US report 'confirms' serial Iraq abuse

The New Yorker magazine in its 10 May issue quotes extensively from a 53-page, internal US military report, confirming widespread abuses at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.

The army report authorised by Lt General Ricardo Sanchez – the top US army officer in Iraq - lists out the diabolical tortures often heaped on Iraqi prisoners.

The report listed abuses such as "breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees … beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair, threatening male detainees with rape, allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell, sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick".

The report, written by Major General Antonio Taguba, said evidence to support the allegations included "detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence."

Disturbing photos

News of the military report comes days after photographs showing abuse by US troops of Iraqi prisoners were published and broadcast around the globe.

The photos showed US troops smiling, posing, laughing or giving the thumbs-up sign as naked, male Iraqi prisoners were stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts with one another.

A London-based newspaper on Saturday also published pictures showing British soldiers urinating on a hooded Iraqi captive.

Stung by the pictures and the resultant global outrage, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was "completely and totally unacceptable."

"Let me make it quite clear that if these things have actually been done, they are completely and totally unacceptable. We went to Iraq to get rid of that sort of thing, not to do it," the prime minister said.

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