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Bush urges `strong actions' to combat prisoner abuse

A pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners is seen at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in this undated photo. The US military has reprimanded six senior officers in connection with the abuse of prisoners, a senior US military official said on Monday. PHOTO: REUTERS/COURTESY OF ``THE NEW YORKER'

US President George W. Bush told his defense secretary on Monday to take "strong actions" against those responsible for abusing Iraqi prisoners and quickly assess whether the problem is more widespread, as finger-pointing broke out over who is to blame in the scandal.

Bush wants to accelerate the investigations, and is "determined to know whether there's a wider problem and what needs to be done to address it," a senior administration official said.

The military has reprimanded six senior officers in connection with abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad after photographs were published and broadcast around the world showing naked Iraqi prisoners stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts with one another.

But Army Reserve Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, who oversaw the prison, said responsibility for abuses should be shared by Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq.

And while the Pentagon said the military has opened five investigations on the abuse, it acknowledged that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld still has not read a general's detailed report on the matter.

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also came under fire from Democratic lawmakers for saying he had not yet read the Army report said to document "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" of Iraqi prisoners, including beatings and sodomy.

"This is an unacceptable response. ... It's not the level of concern the American people would expect of their military commanders for this type of conduct," Senator Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, said on the Senate floor.

Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also questioned "how seriously the administration and the White House were taking these allegations."

Bush discussed the scandal by telephone on Monday with Rums-feld, and urged "strong actions," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

"The president wanted to make sure appropriate action was being taken against those responsible for these shameful, appalling acts," McClellan said, adding that Bush wants a full review of the treatment of prisoners "throughout the prison system in Iraq."

A senior administration official said Bush told Rumsfeld "he expects, as quickly as possible, to know what they think about the extent of this and how they intend to deal with it."

But even Bush's Republican allies said damage to US standing was already done and would be difficult to repair.

"Unfortunately, in that part of the world, the fact that the president and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and other military people say `this is unacceptable, we won't abide by it, the guilty will be punished' and so on, that kind of gets lost on them, and you can see why," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, a member of the Senate Republican leadership.

"We're not looking to cover this up," a senior administration official said.

Karpinski, who oversaw 26 facilities in Iraq before leaving earlier this year as part of a rotation of US forces, said she was not aware of the abuse at Abu Ghraib and was shocked by photographs aired last week by the US network CBS.

A Pentagon official said the US military did a "top-level review" last fall of how its detention centers in Iraq were run, months before commanders first were told about the sexual humiliation and abuse of Iraqis.

Larry Di Rita, the top spokesman for Rumsfeld, said Monday the review was done at the request of Sanchez.

Di Rita did not say what prompted the review. He said its conclusions were taken into account by Major-General Antonio Taguba, who began an investigation on Jan. 31 focused on an unidentified soldier's report of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib prison.
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