US killing and abuse in Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq The WE News Archives

A U.N. inquiry says the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay at times amounts to torture and violates international law.

NEW YORK — A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture.

It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.

The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, is the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.   The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Nonetheless, its findings — notably a conclusion that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison.

Nearly 500 people captured abroad since 2002 in Afghanistan and elsewhere and described by the U.S. as "enemy combatants" are being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture

"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the U.S. government," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture and one of the envoys.   "There are no conclusions that are easily drawn.   But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture."

The draft report, reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, has not been officially released.   U.N. officials are in the process of incorporating comments and clarifications from the U.S. government.

In November, the Bush administration offered the U.N. team the same tour of the prison given to journalists and members of Congress, but refused the envoys access to prisoners.   Because of that, the U.N. group declined the visit.

Nowak said he did not expect major changes to the report's conclusions and recommendations as a result of the U.S. government's response, though there would be amendments on minor issues.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said the Defense Department did not comment about U.N. matters.

The report is not legally binding.   But human rights and legal advocates hope the U.N.'s conclusions will add weight to similar findings by rights groups and the European Parliament.

Detention is not an act of punishment.

"I think the effect of this will be to revive concern about the government's mistreatment of detainees, and to get people to take another look at the legal basis," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch.   "There are lots of lingering questions about how do you justify holding these people."

The report focuses on the U.S. government's legal basis for the detentions as described in its formal response to the U.N. inquiry: "The law of war allows the United States — and any other country engaged in combat — to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities.   Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity.   It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States."

But the U.N. team concluded that there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were "enemy combatants," and determined that the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms.   The U.S. has released or transferred more than 260 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

Torture committed by government officials

It also rejected the premise that "the war on terrorism" exempted the U.S. from international conventions on torture and civil and political rights.

The report said some of the treatment of detainees met the definition of torture under the U.N. Convention Against Torture:   The acts were committed by government officials, with a clear purpose, inflicting severe pain or suffering against victims in a position of powerlessness.

The findings also concluded that the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques — prolonged solitary confinement, exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light; forced shaving and other techniques that exploit religious beliefs or cause intimidation and humiliation — constituted inhumane treatment and, in some cases, reached the threshold of torture.

Doctors should never be party to actual coercive feeding

Nowak said that the U.N. team was "particularly concerned" about the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that detainees said were brutally inserted and removed, causing intense pain, bleeding and vomiting.

"It remains a current phenomenon," Nowak said.

International Red Cross guidelines state: "Doctors should never be party to actual coercive feeding.   Such actions can be considered a form of torture and under no circumstances should doctors participate in them on the pretext of saving the hunger striker's life."

One detainee, a Kuwaiti named Fawzi Al Odah, told his lawyer this month that he stopped his five-month hunger strike under threats of physical abuse.

Thomas B. Wilner, a lawyer at Shearman & Sterling in Washington who has represented 12 Kuwaitis held at Guantanamo Bay, said that Odah told him that in December guards began taking away clothes, shoes and blankets from about 85 hunger strikers.

Wilner said Odah described guards mixing laxatives into the liquid formula they gave to about 40 prisoners through the nose tubes, causing them to defecate on themselves.

After hearing a neighboring prisoner scream in pain

Wilner said Odah told him that on Jan. 9, an officer read what he said was an order from Guantanamo Bay's commander, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, stating that hunger strikers would be strapped into a restraint chair and force-fed with thick nasal tubes that would be inserted and removed twice a day.   After hearing a neighboring prisoner scream in pain and tell him not to go through it, Odah reluctantly ceased his hunger strike, Wilner said.

"I stopped it because they forced me to stop," Wilner quoted Odah as telling him.   "They stopped it through torture."

Pentagon officials said the number of hunger strikers had dropped to four.

Officials have been forcefeeding detainees since August, but they started leaving the long nasal tubes in place in September after detainees complained that having them jammed down their noses to their stomachs and removed twice a day caused intense pain, bleeding, vomiting and fainting, Wilner said.

In January, he said, after harsh treatment resumed and hunger strikers were left strapped in the restraint chair in their own excretions, most gave up their protest.

