Iraq

Intelligence officials led abuse, reservist says

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - An Army reservist who saw naked detainees being humiliated at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq says military intelligence officials led and directed the abuse.

The account by Kenneth Davis, a former sergeant in the Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company, conflicts with testimony soldiers gave this week at the pretrial hearing of Pfc. Lynndie England, one of seven members of the 372nd charged with abusing detainees.

Davis' account - in a May statement to Army investigators and in interviews this week with the Associated Press - makes him the first member of the unit who is not facing charges to publicly describe one of the episodes that led to criminal charges against others. No military intelligence personnel have been charged in the abuse, and their testimony at England's hearing points to the military police as the perpetrators.

Davis, 33, of Hagerstown, Md., said Friday that testimony given Thursday by Spc. Israel Rivera, an analyst with the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion, was "inaccurate."

Rivera testified that he watched military police force detainees to crawl naked "low enough that their genitalia were rubbing on the floor, causing pain." Rivera testified that he was disgusted by the abuse.

Davis gave a different account of the episode, blaming military intelligence soldiers. Davis said he watched Spc. Armin Cruz and Spc. Roman Krol, also with the 325th Military Intelligence Battalion, handcuff two naked male detainees to the bars of two facing cells.

Davis said Cruz and Krol then handcuffed the naked men together face-to-face, forcing them to embrace while demanding that they confess to raping a boy in the prison. He said Cruz approached him and asked sarcastically, "Do you think we crossed the line?"

In Friday's testimony in the England case, the soldier who was the first to report his colleagues were abusing Iraqi inmates testified that he agonized for a month about disclosing what he had seen, but decided he could not let the abuse go on.

"It violated everything I personally believed in and all I'd been taught about the rules of war," Sgt. Joseph Darby testified. "It was more of a moral call."

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations is planning to re-establish a permanent presence in Iraq as early as Saturday, starting with a team of six political officers who will help prepare an upcoming national conference in Baghdad.

Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the new U.N. special envoy to Iraq, is due to arrive next week - almost a year after a suicide bomb attack on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last Aug. 19 killed his predecessor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others.

On Thursday, U.N. officials asked the United States for an aircraft to transport the political team to Baghdad as soon as possible to help with preparations for the conference, which is scheduled for Aug. 15.

KUWAIT CITY - Followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released a CD-ROM urging Muslim men to take up arms against the "crusaders" in Iraq and threatening to kill Iraq's interim prime minister.

The 45-minute CD-ROM appeared aimed at recruiting potential fighters and included claims of responsibility for attacks in Iraq and footage of bombings against U.S. forces and other targets in Iraq.

The release of the CD, the contents of which could not be independently authenticated, was reported Friday by Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyassah. It was not clear where the CD was produced.

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