Pentagon Denies Abuse Claims Against General

Monday, May 24, 2004

(5:00 PM London time)

By Demetri Sevastopulo

Financial Times Writer

Gen Taguba partly attributed the abuses to a "failure of leadership" by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the reservist military police commander in charge of prisons. Gen Karpinski has claimed Gen Sanchez's order gave military intelligence officers the authority to give orders to the military police accused of carrying out the abuses.

WASHINGTON -- FT
The US army yesterday denied its top commander in Iraq was present during interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, where US soldiers abused and humiliated Iraqi detainees.

The Washington Post reported that a lawyer representing a soldier accused of involvement in the abuse had claimed the military police officer in charge of Abu Ghraib was prepared to testify that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US general in Iraq, was aware of the abuses and had been present during some interrogations.

Dismissing the report as "false", an army spokesman said Gen Sanchez stood by his testimony to Congress last week. Appearing alongside General John Abizaid, commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen Sanchez told the Senate armed services committee he was "horrified" at the abuses.

While Gen Sanchez dismisses suggestions that he was aware of the abuses, he has increasingly had to deny or explain away suggestions that he knew about some of the harsh interrogation practices in use at Abu Ghraib.

(More: FT.com)

2004 © The Financial Times, Ltd.

Dan