Red Cross saw ``widespread abuse'' in Iraq

GENEVA May 7 - Iraqi detainees were subjected to ``serious violations'', with abuse so widespread it may have been condoned by U.S.-led coalition forces, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday.

Breaking with its usual vow of silence, the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation said visits to coalition detention centres in Iraq, carried out between March and November 2003, had shown infringements of international treaties on the treatment of prisoners of war.

In some cases, the ill-treatment was ``tantamount to torture,'' particularly when interrogators were seeking information or confessions, the ICRC said in a report, parts of which were published in U.S. financial daily the Wall Street Journal.

Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of ICRC operations, confirmed the contents of the report at a news conference but said the Red Cross, whose reports are confidential, would not issue the rest of the document.

He said the report referred mainly to the actions of U.S. forces at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere, although the ICRC had also expressed concerns over the past year to British commanders. He gave no further details.

``Our findings do not allow us to conclude that what we were dealing with at Abu Ghraib were isolated acts of individual members of coalition forces. What we have described is a pattern and a broad system,'' he said.

Pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers abusing naked Iraqis at Abu Ghraib - the largest prison in the country and notorious for torture under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein - have sparked an international outcry.

The excerpts published by the Wall Street Journal spoke of the use of ill-treatment that ``went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered a practice tolerated'' by coalition forces.

That differs sharply from the view of senior officials in the Bush administration that military higher-ups had not condoned abuse, the newspaper said.

In the report, the ICRC said prisoners at Abu Ghraib were held naked in empty cells and beaten by soldiers. Three former military policemen at the prison told Reuters on Thursday that abuse was commonplace.

The humanitarian group also said coalition forces fired on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers and killed some of them, as well as committing ``serious violations'' of the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of war prisoners.

The Red Cross said on Thursday it had repeatedly urged the United States to take ``corrective action'' at the jail.

MEANWHILE, in LONDON, British soldiers punched and kicked Iraqi prisoners and one corporal poked a detainee's eyes until the man screamed, a tabloid newspaper reported Friday.

The Daily Mirror quoted an unidentified British soldier as saying he saw four brutal beatings of prisoners during his deployment in southern Iraq. The man reportedly said British troops regularly placed sandbags over captives' heads and hit their faces, and that officers sanctioned such actions.

``The main thing was holding prisoners' hands up and they'd whack them in the ribs,'' the newspaper quoted the man as saying. ``It would happen on every shift. Whenever guards changed over they'd all do the same. So these guys would just get a continual battering.''

The Ministry of Defense said Thursday that it was questioning the man, whom the Daily Mirror identified only as ``Soldier C.''

The ministry said the man had gone to the Royal Military Police with allegations of mistreatment of prisoners and was being questioned in London. No arrests have been made in connection with his accusations, the ministry said.

British authorities are investigating photos published in the Daily Mirror last week allegedly showing British soldiers threatening and urinating on prisoners in Iraq. The authenticity of those photographs has been questioned, but the newspaper insists they are genuine.

Photos of U.S. troops tormenting and humiliating prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad have caused worldwide revulsion.

Piers Morgan, editor of the Daily Mirror, told British Broadcasting Corp. television that Soldier C would give the military police ``potential evidence.''

``He will also be naming the names of the people responsible, including corporals and sergeants and some senior officers who he says were culpable in tacitly allowing this to happen,'' Morgan said.

The newspaper quoted the soldier as saying his colleagues would put sacks over newly arrived prisoners' heads and then beat them.

``They were so scared, they couldn't see where they were going,'' he said. ``They were trying to fight it as they were dragged around. One guy's trousers fell down to his ankles. Everything was in the open and everyone was laughing at him while he was running around.''

Prisoners were forced to remain in uncomfortable ``stress positions'' for hours on end and some were placed near hot air exhaust pipes during in sweltering weather, he said.

The Guardian newspaper, meanwhile, quoted a former contract employee at Abu Ghraib prison saying that abuses reflected organizational stresses as well as individual misbehavior.

Torin Nelson was quoted as saying that the style of U.S. operations contributed to abuses.

The Guardian newspaper, in a report from Washington, said Nelson formerly served as an interrogator attached to the Utah National Guard at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Nelson, who was employed by Titan Corp. and attached to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade at Abu Ghraib, was among the people interviewed by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba for an internal U.S. Army report about abuses at the prison.

``A unit goes out on a raid and they have a target and the target is not available; they just grab anybody because that was their job,'' Nelson said.

``I've read reports from capturing units where the capturing unit wrote, 'the target was not at home. The neighbour came out to see what was going on and we grabbed him,''' The Guardian quoted Nelson as saying.

Nelson said some of the interrogators used by private contractors weren't well trained.

``I'd say about of the contractors that it's kind of a hit or miss. They're under so much pressure to fill slots quickly ... They penalise contracting companies if they can't fill slots on time and it looks bad on companies' records. If you're in such a hurry to get bodies, you end up with cooks and truck drivers doing intelligence work.'' - AP, Reuters