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The Des Moines Register ST Monday, May 3, 2004 Page 3A Probe: No broad Iraq inmate abuse lHr.B. j'- i Baghdad, said the reported abuse is being aggressively investigated by the military. "Careers will be ended, and criminal charges are going to be leveled," he told CNN's "Late Editioa" Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was confident that the vast majority of American soldiers involved in the Iraqi prison system are acting properly. "I would say that categorically," Myers told ABCs "This Week." "There is no, no evidence of systematic abuse in this system at all," including the U.S.

military prison system at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where about 600 suspected terrorists are detained, he said. "We review all the interrogation methods. Torture is not one of the methods that we're allowed to use and that we use. I mean, it's just not permitted by international law, and we don't use it," Myers said. The Joint Chiefs chairman said that as soon as the initial allegations came to light, an investigation team was sent to Iraq at the request of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

The central focus has been the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, but Myers said the investigation is looking at prisons throughout Iraq to determine the extent of abusive or illegal handling of prisoners. "The report back is that it is not systematic, but that work is still ongoing," he said. The investigation's main focus was the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. By ROBERT BURNS ASSOCIATED PRESS Washington, D.C A high-level Army investigation of prisoner interrogation techniques in Iraq has found no evidence that abuse by US. military police or intelligence officers is widespread, officials said Sunday.

The review continues, however, and the Army has not determined whether all six soldiers charged with abusing Iraqi prisoners will face a military trial. The investigation, led by officials in the office of the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, is looking broadly at interrogation methods in Iraq. It is not a criminal investigation of the cases that occurred last fall involving the Army Reserve's 372nd Military Police Company, officials said. Among the most pressing questions is the extent of prisoner abuse and whether it is condoned or encouraged by U.S. military or civilian intelligence officials who have overseen the interrogations.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the Army Reserve commander who oversaw the prison system until recently, said in weekend interviews with the New York Times and Washington Post that she knew nothing of the alleged abuse 4, JD ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS ASSOCIATED PRESS Concerned: Iraqi women wait outside the prison in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, Iraq, on Sunday. Hundreds of Iraqis who have relatives held in Abu Ghraib have demanded to see their loved ones. Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, said it has uncovered a "pattern of torture" of Iraqi prisoners by coalition troops.

The group called for an independent investigation. Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S. occupation authority in an interview Sunday evening on ABC News. She said when she first saw the photos of abuse, "I really had to take a couple of seconds because I thought that I might really get sick from it." Attempts to reach Karpinski were unsuccessful Sunday. until it was reported.

She suggested it may have been encouraged by military intelligence officers, who kept tight control of the cellblock where the alleged abuse occurred. "I think there are bad people masquerading as soldiers doing bad things to detainees," she said in Former prisoner says U.S. jailers humiliated him The Iraqi man says American guards stripped him and others naked in an effort to 'break our put their hands on the wall. "They made us stand in a way that I am ashamed to describe. They came to look at us as we stood there.

They knew this would humiliate us," he said, adding that he was not sodomized. "They were trying to humiliate us, break our pride. We are men. It's OK if they beat me. Beatings dont hurt us, it's just a blow.

But no one would want their manhood to be shattered," he said. was asked to take off his clothes only once and for about 15 minutes. "I thought they wanted me to change into the red prison uniform, so I took off my clothes, down to my underwear. Then he asked me to take off my underwear. I started arguing with him but in the end he made me take off my underwear," said al-Shweiri.

