IRAQ - US Will Examine Iraqi-Run Prisons.

US investigators will work with an Iraqi commission to widen the inquiry into prisoner torture and abuse by scrutinising all Iraqi-run detention centres across the country. Announcement of this on Nov. 17 reflected the gravity with which the Americans were approaching reports of torture at a secret police prison in central Baghdad. But it came in stark contrast to comments made earlier on Nov. 17 by Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, who tried to play down the US discovery of torture at the prison.

Jabr is a conservative Shi'ite Arab belonging to SCIRI's Badr Organisation and virtually all the prisoners were Sunni Arabs. "There has been much exaggeration about this issue", Jabr said at a news conference, speaking in an angry, sarcastic tone, stressing: "Nobody was beheaded or killed" - referring to the Neo-Salafi method of beheading their captors.

Jabr acknowledged that seven of the emaciated, malnourished prisoners discovered by Americans on Nov. 13 had been tortured. He said the Iraqi Interior Ministry officers responsible would be punished. But he added that many of the Iraqis and foreign Arabs being held in the prison were Neo-Salafis suspected of bombings and assaults.

Jabr also suggested that the furor over the prison was being drummed up by "those [Sunni Arabs] who support terrorism", since "it's natural for them to attack the Interior Ministry". Jabr's defiant stand reflected a growing rift between the two governing Shi'ite Arab parties in Iraq - SCIRI of religious leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, and the Da'wa Party of Premier Ja'fari.

Jabr is prominent in SCIRI's Badr Organisation, and Badr elements man the manority of the Interior Ministry's security forces. Ja'fari's Da'wa militia forces have kept a low profile since their leader took over as prime minister in late April.

Ja'fari, under intense pressure from the Americans, has opened a wide-ranging inquiry into prison torture. It was the soldiers with the American Third Infantry Division who discovered the prisoners at night on Nov. 13 when they raided the two-level building, a former bomb shelter and major operations centre for the Interior Ministry.

The US soldiers returned in the evening of Nov. 14 to transfer the prisoners to another detention centre. A journalist for Voice of America who witnessed that transfer said in an interview published on Nov. 18 by The New York Times that at least one-third of the prisoners, all young men, had bruises or lacerations on their faces or bodies, and that they appeared to be "extremely emaciated, starved for some time".

The US soldiers counted 166 Sunni Arabs and three Shi'ite Arabs after asking each prisoner to identify his sect. The soldiers also found instruments of torture hidden behind ceiling panels in rooms on the first floor. One such device was a metal rod with a ball on the end, similar to a medieval mace. The discovery of the prisoners has prompted a furious outcry from Sunni Arab leaders, who have long accused the Shiite-led government of abducting and torturing or killing Sunnis. The Americans, still grappling with the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, have also been forceful in condemning the torture. Jaafari only announced his investigation after meeting with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq. Jim Bullock, a spokesman for the American embassy, told reporters Thursday afternoon that the Iraqi prime minister's office had agreed to widen the inquiry to a nationwide level, and that employees of the Justice Department and FBI would provide technical assistance to the Iraqis. He also released an embassy statement strongly condemning instances of torture. ''Detainee abuse is not and will not be tolerated by either the Iraqi government or the multinational forces in Iraq,'' the embassy said.