Brutality purposely applied

"It is clear that the government used force to end the hunger strike," Wilner said.   "It was brutality purposely applied to them to make them stop."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed Odah's allegations Thursday.

"Well, yes, we know that Al Qaeda is trained in trying to make wild accusations and so forth," McClellan said in response to a question about Odah.   "But the president has made it very clear what the policy is, and we expect the policy to be followed.   And he's made it very clear that we do not condone torture, and we do not engage in torture."

Wilner said Odah had not been accused of being part of Al Qaeda.

The International Red Cross is the only party allowed by the U.S. government to have access to prisoners and monitor their physical and mental health, but the organization is forbidden from making its findings public.

The five U.N. envoys are independent experts appointed by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights to examine arbitrary detention, torture, the independence of judges and lawyers, freedom of religion, and the right to physical and mental health.

The five had each been following the situation at Guantanamo Bay since it opened in January 2002.

They decided in June 2004 to do a joint report and asked the U.S. government for access to all detention centers.

"This report is not aimed at criticizing," Nowak said.   "It is looking at what international human rights law says about Guantanamo.   We are hoping that this report will actually strengthen the dialogue."

Staff writer Richard Serrano in Washington contributed to this report.

Innocent civilians, including people who are considered vital to building democracy, are increasingly being killed by U.S. troops

BAGHDAD — Three men in an unmarked sedan pulled up near the headquarters of the national police major crimes unit. The two passengers, wearing traditional Arab dishdasha gowns, stepped from the car.

At the same moment, a U.S. military convoy emerged from an underpass. Apparently believing the men were staging an ambush, the Americans fired, killing one passenger and wounding the other. The sedan's driver was hit in the head by two bullet fragments.

The soldiers drove on without stopping.

'AMERICANS ARE RECKLESS'

Police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji was hit by bullet fragments when U.S. troops shot at two men he was dropping off on his way to work in Baghdad.

One of them died.

This kind of shooting is far from rare in Baghdad, but the driver of the car was no ordinary casualty.   He was Iraqi police Brig. Gen. Majeed Farraji, chief of the major crimes unit.   His passengers were unarmed hitchhikers whom he was dropping off on his way to work.

"The reason they shot us is just because the Americans are reckless," the general said from his hospital bed hours after the July 6 shooting, his head wrapped in a white bandage.   "Nobody punishes them or blames them."

Angered by the growing number of unarmed civilians killed by American troops in recent weeks, the Iraqi government criticized the shootings and called on U.S. troops to exercise greater care.

Repeatedly declined requests to disclose number of civilians killed

U.S. officials have repeatedly declined requests to disclose the number of civilians killed in such incidents.   Police in Baghdad say they have received reports that U.S. forces killed 33 unarmed civilians and injured 45 in the capital between May 1 and July 12 — an average of nearly one fatality every two days.   This does not include incidents that occurred elsewhere in the country or were not reported to the police.

The continued shooting of civilians is fueling a growing dislike of the United States and undermining efforts to convince the public that American soldiers are here to help.   The victims have included doctors, journalists, a professor — the kind of people the U.S. is counting on to help build an open and democratic society.

"Of course the shootings will increase support for the opposition," said Farraji, 49, who was named a police general with U.S. approval.   "The hatred of the Americans has increased.   I myself hate them."

Among the biggest threats U.S. forces face are suicide attacks.   Soldiers are exposed as they stand watch at checkpoints or ride on patrol in the turrets of their Humvees.   The willingness of the assailants to die makes the attacks difficult to guard against.   By their nature, the bombings erode the troops' trust of the public; every civilian becomes suspect.

U.S. military officials say the troops must protect themselves by shooting the driver of any suspicious vehicle before it reaches them.

Heavily armed private security contractors, who number in the tens of thousands, also are authorized by the U.S. government to use deadly force to protect themselves.

One contractor who works for the U.S. government and saw a colleague killed in a suicide bombing said it was better to shoot an innocent person than to risk being killed.

"I'd rather be tried by 12 than carried by six," said the contractor, who insisted that he not be identified by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Unaware of any soldier disciplined

The U.S. military says it investigates all shootings by American personnel that result in death.   But U.S. Brig. Gen. Don Alston, spokesman for the multinational force in Iraq, said he was unaware of any soldier disciplined for shooting a civilian at a checkpoint or in traffic.   Findings are seldom made public.

