Iraq

Fighting kills 2 west of Baghdad

BAGHDAD - Two American service members were killed in action Monday in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the military said. The troops were assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, but the military declined to elaborate.

Polish forces estimated 30 militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were killed in overnight fighting in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, including 17 near the Imam Hussein Shrine, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, chief spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. officer who was in charge of interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison has told a senior Army investigator that intelligence officers sometimes instructed the military police to force Iraqi detainees to strip naked, and to shackle them before they were questioned, the New York Times reports, quoting an unnamed government official who had read the transcript.

The officer, Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, also told the investigator, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, that his unit had "no formal system in place" to monitor instructions they had given to military guards. Pappas said he should have asked more questions about abuses committed or encouraged by his subordinates.

HEARINGS CHANGED: The arraignments of three soldiers - Sgt. Javal Davis, Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick II and Spc. Charles Graner Jr. - charged with abusing Iraqi prisoners have been moved up a day to Wednesday, an Army spokesman in Baghdad said Monday. The spokesman, Spc. Justin McCue, did not give a reason for the change.

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