In a visit to the Abu Ghraib prison last October, Red Cross inspectors were so unsettled by what they found that they broke off their visit and demanded an immediate explanation from military prison authorities.
As recounted in a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, prisoners were being held "completely naked in totally empty concrete cells and in total darkness," apparently for several days.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The Red Cross inspectors were also able to document the exact sort of behavior that has produced a firestorm over the last two weeks: "acts of humiliation such as being made to stand naked against the wall of the cell with arms raised or with women's underwear over the heads for prolonged periods -- while being laughed at by guards, including female guards, and sometimes photographed in this position."
The report also said that military intelligence officers confirmed the inspector's impression that these "methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information."
The 24-page report, completed in February, appears to contradict several statements by senior Pentagon officials in recent days as to how and when the military learned of potential abuses in Iraq, how they reacted to reports of abuses and how widespread the practices might have been.
A spokesman for the Red Cross in Geneva said on Monday that the organization's president, Jakob Kellenberger, complained about the prison abuses directly to top administration officials during a two-day visit to Washington in mid-January when he met with Secretary of State Colin Powell, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Antonella Notari, the chief spokesman for the Red Cross in Geneva, suggested that Kellenberger raised the issue to senior administration officials because the situation had not improved sufficiently after the prison authorities in Baghdad had been informed of the criticisms.
"If it's a serious problem and it persists, we would make use of our contacts with higher-ranking people," she said.
Notari said the report was based on private interviews with prisoners of war and civilian internees during the 29 visits ICRC staff conducted in 14 places of detention across Iraq between March 31 and Oct. 24 last year. The Red Cross document, which also covers abusive behavior at prisons run by the British armed forces, was first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal.
The report said that as far back as last May, the Red Cross reported to the military about 200 allegations of abuse, and that in July it complained about 50 allegations of abuse at a detention site called Camp Cropper -- including one case of treatment that included being deprived of sleep, kicked repeatedly and injured and having a baseball tied into the prisoner's mouth.
Medical examinations supported the prisoner's account.
The report called some of the abuses "tantamount to torture."
A spokesman for Rice said on Monday that Kellenberger had not raised the issue of Iraq prison abuse with her at their Jan. 15 meeting. He said the entire session was about the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
An aide to Wolfowitz said that Kellenberger briefly mentioned a forthcoming report about problems at the Iraqi prisons.
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