U.S. General Suspended Over Iraqi Prisoner Abuse

Disgust over Iraq torture photos
Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram has said if pictures of British soldiers torturing an Iraqi prisoner are genuine then they are "appalling".
Military police had to be given time to investigate photos which appear to show a soldier using violence and urinating on a captive, he told the BBC.

"Such wrongdoing if proven besmirches the good name of the... armed forces. We will not tolerate that," he said.

The photographs in the Daily Mirror have also been condemned by Number 10.

Earlier pictures showing American troops humiliating Iraqi prisoners, with a hooded and naked prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his genitals, also generated outrage.

US President George W Bush vowed that those responsible would be "taken care of".


There is no place in our regiment for individuals capable of such appalling and sickening behaviour
Queen's Lancashire Regiment
Mr Ingram said there was no "culture of abuse" in the British Army despite the fact that five separate inquiries into maltreatment are under way.
He admitted: "If these allegations are true, they are appalling, they are despicable and there can be no justification for them at all."

And he said the Royal Military Police's "full intensity" inquiry would "not leave any stone unturned" in the investigation into the latest photos.

Those who are opposed to the coalition's occupation of Iraq would employ "full exploitation of these incidents", Mr Ingram said.

Unnamed captive

The Mirror says the pictures were handed over by British soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment who claimed a rogue element in the British army was responsible for abusing prisoners and civilians.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the soldiers told the paper no charges were brought against the unnamed captive.

They allege that during his eight-hour ordeal he was threatened with execution, his jaw broken and his teeth smashed.


In Iraq we're in a nosedive - things are happening which were entirely predictable and predicted
Lord Hurd
Former foreign secretary

After being beaten and urinated on, he was driven away and dumped from the back of a moving vehicle, the soldiers claimed, unaware if he was dead.
The reason for making the photos public was, they said, to show why the US-UK coalition was encountering such fierce resistance in Iraq.

One told the paper: "We are not helping ourselves out there. We are never going to get them on our side. We are fighting a losing war."

Army spokesman Roger Goodwin, on behalf of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, said there was "clearly some form of link to the regiment".

"But the precise form of that link, including whether the soldiers involved in the alleged atrocities were members of the QLR, needs to be established.

He added: "There is no place in our regiment for individuals capable of such appalling and sickening behaviour.

"The sooner they are exposed and ejected from the regiment, the better."


The regimental secretary, retired Lt Col John Downham, said: " We are furious that these people, whoever they turn out to be, have already besmirched our hard-earned good name and let down the many hundreds of QLR soldiers whose outstandingly successful tour in Basra was recognised by no fewer than 21 honours and awards."

Humiliating scenes

In a press conference, Sir Mike Jackson, Chief of General Staff, said: "If proven, the perpetrators are not fit to wear the Queen's uniform and they have besmirched the Army's good name and conduct."

Ahmed al-Sheik, editor-in-chief of Arab TV news channel, said the photographs would outrage Arabs around the world.

"These scenes are humiliating not only to the Iraqis, but to every Arab citizen around the world," he told BBC Two's Newsnight.

Meanwhile former foreign secretary Lord Hurd said the situation in Iraq was in danger of spiralling out of control.

"In Iraq we're in a nosedive. Things are happening which were entirely predictable and predicted.

"An army of liberation, particularly a British/American one, turns within hours into an army of occupation."

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A military report into the Abu Ghraib case - parts of which were made available to the Guardian - makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison, which was notorious for torture and executions under Saddam Hussein.

One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him.

Hired guns from a wide array of private security firms are playing a central role in the US-led occupation of Iraq.

The killing of four private contractors in Falluja on March 31 led to the current siege of the city.

But this is the first time the privatisation of interrogation and intelligence-gathering has come to light. The investigation names two US contractors, CACI International Inc and the Titan Corporation, for their involvement in the functioning of Abu Ghraib.

Titan, based in San Diego, describes itself as a "a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions and services for national security". It recently won a big contract for providing translation services to the US army, and its involvement in Abu Ghraib is believed to have been to provide translators.

The prison where the abuses are alleged to have taken place was a notorious torture centre during the Saddam Hussein era.