Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib

Interrogation experts from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were dispatched to Iraq last fall and played a major role there in training US military teams at Abu Ghraib prison, military officials said on Friday.

The teams from Guantanamo Bay, which had operated there under directives allowing broad latitude in questioning ‘‘enemy combatants’’, played a central role at Abu Ghraib through December, the officials said. Iraqi prisoners, unlike those sent from Afghanistan to Guantanamo, were to be protected by the Geneva Conventions.

The teams were sent for 90-day tours at the urging of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then the head of detention operations at Guantanamo. Miller was sent to Iraq last summer to recommend improvements in the intelligence gathering and detention operations there, they said. The involvement of the Guantanamo teams has not previously been disclosed, and officials said it would be addressed in a report on suspected abuses by military specialists that is being completed by Maj. Gen. George W. Fay —(NYT)