A senior U.S. military official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "making no new enemies" was one of the military's priorities.   At the same time, he said, "it's still a combat zone.   There are going to be times when what the soldier needs to do and what the civilian feels he should be able to do come into conflict."

On June 27, the day he turned 49, Salah Jmor arrived in Baghdad to visit his family.

His father, Abdul-Rihman Jmor, is the chief of a Kurdish clan that numbers more than 20,000.   Salah had left Iraq 25 years ago for Switzerland, where he earned a doctorate in international relations and eventually became a Swiss citizen.

Saw blood pouring from Salah's head

For a decade, he represented Iraqi Kurds at the United Nations Office at Geneva.   In 1988, he helped call the world's attention to Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons on Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja and the massacre of at least 100,000 Kurds in what is known as the Anfal campaign.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Salah Jmor was offered a post in the new Iraqi government.   But he turned it down, preferring to remain in Geneva, where he was an associate professor at the Center for International and Comparative Programs of Kent State University of Ohio.

The morning after he arrived in Baghdad, he decided to go with his younger brother, architect Abdul-Jabbar Jmor, to his office.   Abdul-Jabbar, 38, drove his Opel hatchback down the eight-lane Mohammed Qasim highway through central Baghdad.   It was 9:30 a.m. and many vehicles were on the road.

The Opel hatchback is a model favored by insurgents.

The brothers were in the fast lane as a U.S. military convoy of three Humvees was entering the highway from the Gailani onramp.   Neither of them saw the soldiers, Abdul-Jabbar said.

Abruptly, Salah slumped over into his brother's lap.   Abdul-Jabbar asked what was wrong and then saw blood pouring from Salah's head.   There was a single bullet hole in the windshield.

He saw the convoy moving ahead as he pulled over to the side of the road.   He said he had seen no signal to slow down and heard no warning shot.

The soldiers turned around and came back a few minutes later.   One said he was sorry, Abdul-Jabbar said.   Together they waited more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive.

"I asked them, 'Why didn't you shoot me?   I am the driver,' " Abdul-Jabbar recalled.   "But they didn't answer me."

Abdul-Jabbar said he and his family had supported the U.S. troops when they first invaded Iraq, but no longer.

Hate the Americans more and more

"This kind of incident makes people hate the Americans more and more," he said.   "They don't care about the lives of the people.   Each day they make new enemies."

Switzerland has requested an explanation of Jmor's killing.   In Washington, the State Department said the United States had sent its condolences to the Swiss government and Jmor's family and that the Pentagon had begun an investigation.   In Baghdad, Abdul-Jabbar said the family had met with the Swiss ambassador but had received no expression of condolences from the U.S. government.   No U.S. investigator has contacted the family, he added.

There is a strong tradition of revenge in Iraq's tribal culture.   The killing of such a prominent clan member could have triggered a bloodbath that would claim 200 lives, said the patriarch, Abdul-Rihman.   But the Jmors, a well-educated family of doctors and engineers, say they want the judicial process to hold Salah's killer accountable.

"People say if they kill my brother, I have to kill one of them," Abdul-Jabbar said.   "But I believe in justice.   I can't just go kill them.   The United States says it is the leader of justice in the world.   Let us see that."

In Iraq, the U.S. military has redefined the rules of the road.

Military checkpoints — elaborate affairs with mazes of concrete barriers, razor wire and snipers' nests — have been set up at intersections all over Baghdad.   Signs are posted in English and Arabic saying "Deadly Force Authorized."   Cars that approach too quickly risk being fired upon by troops who shoot to kill.

At times, troops set up temporary checkpoints during raids or other military operations.   These can be even more dangerous for civilians because they can appear on city streets without warning.

Military convoys, usually made up of three Humvees, patrol the streets.   In each vehicle, a gunner stands with his upper body partially exposed and ready to operate a machine gun mounted on the roof.   For troops, it is among the most hazardous places to be in Iraq.

Holding up a clenched fist

The military expects all vehicles to stay at least 100 yards from a convoy.   When cars come too close, troops signal them to move back, sometimes by waving a little stop sign and sometimes by holding up a clenched fist.

