ARAB-US RELATIONS - Aug 3 - Army Interrogators Did Not Order Abuse.

Testifying before a military hearing that will determine whether Pte Lynndie England will face court martial, Paul Arthur, the top army criminal investigator at Abu Ghraib when the abuses occurred, rejects arguments that military intelligence officers ordered soldiers to commit the brutal acts. He said that the military police who humiliated Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison were having fun at the expense of the detainees. Arthur said: "From the get-go, it seemed like it was just a joke". Pte England, who became a public face of the Abu Ghraib scandal after appearing in several notorious photographs of US soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and some of the other six military police charged over the abuses have argued that they were following orders. But on the first day of the high-profile hearing the first related to Abu Ghraib to be held in the US army investigators said the soldiers acted alone, out of frustration at attacks on their colleagues, and to have fun. Arthur said Pte England told him in an interview that the military police were having fun on the night shift, when most of the abuses occurred. Pte England could face 38 years' jail if convicted. She faces 19 charges, including assaulting Iraqi prisoners, engaging in indecent acts with another soldier and failing to follow orders. The visibly pregnant 21-year-old army reservist, appeared uncomfortable as Warren Worth, a second army investigator, told the court about photographs showing her engaging in sexual activities with Corp Charles Graner, who is also charged over the abuses. Arthur told the hearing that Pte England mentioned that only on one occasion, when suspected rapists were brought to Abu Ghraib, did military intelligence officers tell her that detainees could be "roughed up". But Warren Worth, one of the original investigators into the abuses, said there was no evidence military intelligence officers had ordered military police to commit the acts in the photographs. A civilian lawyer for Pte England Richard Hernandez, argued after the hearing that the army investigators had contradicted each other over whether Pte England herself had admitted that the abuses were just for fun. The government's characterisation of Pte England and the other charged officers as a "rogue band" was "far from the truth", he said. Separately, on Aug 3 Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, the reservist officer who was in charge of prisons in Iraq, alleged some detainees were hidden from her in a cover up that, she said, could go as high as the Pentagon and the White House. Maj Gen Antonio Taguba, who completed the first military investigation into the Abu Ghraib scandal, told the Senate Armed Services committee in May that a "failure of leadership" had created an undisciplined environment that allowed a few soldiers to run amok. Pte Lynndie England, who became synonymous with the abuses after she posed for photographs of US soldiers humiliating detainees at the notorious prison, says she was simply following orders, as do some of the six other soldiers charged over the abuses. Many US lawmakers argue that the Abu Ghraib scandal has further tarnished US credibility in the Middle East. But Pres Bush said military investigations into the abuses demonstrate the strength of democracy by showing nobody is above the law.