Iraq prison abuse general suspended

The Army general who was in charge of the US prison guards accused of abusing Iraqis has been suspended from command of the 800th Military Police Brigade, officials said.

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and other officers in her brigade were blamed by Army investigators for paying too little attention to the prison’s day-to-day operations and not acting strongly enough to discipline soldiers under her command for violating standard procedures.

Karpinski’s suspension, which has not been announced by the Army, was the latest in a series of actions against officers and enlisted soldiers implicated in the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Last week, Specialist Jeremy Sivits received the maximum penalty of a year in prison and a bad-conduct discharge in the first court-martial stemming from the abuse of Iraqis at the prison. He was among seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company that have been charged.

Karpinski, who has returned to the United States, has not been charged with an offence.

Being suspended from her command does not mean she has been relieved of command, so technically she could be reinstated, although the intensity of the international furore over the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse makes that highly unlikely, said officials.

In an interview last night, Karpinski said she has been told of her suspension by “several sources, but I have nothing in writing.” The paperwork will give the reason for her suspension, she said.

Karpinski has said she was being treated unfairly for the acts of others over which she had no control. “And actions like this renew my thought process of being a scapegoat and using the 800th MP Brigade as the organisation responsible for this,” she said.

In his investigation report on the Abu Ghraib abuse allegations, Major General Antonio Taguba found heavy fault with Karpinski’s performance and recommended that she be relieved of command and given a formal reprimand.

Instead she was given a less-severe “memorandum of admonishment” by Lieut Genera' Ricardo Sanchez, the top US commander in Iraq.