More disturbing things from Abu Ghraib

Its possible top officals in a position to stop the torture at Abu ghraib knew about it two months before they claim they did.

Beginning in November, a small unit of interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison began reporting allegations of prisoner abuse, including the bloody beatings of five blindfolded Iraqi generals, in internal documents sent to senior officers, according to interviews with military personnel who worked in the prison.

The disclosure of the documents raises new questions about whether senior officers in Iraq were alerted about serious abuses at the prison before January. Top military officials have said previously they only learned about abuses then, after a soldier came forward with photographs

The whole article adds to the disturbing abuses already reported, and the inaction of military officals to stop it. Reports began to trickle out as part of an interrogation technique inquiring on prisioner's treatment to forge a bond of supposed caring. Lower soldiers became shocked at stories and felt the moral obligation to inform their superiors.

"We couldn't believe what we were hearing," said one soldier. Two detainees reported having been given electric shocks at other holding facilities before arriving in Abu Ghraib, according to the interviews. One prisoner's file included photographs of burns on his body." We didn't want people to know that we knew about it and didn't report it," the soldier said.

Oh, anf the five generals allude to in the opening? Another disturbing story.

The beating of the former generals, which has not previously been disclosed, is being examined by the Pentagon as part of its inquiry into abuses at Abu Ghraib, according to people knowledgable about the investigation.

By mid-December, two separate reports of the beating had been made, one by the Detainee Assessment Branch and one by a military intelligence analyst, according to the sources. The analyst asked a former general at the end of an interrogation what had happened to his nose — it was smashed and tilted to the left, and a 2-inch gash on his chin had been stitched.

The prisoner, a man in his 50s, began telling the story of the beating, which he said had occurred about a week earlier. His account closely matched that given independently to the Detainee Assessment Branch by another former general around the same time.

According to their accounts, here is what happened: One evening after fierce riots had erupted at the prison in late November, a group of soldiers rounded up the five former Iraqi generals, who were suspected of instigating the revolt. On their way to the prison's isolation unit, the soldiers stopped the captives, who were handcuffed and blindfolded, and arranged them in a line. Then the guards attacked the prisoners with a barrage of punches, beating them until they were covered in blood.

The military intelligence analyst alerted his sergeant to the incident, but the sergeant responded that the prisoners "probably deserved it," a person with first-hand knowledge of the investigation said.

That's showing the nations of the world how we deal with violations, eh Rummy?