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US detained children in Abu Ghraib<br><br>
Thursday 10 March 2005 11:52 PM GMT <br><br>
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<b>An 8-year-old was among the children detained by US soldiers at Iraq's
infamous Abu Ghraib jail, a former prison commander has said.<br><br>
</b></font><font size=2>Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski told officials
investigating prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib that the child was crying and
wanted to see his mother.<br><br>
Karpinski's statement is among hundreds of pages of US Army records about
Abu Ghraib the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released on
Thursday. <br><br>
The ACLU got the documents under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit
seeking records about abuse of detainees in Iraq.<br><br>
Karpinski did not say what happened to the boy in her interview with
Major-General George Fay. Military officials have previously acknowledged
that some juvenile prisoners had been held at Abu Ghraib, a massive
prison built by Saddam Hussein's government outside Baghdad. <br><br>
<b>More dirt</b> <br><br>
On another subject, Karpinski said she had seen written orders to hold a
prisoner that the CIA had captured without keeping records. The records
also quote an unnamed army officer at Abu Ghraib as saying military
intelligence officers and the CIA worked out a written agreement on how
to handle unreported detainees, known as "ghosts". <br><br>
A US Army report issued last September said investigators could not find
any copies of any such written agreements. <br><br>
The Pentagon has acknowledged holding up to 100 "ghost
detainees", keeping the prisoners off the books and away from
humanitarian investigators from the International Committee of the Red
Cross. <br><br>
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has defended the practice, saying he
authorised it because the prisoners were enemy combatants not entitled to
prisoner of war protections. <br><br>
<b>Rumsfeld suit <br><br>
</b>The ACLU sued Rumsfeld earlier this month on behalf of four Iraqis
and four Afghans who say they were tortured at US military facilities.
Rumsfeld and his spokesmen have repeatedly said he and his aides never
authorised or condoned any abuses.<br><br>
Six enlisted soldiers have pleaded guilty to military charges for their
roles in abuses at Abu Ghraib, and Private Charles Graner Jr was
convicted at a court martial earlier this year and sentenced to 10 years
in prison. <br><br>
Karpinski, one of the few generals to be criticised in army detainee
reports for poor leadership, quoted several senior generals in Iraq as
making callous statements about prisoners. <br><br>
Karpinski said Major-General Walter Wodjakowski, then the second highest
ranking army general in Iraq, told her in the summer of 2003 not to
release more prisoners, even if they were innocent. <br><br>
"I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent civilians. We're
winning the war," Karpinski said Wodjakowski told
her.</font><font size=3> <br><br>
<b>Agencies<br>
By <br><br>
</b>You can find this article at:<br>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F766CBA2-FAF7-43EE-AEDC-44FB55781ACC.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F766CBA2-FAF7-43EE-AEDC-44FB55781ACC.htm</a>
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