Iraq

Iraq prison scandal spreads to 7 soldiers

The Bush administration searches for a strong response to stem backlash over the abuse.

The Bush administration is struggling to develop a damage-control strategy to counter the mounting global backlash against the United States after revelations that U.S. military and intelligence personnel abused Iraqi prisoners, the Washington Post reports, quoting unnamed U.S. officials.

Meanwhile, the military has reprimanded seven soldiers in the abuse of inmates at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, the first known punishments in the case, an official said Monday. Two of the soldiers were relieved of their duties.

The American officer who oversaw the prison said many more troops might have been involved.

On Monday, President Bush called Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld before a campaign trip and urged him to make sure the U.S. soldiers are punished, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

"The president wanted to make sure appropriate action is being taken against those responsible for these shameful and appalling acts," he said.

Members of Congress also pushed for swift action. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., 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.

The administration's search for a strong response follows a review of international reaction by the State Department's Intelligence and Research Department that revealed devastating fallout and criticism well beyond the Islamic world, from Brazil and Britain to Hong Kong, U.S. officials said.

The administration has rushed to get top foreign policy officials to condemn the abuses. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, was hastily added to the Sunday talk show lineup, while Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military spokesman in Baghdad, appeared on Monday morning programs. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who will assume responsibility for Iraq after the handover of power on June 30, will appear on CNN's Larry King Live tonight.

The administration's position is that the acts were by a handful of offenders acting in defiance of U.S. policy and that they will be dealt with harshly.

But U.S. officials are concerned because the fallout extends well beyond the Middle East and includes public opinion among European allies, including countries in the U.S.-led coalition.

The State Department survey cited a British commentary calling the treatment at Abu Ghraib prison "barbaric idiocy" and an Italian commentator warning that the abuse reflected a failure of leadership that will produce hundreds of new recruits for al-Qaida, the Washington Post reported, quoting an unnamed State Department official familiar with the review. Britain and Italy are two of the key European contributors to the U.S.-led coalition.

In Brazil, the INR survey noted, a commentary called for global condemnation of the U.S. abuses and describing treatment at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison as "the bastard daughter" of the open-ended detention of Afghan prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council joined the chorus of international criticism of the alleged abuse, terming it a violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. The council demanded that U.S. authorities allow Iraqi judges to take part in the interrogation of prisoners and open the detention centers to inspection by Iraqi officials.

The soldiers' reprimands came on the orders of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Six of them - officers and noncommissioned officers - received the most severe administrative reprimand in the U.S. military, the Associated Press reported, quoting a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A seventh soldier received a more lenient admonishment.

Two of the six were "released for cause," meaning they were relieved of their duties and reassigned "with prejudice," said Larry Di Rita, spokesman for Rumsfeld. He also said that the six who received letters of reprimand were from a military police unit.

"There may well be additional decisions" about disciplinary action against others as a result of the investigation, Di Rita added.

Six more U.S. servicemembers - all military police - also may face criminal charges.

Di Rita said the abuse, alleged to have happened last fall, was reported to U.S. military commanders on Jan. 13 by a soldier in the 800th Military Police Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski of the Army Reserve.

A criminal investigation was launched the next day by the U.S. military command in Baghdad, headed by Sanchez. On Jan. 19 Sanchez requested a high-level review of practices and procedures at detention and interrogation centers; on Jan. 31 the review was begun, under direction of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. He finished it March 3.

Karpinski said she did not know about the prisoner abuse while it was happening.

"They were despicable acts," Karpinski said Monday on ABC's Good Morning America. "Had I known anything about it, I certainly would have reacted very quickly."

Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade, said one photograph from the prison appeared to show more Americans involved in the alleged abuse than the six MPs who have been charged.

"One photograph showed - it didn't show faces completely, but the photograph showed 32 boots," Karpinski told ABC. "I'm saying other people than the military police."

It wasn't clear if that would include the seven soldiers reprimanded.

Kimmitt said on ABC that he isn't sure Army military intelligence "had anything to do with the individual acts of criminal behavior" as Karpinski and others have alleged. Kimmitt said, however, that the investigation is reviewing "concerns expressed about the military intelligence."

Last week, CBS's 60 Minutes II broadcast images allegedly showing Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by their U.S. captors.

A British newspaper also published photos purporting to show members of a British Army regiment abusing prisoners, but a former commander of the unit said Monday that the photos had "too many inconsistencies" to be genuine.

The Daily Mirror newspaper stood by the photos, which allegedly show a hooded Iraqi being pushed, threatened and urinated on by a soldier from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment.

Col. David Black, who led the regiment in the 1980s, told British Broadcasting Corp. television that equipment and a truck pictured in the photos had not been used by the regiment in Iraq.

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