US marine confession; more Iraq prisoner abuse revealed

By: Mohamed Ali

NEW YORK: Members of a US special operations task force punched and abused prisoners in Iraq in front of Defense Intelligence Agency agents and then threatened the agents after they attempted to document the abuse, a document made public on Tuesday stated.

A letter from the head of the DIA to a senior Pentagon intelligence official, which detailed previously unknown incidents of abuse by US forces on prisoners in Iraq, said the agents also saw prisoners arriving at a temporary detention facility in Baghdad with burn marks on their back, bruises and in some cases complaining of kidney pain.

It was written two months after photographs of US soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad became public, and five months after American commanders in Iraq first learned of the Abu Ghraib abuse.

The Abu Ghraib revelations prompted international outrage and undercut US credibility as it sought to stabilize Iraq amid a bloody insurgency after last year's invasion.

A Pentagon report on detainee treatment by special forces in Iraq is due to be made public as early as next month.

Meanwhile, a former US Marine said Tuesday his unit killed more than 30 innocent Iraqi civilians in just two days, in graphic testimony to a Canadian tribunal probing an asylum claim by a US army deserter.

Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey appeared as a witness to bolster claims by fugitive paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman that he walked out on the 82nd Airborne Division to avoid being ordered to commit war crimes in Iraq.

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