Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Commander of coalition forces witnessed prisoner abuse, lawyer claims: "Defence lawyers for the military police guards who are accused of carrying out the worst of the torture at Abu Ghraib are seeking to portray their clients as lowly soldiers who carried out a policy of 'softening up' detainees for interrogation, approved by the top ranks of the US military. In testimony to the US Senate, the Pentagon's top generals denied all prior knowledge of the abuses, and said they insisted that their troops abide by the Geneva conventions.
However, a memorandum was leaked last week, signed by Gen Sanchez last October, instructing military intelligence to take over control of prisoners' conditions at Abu Ghraib with the aim of manipulating their 'emotions and weaknesses'.
It has also emerged that last November the International Committee of the Red Cross gave US commanders a detailed litany of complaints about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
In reply, the US military argued that many Iraqi prisoners were not entitled to the protection of the Geneva conventions.
The letter, signed by the military police commander at Abu Ghraib, Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, but drafted by military lawyers, argued that prisoners held as security risks could legally be treated differently from prisoners of war or ordinary criminals.
It seems to contradict the insistence of senior US officials that all prisoners in Iraq, unlike"
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