- The new US Army report on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse
scandal will implicate at least two dozen more personnel, say US defence
officials.
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- It will also criticise senior officers in Iraq for failures
of leadership, but clear them and the Pentagon of ordering any abuse, the
unnamed officials said.
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- The report is still under internal review, but is expected
to be released to Congress next week.
-
- So far, seven military police soldiers have been charged
over the affair.
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- The scandal erupted earlier this year after images emerged
of prison guards abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi detainees at the
jail.
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- Net of blame
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- The BBC's Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says it
is believed that the most senior officer to be accused directly will be
a colonel in charge of the military intelligence unit at the prison.
-
- In addition, he says, it is thought the report will say
senior commanders in Iraq failed to provide enough leadership or resources
to run the detention facilities, and therefore may have helped create the
conditions for the abuse.
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- However, he says the report will clear them and the Pentagon
of ordering or directing it.
-
- There may also be some criticism of US medical personnel,
for failing to report their concerns.
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- Our correspondent says this may spread the net of blame
a bit wider than the Pentagon has previously acknowledged.
-
- But he says it is unlikely to satisfy critics or opponents
of the administration who say responsibility goes right to the top, including
President George W Bush and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
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- © BBC MMIV http://news.bbc.co.uk/
- 2/hi/middle_east/3581124.stm
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