ARAB-US RELATIONS - May 4 - Deaths Of Iraqi & Afghan Prisoners.

The Pentagon reveals the deaths of no fewer than 25 prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. US provost marshal general, the supervisor of the military police, Maj Gen Donald Ryder, says 12 of the deaths were "undetermined" or "natural causes" and 2 were homicides. One soldier was convicted of murder in the US military justice system for shooting dead a detainee at an Iraqi detention centre in September 2003. Another prisoner was killed at the Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad last November by a private contractor who worked as an interrogator for the CIA. Pres. Bush first saw the torture pictures when they were broadcast on television last week, and did not learn of a classified Pentagon report on the initial investigation until it was reported in the US press. In his radio address to the nation last week, the president had declared there was no more torture in Iraqi prisons. (The May 4 revelations come as the US has broadened its investigation into abuse of detainees, following the publication last week of pictures showing the torture and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The Defence Secretary Rumsfeld said he had asked the navy's inspector-general to investigate conditions at Guantanamo Bay, where more than 600 detainees are held, and at the US military centre in South Carolina. This is one of six investigations launched since January into allegations of abuse associated with US interrogation of prisoners. The Pentagon has issued reprimands to seven of the soldiers who oversaw operations at the prison. Six junior soldiers face court marshall. Rumsfeld - under mounting pressure in Washington to accept personal responsibility for the scandal - acknowledged that he was "stunned by all of it". He added: "It clearly is unhelpful. In a fundamental way, it's harmful. This is an exceptional situation; it is not a pattern or a practice").