Calif. National Guard investigated for prisoner abuse in Iraq

Calif. National Guard investigated for prisoner abuse in Iraq

By TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press
Last Updated 5:14 pm PDT Thursday, May 27, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Army's investigation of prisoner abuse in Iraq has expanded to accusations that military interrogators with the California National Guard beat up and choked detainees, authorities confirmed Thursday.

Members of the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion, which returned from Iraq in March, are accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners last year at a detention facility in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

The accusations surfaced in an internal Army report obtained by The New York Times that listed the status of three dozen investigations. The report suggests that prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers went beyond the torture and humiliation of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.

Unidentified members of the San Francisco-based unit "struck and pulled the hair of detainees" during interrogations during a 10-week period in spring 2003, according to the May 5 document prepared by the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Command.

The report also said members of the 223rd allegedly "forced into asphyxiation numerous detainees in an attempt to obtain information."

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