Frederick wrote to a family member: "I questioned some of the things that I saw ... such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no clothes, or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their cell.

"And the answer I got was 'this is how military intelligence wants it done'."

In another email he told how one prisoner died during interrogation. He was given a fake identification and taken away by medics."

Sgt Frederick's wife, Martha, told US television channel NBC: "Those who are responsible are standing behind the curtain and watching him take the fall for it. It's almost like being a pawn in a chess game.

"He was told to do these things and when he did them he thought that he was doing them in the sense of national security."

Another lawyer, Guy Womack, who represents Army corrections officer Charles Graner, also implicated in the abuse scandal, made similar claims.

"It was being controlled and devised by the military intelligence community and other governmental agencies, including the CIA," he said.

The soldiers, he said, were simply "following orders".

The scandal has sent the White House and Pentagon into feverish damage-limitation mode.

President George W Bush has urged his Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to quickly get to the bottom of the Abu Ghraib scandal and to ensure that American soldiers found guilty of abuses are punished.

A spokesman said Mr Bush was "shaken" by the reports of the prisoner abuse.

Meanwhile, a military spokesman said US officials had ordered a halt to using hoods to blindfold Iraqi prisoners.