Prisoner abuses known to Pentagon before photos

By: Mohamed Ali

WASHINGTON: The Washington Post reported in its Wednesday editions that one month before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, US Army generals were told that elite military units and CIA agents were abusing detainees and “making gratuitous enemies” in Iraq.

A confidential report by a retired colonel, sent to the generals in December 2003, said Task Force 121 -- a joint Special Operations and CIA mission in Iraq -- had been abusing detainees throughout Iraq, holding them at a secret interrogation facility to hide their activities.

In his 13-page report recently obtained by The Washington Post, Stuart Herrington said: “Detainees captured by TF 121 have shown injuries that caused examining medical personnel to note that 'detainee shows signs of having been beaten.'”

The report, which seems to indicate that detainee abuse in Iraq was not confined to the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, comes a day after a New York Times article on a confidential Red Cross report alleging that prisoner abuse at the US military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was tantamount to torture.

The US government, which has been investigating the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, strongly denied on Tuesday the accusations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo.

In his report, Herrington said a US officer in charge of interrogation in Iraq told him that detainees brought in by TF 121 showed signs of having been beaten, and that when asked if he had informed his superiors was told: “Everyone knows about it.”

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