He said he and six other prisoners all hooded had to face the wall and bend over a little as they soldier apparently urinating on a hooded prisoner. The newspaper said it had been given the pictures by serving soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment. Al-Shweiri said he was not surprised to see TV images of smiling U.S. soldiers posing by naked, hooded inmates who, in one photograph, were piled in a human pyramid. Al-Shweiri, who was arrested by the Americans in October, said he For months, human rights groups and former prisoners had complained of mistreatment at detention centers but their protests were widely dismissed as politically motivated until the U.S.

command started an investigation in January. Six American soldiers are JrTS now racing courts-martial. The allegations exploded onto the world stage this past week after CBS' "60 Minutes II" broadcast images allegedly showing Iraqis stripped naked, By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI ASSOCIATED PRESS Najaf, Iraq Dhia al-Shweiri spent several stints in Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, twice under Saddam Hussein's rule and once under American. He prefers Saddam's torture to the humiliation of being stripped naked by his American guards, he said Sunday in an interview with The Associated Press. Now the 30-year-old, who used to work in a fabric shop, is a diehard fighter in the al-Mahdi Army, the fanatic militia of a Shiite Muslim cleric who has vowed to take on the Americans.

Al-Shweiri said that while jailed by Saddam's regime, he was shocked, beaten and hung from the ceiling with his hands tied behind his back. "But that's better than the humiliation of being stripped naked," he said. "Shoot me here," he added, pointing between his eyes, "but don't do this to us." 3M Al-Shweiri CLOTHING MEN'S 1995 N.W.86TH STREET CITY OF CLIVE wmm tmm mm ME llil IV ML) mm 111 mm hooded and being tormented by their U.S. captors. An internal U.S.

Army report found that Iraqi detainees were subjected to "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses," according to The New Yorker magazine. On Saturday, Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper published a front-page picture of a British pray mm Attacks in Iraq kill U.S. hostage escapes lid. 0 IRAQ, from Page 1 A contractor then led soldiers back to the house where he was held; soldiers surrounded it and captured two Iraqis. "He had an opportunity to escape, saw some U.S.

forces and made his dash," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on a Sunday morning television news show. Hamill's supply convoy was ambushed April 9 between Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. There was no word on the fate of another captive, Army Pfc. Keith Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio, who Apply now and choose your reward: (upon approval and funding) Great rates and rewards you get both with a Principal Bank home equity loan or line of credit.

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Two fellow sailors were killed in that attack, and two more were wounded. Sunday's mortar attack was far worse, tearing through dozens of Seabees who just moments before mustered in the yard of a Marine base for a visiting admiral. Just after Navy Rear Adm. Charles Kubic stepped away, a mortar round struck about 300 yards from the men. As they scattered, a second mortar made a near direct hit, killing some sailors on the spot and spewing shrapnel around the yard.

Meanwhile, Marines reported scattered skirmishes but no major fighting in and around Fallujah two days after commanders withdrew thousands of Marine forces that had laid siege to the city for nearly three weeks. By Sunday, Marines occupied 10 percent of Fallujah, compared with 25 percent a week ago, and Marine Maj. T.V. Johnson reported that armed ex-Iraqi Army soldiers of the new Fallujah Brigade numbered about 600. They were sent into Fallujah to kill or capture foreign fighters and other insurgents who have attacked U.S.

forces. In southern Iraq, clashes escalated over the weekend between American forces and militiamen loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, overshadowing efforts by tribal leaders and the Najaf police chief to curb the violence. Mahdi Army militiamen lobbed mortars and grenades at some 2,500 U.S. troops encamped outside the city Sunday, a day after the guerrillas ambushed an American convoy, killing two soldiers and setting their vehicles on fire. V' $100 Gift card to The Home Depot" $250 Travel Certificate Bank old Iraqi invasion, Hamill and came as the Marines are forging an alliance with Iraqi Army generals to quell a ferocious anti-American insurrection in Fallujah, the flashpoint Sunni Muslim city of 250,000.

Ramadi had seen some of the fiercest fighting of western Iraq's Anbar province in the month-plus Marine deployment. Twelve Marines were killed in an ambush of their patrol there on April 6. "They really don't like us," said Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Michael Rambo, 27, a Seabee from Clearwater, who suffered shrapnel wounds in his chest and side, as he lay at Camp Fallujah's Bravo Surgical Company hospital awaiting X-rays on Sunday night. Friday, he suffered a sprained thumb and other minor injuries WE UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE WORKING FOR 4 mentr ftw 1 mm! nrx Wi Urdu mW in S. rulit km.

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