Army Report Blames More Americans for Iraq Abuses

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military intelligence soldiers and civilian contractors working with them were directly involved in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail to a greater extent than previously acknowledged, an Army report released on Wednesday found.

The report, which focused on the role of military intelligence in the prisoner abuse, found that 23 U.S. military intelligence personnel and four contractors working with them committed acts in 44 instances of prisoner abuse that could prompt criminal charges.

These 27 either directly abused prisoners or "requested, encouraged, condoned or solicited military police personnel to abuse detainees," or violated rules on interrogations, according to a report by Army Maj. Gen. George Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones.

Col. Thomas Pappas, who was the commander of the 205th Intelligence Brigade, also could face criminal action, officials said.

Another eight — six soldiers and two contractors — were faulted for failing to report abuse.

The report also found U.S. forces improperly hid at least eight detainees from observers of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and criticized Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, for failing to address the problems at the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

The Fay-Jones report came a day after a high-level panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger found that top Pentagon civilian and military officials bore indirect responsibility for the abuse.

The Army report found "misconduct ranging from inhumane to sadistic by a small group of morally corrupt soldiers and civilians," a lack of discipline on the part of a military intelligence unit at Abu Ghraib and "a failure or lack of leadership" by the U.S. military leadership in Iraq, headed by Sanchez.

"Most, though not all, of the violent or sexual abuses occurred separately from scheduled interrogations and did not focus on persons held for intelligence purposes," the report stated.

LACK OF OVERSIGHT

"While senior level officers did not commit the abuse at Abu Ghraib, they did bear responsibility for lack of oversight of the facility, failing to respond in a timely manner to the reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross and for issuing policy memos that failed to provide clear, consistent guidance for execution at the tactical level," it said.

To date, seven U.S. soldiers, all military police in a reserve unit serving at Abu Ghraib, have been charged. Some have said they were acting at the behest of military intelligence officials. The report said another three military police soldiers committed abuse that could prompt criminal charges.

The Bush administration insisted that the prisoner abuses were the work of rogue soldiers, with President Bush in May blaming "the wrongdoing of a few."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, testified to Congress in May that while "a small number of the U.S. military" participated, the acts were brought to light by "honorable and responsible actions of other military personnel."

Previous investigations have found a deeply antagonistic relationship between the military police and military intelligence officials at Abu Ghraib, where numerous prisoners were subjected to physical abuse and sexual humiliation.

Photographs of American soldiers, some smiling and giving a thumbs-up gesture while abusing naked Iraqi prisoners, surfaced in April and triggered international condemnation.

The Fay-Jones report faulted military intelligence personnel for improperly keeping a number of prisoners off the books and hidden from the Red Cross.

International law gives prisoners held by an occupying power the right to meet with Red Cross representatives. (Additional reporting by Charles Aldinger)

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6069661