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US has evidence of detainee abuse in Iraq, report says

The US military has discovered evidence of abuse of detainees at at least six more Iraqi detention centers run by the Shiite-dominated interior ministry, the Washington Post reported yesterday. Last November, US soldiers found 173 incarcerated men, some of them showing signs of torture, in a secret bunker in a ministry compound in central Baghdad.

Since then, the newspaper said there have been at least six joint US-Iraqi inspections of detention centers.

Two sources involved with the inspections, one Iraqi official and one US official, said abuse of prisoners was found at all the sites visited through February, the report said.

US military authorities confirmed that signs of severe abuse were observed at two of the detention centers, according to the paper.

The US official involved in the inspections described in an e-mail the abuse, mentioning "numerous bruises on the arms, legs and feet," the Post said.

"A lot of the Iraqis had separated shoulders and problems with their hands and fingers too," the official is quoted as saying. "You could also see strap marks on some of their backs."

But US troops have not responded by removing all the detainees, as they did in November, the report said.

Instead, according to US and Iraqi officials, only a handful of the most severely abused detainees at a single site were removed for medical treatment, the Post said.

Prisoners at two other sites were removed to alleviate overcrowding. US and Iraqi authorities left the rest where they were.

The newspaper said the practice of leaving the detainees in place has prompted fresh questions from the inspectors about whether the US has honored a pledge by Marine General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that US troops would attempt to stop inhumane treatment if they saw it.
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