Iraqi Prisoner Abuse
US General to face disciplinary action
Reuters, Washington
The US military is weighing disciplinary action against the Army general who was in charge of a prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad where American troops were accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners, officials said on Thursday. The CBS News program "60 Minutes II" on Wednesday aired photographs taken at the prison late last year showing American troops abusing some of the Iraqis held at the Abu Ghraib prison, a notorious center of torture and executions under toppled President Saddam Hussein's government. The pictures showed US troops smiling, posing, laughing or giving the thumbs-up sign as naked, male Iraqi prisoners were stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts with one another. One Iraqi man had a slur written on his skin in English. Another was directed by Americans to stand on a box with his head covered, and wires attached to his hands, and was informed that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski, in charge of the prison, could be relieved of her command, blocked from promotion or receive a letter of reprimand after a noncriminal administrative investigation relating to events at Abu Ghraib prison, said Col. Jill Morgenthaler, a military spokeswoman in Baghdad. "We found it very abhorrent that American soldiers indulged in those acts of humiliation. And second of all, they photographed these acts. It's very shameful," Morgenthaler said. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top US officer in Iraq, "responded swiftly" upon learning of the conduct with criminal and administrative investigations, Morgenthaler said. The US military now holds several thousand prisoners at Abu Ghraib, most of them rounded up on suspicion of carrying out attacks against US-led forces.
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