US shunts Brig Gen after torture of Iraqi prisoners

Some of the photographs, and descriptions of others, were broadcast on Wednesday night by the CBS News programme 60 Minutes II and were verified by military officials. Six US soldiers have been charged and the commanding officer at Abu Ghraib prison, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, has been reassigned, said an official.

Of the six people reported in March to be facing preliminary charges, three have been recommended for court martial trials, a Pentagon official said on Wednesday. Gary Myers, the lawyer for one of the enlisted men charged, said in an interview that the military had treated the six enlisted soldiers as scapegoats and had failed to address adequately the responsibilities of senior commanders and intelligence personnel involved.

‘‘The real story is not in these six young enlisted people. The real story is the manner in which the intelligence community forced them into this position,’’ Myers said.

In one photograph obtained by 60 Minutes II, naked Iraq prisoners are stacked in a human pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English. In another, a prisoner stands on a box, his head covered, wires attached to his body. The programme said that, according to the US Army, he had been told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Other photographs show male prisoners positioned to simulate sex with each other.

‘‘The pictures show Americans, men and women, in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners,’’ states a transcript of the 60 Minutes II script. Other photographs show a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner. In March, the US first announced that the six soldiers were being charged in the case, but few details were released. An official confirmed that Brig Gen Karpinski had been reassigned. —(NYT)