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Britain, US face outrage at Iraqi prisoner abuse

* Reports blame military intelligence for soldiers’ misconduct
* Ministry of Defence ordered an investigation into the allegations
* Former foreign secretary criticises British policy on Iraq

BAGHDAD: US and British leaders sought on Saturday to control the damage over the apparent mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by their troops with reports saying US soldiers implicated in the scandal had acted on the orders of military intelligence.

The global furor over the abuse overshadowed a handover of military control in the flashpoint city of Fallujah to a newly formed Iraqi brigade, following a bloody month-long siege in which dozens of US soldiers were killed.

In two news reports released on Saturday, one of the six US military policemen accused of humiliating Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Gharib prison outside Baghdad was quoted in his personal letters and private journal as detailing the abuse and saying military intelligence had ordered it.

Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick wrote home in January that he had “questioned some of the things” he saw inside the prison, but that “the answer I got was, ‘This is how military intelligence wants it done’“, according to Seymour Hersh, investigative reporter for The New Yorker.

According to his letter quoted by Hersh, military intelligence officers had congratulated Frederick and other soldiers on the “great job” done with prisoners because “they were now getting positive results and information”.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain also reported on Saturday it had reviewed a journal Frederick began keeping in January after an investigation was launched into the alleged abuse of prisoners.

“The journals detail the conditions of the prisoners, apparent torture and the death of one inmate after interrogation,” the newspaper said.

According to Frederick’s journal quoted in the Guardian, “prisoners were forced to live in damp cool cells” and those placed in isolation cells were left there with “little or no clothes, no toilet or running water, no ventilation or window for as much as three days.”

Frederick writes in his journal that he tried to raise the issue with his superior who told him: “Don’t worry about it”.

According to the Saturday edition of the Daily Mirror which ran the images, the prisoner was allegedly threatened with execution during an eight-hour ordeal which left him bleeding and vomiting, with a broken jaw and smashed teeth.

The newspaper, the strongest voice of opposition to the US-led Iraq war, said it was given the pictures by serving soldiers from the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, who were horrified by the acts depicted. “I am aware of the allegations which have been made today of the abuse of prisoners by British soldiers in Iraq,” said Britain’s most senior army officer, General Sir Michael Jackson.

“All allegations are already under investigation,” he said Friday at a press conference organised after the release of the Daily Mirror.

He said that, if proven, the perpetrators were “not fit to wear the Queen’s uniform”.

Blair’s spokesman said the prime minister fully endorsed the words of his army chief and backed him to conduct a speedy and thorough inquiry.

“The prime minister agreed that allegations of this nature are treated most seriously, but they should not be taken as a reflection of the general behaviour of coalition forces and the work they are doing with the Iraqi people,” the Downing Street spokesman said.

World leaders reacted with horror and deep offence to the US photos, broadcast throughout the Arab world and reprinted in newspapers on Friday.

The UN special envoy to Iraq, Lahkdar Brahimi, called the apparent abuse “very worrisome”.

“This matter is totally unacceptable. The international community has a right to demand of the United States that such acts are not repeated and that their authors are punished,” Brahimi told Al-Arabiya television in remarks broadcast on Saturday.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan “is strongly opposed to the mistreatment of detainees,” his spokesman said in a statement on Friday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors compliance with the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners of war, said the images were “troubling and disturbing”.

The Arab League called on the US-led coalition to punish those responsible for the “savage acts”, while Arab-language television networks Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera argued the acts showed the savagery and unethical conduct of US soldiers in Iraq.

Meanwhile, Britain’s junior defence minister Adam Ingram said on Saturday the deployment of extra British troops to Iraq is “something which clearly has to be considered”.

“That is something which clearly has to be considered given the fact that there is now a changed situation on the ground because of the withdrawal of Spanish forces,” Ingram told BBC radio.

He added, “We are in discussion with our coalition partners in all this. No decision has been taken. No formal request (for more troops) has yet been made.”

Furthermore, former British foreign secretary on Saturday criticised Prime Minister Tony Blair’s policy on Iraq and said the US-led coalition was losing control of the situation there.

Lord Hurd, who served as foreign secretary under Conservative Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1989-1995, said the decision to invade Iraq was a “basic mistake.”

“In Iraq, we are in a nose-dive. Things are happening which were entirely predictable and predicted,” he told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. “An army of liberation, particularly a British-American one, turns, within hours almost, into an army of occupation.” —Agencies

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