Iraqi prisoner abuse brings call for investigation

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council demanded Saturday that Iraqi authorities investigate reports that American guards abused inmates in the prison where Saddam Hussein’s regime tortured opponents.

Also Saturday, The New Yorker magazine said it obtained a U.S. Army report that Iraqi detainees were subjected to “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses” at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Those abuses included threats of rape and the pouring of cold water and liquid from chemical lights on detainees, said the internal report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. Detainees were beaten with a broom handle, and one was sodomized with “a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick,” the magazine reported in its May 10 issue.

Col. Jill Morgenthaler, spokeswoman for the U.S. command here, said Taguba had prepared an internal report, but she could not comment on its findings because they were classified.

Many Arabs in neighboring countries accuse the United States of having double standards on human rights, and say the issue will rally support for Islamic fundamentalists.

The new allegations are expected to inflame the growing sense of outrage that swelled in Iraq after the release of pictures showing prisoners being humiliated by their U.S. captors, who invaded Iraq last year to liberate the country from Hussein’s tyranny.

Although the pictures have not been widely published in Iraqi newspapers, many Iraqis have seen them on Arabic-language satellite television stations such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.

“After what we saw, all Iraqis will attack them now,” Abdulilah Mohammed, a 55-year-old Baghdad street vendor, said of the Americans.

Some photos, first aired on CBS’ “60 Minutes II,” showed two U.S. soldiers standing near the prisoners, smiling and clowning for the camera.

Another showed a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands. CBS said the prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted, although the wires were not connected to a power supply.

“The Governing Council should investigate this, because it is the legitimate authority responsible for protecting the Iraqis,” council member Sondul Chapouk said. “During Saddam’s time, we rejected such acts, and after the liberation we still reject them.”

Another council member, Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, said the perpetrators must be punished “as war criminals” because “the dignity of an Iraqi citizen is no less than the dignity of an American.”

U.S. officials here and in Washington have expressed outrage over the alleged abuse at Abu Ghraib, which was notorious during Hussein’s era as a center of torture, rape and murder.

“Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people,” President Bush said Friday. “That’s not the way we do things in America. I didn’t like it one bit.”

Copyright ©2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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