The US army is poised to bring new charges in the Abu Ghraib scandal, launching disciplinary actions against two dozen soldiers and civilian contractors involved in the interrogation of Iraqi detainees, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
In a new report on interrogation practices at the prison, which could be released as early as today, Major General George Fay recommends disciplinary proceedings against at least 24 personnel attached to the 205th military intelligence brigade at the notorious prison.
General Fay's findings follow months of insistence from the Bush administration and the Pentagon that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was confined to a handful of lowly reservists. So far, only seven members of a military police unit from Maryland have been charged.
Further evidence that the abuse was widespread and systematic is expected to emerge next week, with the release of another investigation.
Lawyers for the military police argue that their clients have been made the scapegoats for a culture of abuse, and that the seven were told to abuse prisoners by military intelligence personnel to soften them up for interrogation.
Although General Fay interviewed General Richard Sanchez, Pentagon officials said yesterday that no officers above the rank of colonel would be held accountable -- a failing that is likely to fuel criticism of a cover-up of the abuse at the prison.
Meanwhile, the soldier who exposed the scandal by slipping a military investigation team a CD with photographs of the abuse was in protective military custody yesterday after receiving death threats.
Specialist Joseph Darby, 24, a reservist in a military police unit, and his wife were moved out of their home in Cumberland, Maryland, his mother, Margaret Blank, told the Associated Press this week.
Pentagon officials told the Baltimore Sun last week that General Fay's report exposes cases of abuse that are even more disturbing than the images that surfaced this spring of prisoners stacked naked or tethered on a leash.
Most of the soldiers implicated in the report were from the 205th, which was assigned to Abu Ghraib in October last year after stints at US detention facilities in Bagram, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, where there have also been reports of abuse.
The commander of the 205th, Colonel Thomas Pappas, was reprimanded for failing to ensure his troops abided by the Geneva convention.
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