Pentagon probing five Iraq 'abuse' cases

The Pentagon is pursuing five separate investigations into claims that Iraqi prisoners were abused.

One, launched in mid-April, delves into interrogation methods of US military intelligence officers in Iraq.

President George Bush has urged defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to ensure that American soldiers found guilty of “shameful and appalling acts” are punished.

A Pentagon spokesman said “it’s going to take some time to sort through exactly what the facts were”.

A top aide to Bush said the president wanted a report on his desk quickly about the extent of prisoner abuse found by the Pentagon.

Members of Congress also pushed for swift action. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Virginia Senator John Warner, has summoned Pentagon officials to face his panel today.

“These allegations of mistreatment, if proven, represent an appalling and totally unacceptable breach of military conduct that could undermine much of the courageous work and sacrifice by our forces in the war on terror,” Warner said.

Another Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, feared that photos depicting Iraqi prisoners in US custody apparently being sexually humiliated and physically abused, which have been widely broadcast on TV in recent days, could incite more violence against American troops in Iraq.

Faced with a growing public-relations headache, Bush aides were trying to convince their Arab counterparts that the abuses were the exception, not the rule.

In an effort to contain the mounting controversy, Larry Di Rita, Rumsfeld’s chief spokesman, provided a timeline of US military responses to the reported instances of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.

He said the abuse, said to have happened last autumn, was reported to US military commanders on January 13 by a soldier in the 800th Military Police Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski of the Army Reserve.

A criminal investigation was launched the next day by the US military command in Baghdad, headed by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez.

On January 19 Sanchez requested a high-level review of practices and procedures at detention and interrogation centres and on January 31 the review began, under Major General Antonio Taguba. He finished it on March 3.

In early February the Army inspector general began a review of US detention centres throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, at about the time the chief of the Army Reserve, Lieutenant General James Helmly, began an assessment of training for his MPs and military intelligence personnel.

A fifth line of inquiry was started April 23. It is headed by Major General George Fay, an assistant to the Army’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence in the Pentagon, and it is focusing on military intelligence practices and procedures in Iraq, Di Rita said.

Di Rita said repeatedly that he could provide no information about the role of private contractors, who are alleged to have played a role in the abusive situation at the Abu Ghraib prison.

“I’ll tell you right now, I have nothing to say about that. I just don’t know anything about it,” he said.

Defence contractor CACI International plans to investigate reports of misconduct by its employees at the Iraqi prison where inmates were allegedly abused.

The company said it had no information its employees acted improperly.

The criminal investigation was completed on March 15, Di Rita said, and on March 20 criminal charges were made against six military police. At least one of the six cases has been referred to military trial, and the others are in various stages of preliminary hearings, officials said.

Yesterday officials said seven officers, all military police, had been reprimanded in a form of non-criminal punishment.

Di Rita said the findings of Taguba’s report were classified and could not be publicly released, although they have been reported in detail in the media, initially by The New Yorker magazine.

Rumsfeld has not read or been briefed on the central findings of the Taguba investigation although he has kept abreast of the allegations that Iraqi prisoners have been mistreated.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Sunday that he too had not read the Taguba report.

Rumsfeld has had no public comment on the controversy since it began with the broadcast over the CBS News program 60 Minutes II of photographs taken by US military guards inside the Abu Ghraib prison last year. Di Rita said Rumsfeld had not seen the photos before they were broadcast.

The CIA, which is involved in some aspects of Iraqi prisoner interrogations, was also investigating, agency officials said.