Red Cross says it warned US about Iraq jail

8.00am

GENEVA - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had repeatedly urged the United States to take "corrective action" at a Baghdad jail at the centre of a scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

The Geneva-based humanitarian agency, mandated under international treaties to visit detainees, has had regular access to Abu Ghraib prison since US-led forces began using it last year, according to chief spokeswoman Antonella Notari.

"The ICRC, aware of the situation, and based on its findings, has repeatedly asked the US authorities to take corrective action," she told Reuters.

Notari declined to give details of what the ICRC had seen during the visits, which take place every five to six weeks, or about its reports to the US authorities.

The United Nations said separately it had written to US officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Governor of Iraq Paul Bremer, seeking information on human rights in Iraq over the past year.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which has promised a report by the end of the month, said its investigators were ready to visit Baghdad for talks with coalition and Iraqi leaders.

The ICRC, which has been operating since the late 19th century, keeps a public silence about what it hears from detainees as the price for gaining access to jails in trouble spots around the world from Chechnya to West Africa.

Pictures of grinning US soldiers abusing naked Iraqis at Abu Ghraib -- the largest prison in the country and notorious for torture under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- have sparked an international outcry.

In a bid to limit damage to the US image, President George W. Bush went on two Arabic satellite television stations on Wednesday to tell an outraged Middle East that soldiers guilty of abusing Iraqi prisoners would be punished.

The jail was also been the focus of a separate earlier probe by a US general.

That report by Major-General Antonio Taguba, covering the period October-December 2003 and completed on March 3, cited incidents of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses".

Notari poured cold water on some US media reports suggesting that the ICRC had not had access to a special wing in the jail where the abuse took place.

"To the best of our knowledge we have had access to all sectors," she said.

And she rejected a proposal from the new head of the jail, Major-General Geoffrey Miller, that the ICRC set up a permanent presence there, saying: "We are not going to be part of their organisation."

The ICRC has visited thousands of prisoners under the control of US and British forces, which are also being investigated after a British newspaper published pictures of a soldier apparently urinating on an Iraqi detainee.

But Notari declined to comment on what officials had seen in British-run jails.

Under the Geneva Conventions on both prisoners and the treatment of civilians in wartime, the ICRC must be allowed to interview detainees in private and on a regular basis.

On these terms, it has carried out two visits to Saddam, in US custody since his capture shortly before Christmas.

"It is important that people understand our role, which is to be present and to have a dialogue with the authorities," Notari said.

But on a few occasions the Red Cross has broken its vow of silence because either the authority concerned has issued a partial account of the ICRC's findings or has simply failed to take any action after a long period.

The ICRC recently expressed mounting frustration over the situation of Afghan and other detainees at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announcing that its concerns about conditions and treatment were not being addressed.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq