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US sees tough job to improve Iraq ties A senior U.S. military officer acknowledged that mending ties with Iraqis outraged by a growing prisoner abuse scandal would be difficult but said the damage was "not irreparable."
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's remarks Friday came as the United States faced new claims it ignored the abuse after the Red Cross said it had warned of prisoner mistreatment since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion.
Kimmitt was echoed by U.S. President Bush, who told an Egyptian newspaper that "times are tough for the United States and the Middle East" and again apologized for the conduct of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, using the word "sorry" six times.
Both Kimmitt and Bush, as well as several other U.S. officials, insist the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison — publicly exposed in a series of graphic and humiliating photographs — was limited and did not reflect policy.
Still, they were confronted with claims by the Red Cross that it had been warning of prisoner abuse in Iraq since around the time of the U.S.-led invasion. The lead U.S. administrator in Iraqi, L. Paul Bremer, first became aware of the allegations in January, according to a spokesman.
Kimmitt admitted that improving relations with Iraqis is "going to take some effort on behalf of the Americans."
The United States has "to show to Iraqis that U.S. justice works," Kimmitt said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it warned American officials of prisoner abuse in Iraq more than a year ago and that the mistreatment was "not individual acts."
"There was a pattern and a system," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the ICRC's director of operations, said in Geneva. Some of the actions were "tantamount to torture," he said.
Some of the earlier discussions were with Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade overseeing the prison.
Karpinski has been suspended by the military as part of its probe into the abuses.
Kraehenbuehl refused to give details of the report, but confirmed that a leaked ICRC report published Friday by The Wall Street Journal was genuine.
The report summarized information given to U.S. officials since shortly after Iraq was invaded in March 2003, Kraehenbuehl said.
It described prisoners kept naked in total darkness and male prisoners forced to wear women's underwear, the Journal said.
In another episode, nine men were arrested and beaten severely, and one of them died, the newspaper said.
Kraehenbuehl said American authorities took action on some issues but "there were situations that remained unacceptable and difficult."
There also were problems with prisoners held by the British, Kraehenbuehl said, but he refused to elaborate.
On Friday, one former prisoner, Fawzi Faisal, told The Associated Press in Mosul he was arrested in December and brought to a lockup in northern Iraq, where "the Americans started to beat me severely and they put a sack on my head for seven days." Faisal, who said he was arrested on suspicion of attacking Americans, was later brought to Abu Ghraib, where he said soldiers entered his room "with dogs in order to frighten us." A British television station reported Friday that a young Iraqi girl held at Abu Ghraib was stripped naked and beaten while her brother heard her scream from another cell. The Swiss-based ICRC is designated by the Geneva Conventions on warfare to visit prisoners of war and other people detained by an occupying power to ensure that countries respect obligations under the 1949 accords. Dan Senor, spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said Bremer was made aware of the accusation concerning prisoner abuse in January. That month, the U.S. command said it began investigating allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at a coalition detention center, later identified as Abu Ghraib. The probe started after a soldier at the lockup said he could not tolerate abuses he witnessed and presented pictures to his superiors. Senor said he was not sure when Bremer first saw photographs of the abuse. Those photographs — first shown last week on CBS — unleashed worldwide condemnation of the way America was treating prisoners in a country the United States says it invaded to liberate from Saddam Hussein's tyranny. Senor said the six soldiers who face criminal charges in the abuse scandal will be brought to trial and their hearings will be a "a fair and transparent process." Army Pfc. Lynndie England, shown in photographs smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, became the seventh soldier charged Friday by the military. In Kufa, a radical Shiite Muslim cleric whose militia has fought U.S. troops rejected Bush's apology and demanded that the accused soldiers be tried in Iraq. "What sort of freedom and democracy can we expect from you (Americans) when you take such joy in torturing Iraqi prisoners?" Muqtada al-Sadr said to worshippers at a mosque. U.S. forces clashed with militiamen loyal to al-Sadr Friday, killing 23 Iraqis. |
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