More Abu Ghraib revelations

Weeks before US military investigators began uncovering evidence of mistreatment of detainees, commanders at Abu Ghraib prison launched a cr...

Weeks before US military investigators began uncovering evidence of mistreatment of detainees, commanders at Abu Ghraib prison launched a crackdown on alcohol abuse and told intelligence troops that guards were suspected of soliciting sex from Iraqi prostitutes, according to soldiers and officers who worked at the troubled compound.

Commanders at the prison outside Baghdad, launched a series of measures to stem the illegal behaviour, the soldiers said, including inspecting troops’ living quarters for stashes of liquor and banishing Iraqi vendors who were suspected of helping to procure alcohol and make arrangements for soldiers to visit prostitutes. The steps were part of a belated attempt by senior officers to impose order on a facility that had spun out of control.

Officers who worked at the prison said the measures were imposed in late December and early January, after the reported abuses of detainees but shortly before military investigators received a computer disk containing photos of prisoner abuse that became public last month. At least one prisoner has told investigators that he frequently smelled alcohol on the guards’ breath in the cellblock where most of the abuses occurred.

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Five military intelligence soldiers who worked at the prison said they learned of a crackdown during an impromptu meeting with an irate Lt Col Steven L. Jordan, one of the senior officers at the prison and the leader of the interrogation operation. Under a general order, no US soldier should have alcohol while in Iraq, a ban that stems from anti-alcohol sensibilities in Muslim countries.

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			• BAGHDAD: A suicide car bomber killed up to 12 Iraqis, including four policemen, near a US-Iraqi base in Baghdad on Sunday. Also, a senior Iraqi civil servant, Kamal Al-Jarrah, 63, who headed a Education Ministry department, was shot near his house in Ghazaliya. Rebel Shi’ite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr plans to create a political party to contest Iraq’s first free elections early next year, his spokesman said. —Reuters

Jordan did not respond to e-mail requests for comment. But there are indications that prostitution might have been an issue at the prison. Among them is a cryptic note taken by an investigator during an interview with an MP at Abu Ghraib, Cpl Matthew Bolinger.

In a copy of the handwritten note obtained by the LA Times, the investigator wrote that Bolinger said he had seen computer images of one of the MPs having sex with an unidentified woman. —(LAT-WP)

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