New York — Military police in charge of prisons in Iraq saw their mission shift from guarding prisoners to supporting intelligence-gathering to help counter Iraqi attacks on the coalition last fall, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.
Following up on its earlier article and photos, the magazine also published more details of abuse and a photo of a naked Iraqi prisoner being terrorized by U.S. military guard dogs. Other photos, not published, show the same man on the floor with bloody wounds on his legs, reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the May 17 issue, out Sunday.
Mr. Hersch quoted retired major-general Charles Hines, former commandant of the army's military police school, as saying dogs were used to detect drugs or other contraband and perhaps for riot control in military prisons, but “I never would have authorized it for interrogating or coercing prisoners. If I had, I'd have been put in jail or kicked out of the army.”
The magazine says that on Nov. 19, Lt.-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top operational commander in Iraq, issued an order taking tactical control of Abu Ghraib prison away from the military police and turning it over to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade.
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