- An official US army overview of the deaths and alleged
abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan has revealed a wider scale of
mistreatment than has so far come to light, it was reported today.
-
- The New York Times said it had obtained a recent army
synopsis of the status of investigations into 36 cases of alleged abuse
relating to US units.
-
- The paper reported that the document had been compiled
by the US army's criminal investigation command at the request of military
officials.
-
- It covers cases at Abu Ghraib prison, near the Iraqi
capital, Baghdad, which is at the centre of a scandal over the abuse of
detainees by US troops.
-
- However, the synopsis, dated May 5, also details previously
unpublicised cases of alleged prisoner mistreatment.
-
- One case cited detailed a prisoner who was in the custody
of US navy commandos in Iraq last month, and whose death the document attributed
"blunt force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia". It
described the death as a suspected "homicide", or murder.
-
- The document also reportedly details investigations into
allegations of prisoner abuse in Samarra, north of Baghdad, last spring,
saying that unidentified enlisted personnel "forced into asphyxiations
numerous detainees in an attempt to obtain information" over a 10-week
period.
-
- Most of the allegations of abuse that have already been
reported were claimed to have occurred either as part of interrogations
or before them.
-
- The new evidence of prisoner mistreatment is likely to
be interpreted by some as adding weight to claims that there has been a
pattern to abuse rather than it being, as the White House has insisted,
the actions of "a few".
-
- Reports have claimed that torture had been sanctioned
by high-ranking army and White House officials, who had taken a harder
line on interrogation in the context of the "war on terror".
-
- The New York Times said the army synopsis suggested that
the cases of abuse under greatest scrutiny may have taken place in Afghanistan,
where two prisoners died during one week in December 2002.
-
- The prisoners died in an area near a US base at Bagram
airport, which was being used for interrogations overseen by a platoon
from the US army's North Carolina-based 519th Military Intelligence Battalion.
-
- Military intelligence personnel, and an army reserve
military police unit from Ohio, were thought to have been "involved
at various times in assaulting and mistreating the detainees", according
to the document.
-
- US army officials had originally said that at least one
of the deaths had been due to natural causes, the Times says.
-
- It adds that the document was apparently put together
during the week after reports of abuse at Abu Ghraib first emerged, and
may have been a response to the intense scrutiny facing the US military.
-
- The White House is under growing pressure over its handling
of the situation in Iraq, partially due to the Abu Ghraib revelations.
Seven US soldiers have so far been charged with abusing Iraqi detainees
at the jail.
-
- In a speech yesterday, the US president, George Bush,
said Abu Ghraib had been a scene of "disgraceful conduct by a few
American troops who dishonoured our country and disregarded our values",
adding that the building would be demolished.
-
- However, opinion polls following the speech suggested
it had not boosted Mr Bush's standing in the polls in the way in which
the White House had hoped.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1225108,00.html
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