Some Iraqis say the fist can be easy to miss.   It also can be confusing for motorists in Iraq, where the normal signal for stop is an upraised open hand, as it is in the United States.

On the highway, traffic normally bunches up well behind the American Hummers.   But keeping the required distance from a convoy can be difficult when the military vehicles unexpectedly change course or merge onto a highway.

The U.S. rules of engagement call for "escalation of force" when a vehicle comes too close.   Soldiers are trained to give hand and arm signals first, then fire warning shots and ultimately shoot to kill, the senior U.S. official said.

"Nothing in the rules of engagement takes away the right of self-defense for him and his buddies if the soldier feels threatened," he said.   More than 1,770 U.S. troops have died in the Iraq theater since the March 2003 invasion.

Despite the rising number of civilian deaths, the official said escalation-of-force incidents had fallen by half in the past four months.   He declined to provide specific figures.

According to one European diplomat, the American military's emphasis on protecting its troops has made U.S. soldiers more likely to kill and injure civilians than are other members of the coalition, such as the British, who are stationed in southern Iraq.

"The U.S. has force protection as their No. 1 priority," said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified because his remarks did not have his government's prior approval.

"The British have it as a priority, but not by any stretch the absolute priority.   I think that makes the U.S. soldiers more jumpy."

Personally knew three people shot and killed by U.S. troops

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the transitional National Assembly, said he personally knew three people, including Salah Jmor, who had been shot and killed by U.S. troops during traffic incidents.   Of the other two, one was an athlete, the other a doctor who had been called to her hospital to handle an emergency.

"I understand American soldiers are nervous.   It's very dangerous," said Othman, who was a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council that helped run Iraq after the invasion.   "But the killings are undermining support for the U.S. government.   It has helped people who call themselves the opposition.   It has helped terrorism."

Salihee, physician, taking rare day off

A recent case highlighted by the Iraqi government in its criticism of the U.S. was the June 24 killing of Yasser Salihee, 30, an Iraqi special correspondent for Knight-Ridder newspapers.   Salihee, a physician, had taken a rare day off and planned to take his wife and daughter swimming.   He went to get gasoline and was returning home at midmorning.   By then, U.S. troops were conducting a military operation in his neighborhood.   It appears he did not see them until it was too late.

The route he chose was not blocked off and there was no sign warning motorists to halt, witnesses say.   As he neared the scene of the military operation, a U.S. Army sniper fired at his car.   One bullet hit a tire.   The other hit Salihee in the forehead.   That bullet also severed fingers on his right hand, indicating he was holding up at least one of his hands at the time he was killed.   U.S. officials are investigating the shooting.

Salihee's widow, Raghad al Wazzan, said she accepted the American soldiers' presence when they first arrived in Iraq because "they came and liberated us."   She sometimes helped them at the hospital where she works as a doctor.   But not anymore.

"Now, after they killed my husband, I hate them," she said.   "I want to blow them all up."

Members of a California battalion in Iraq are under investigation for alleged abuse of detainees and extortion of merchants.

A company of the California Army National Guard has been put on restricted duty and its battalion plunged into disarray amid allegations that battalion members mistreated detainees in Iraq and extorted shopkeepers, according to military officials and members of the unit.

Col. David Baldwin, a California state Guard spokesman, confirmed Tuesday that investigations are underway into the allegations of mistreatment of prisoners by members of Fullerton-based Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment.

The company, made up of roughly 130 soldiers, is deployed at Forward Operating Base Falcon outside Baghdad.   It has been put on restricted duty while the Army reviews its performance, Baldwin said.

Baldwin also confirmed the existence of the investigation of the alleged extortion, which involves members of another company in the battalion.

The battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Patrick Frey, has been suspended while the investigation is conducted, Baldwin said.

Soldiers from a third company in the battalion have also been "pulled back to garrison mode," a military official said.

Baldwin declined to discuss the allegations in detail or name the soldiers and officers involved.   The "National Guard cannot comment on an ongoing U.S. Army investigation," he said.

Capt. Daniel Markert, commander of the battalion's rear detachment at its Modesto headquarters, said that word of the investigation has begun reaching soldiers' families in California.   One family, he said, had called him to report that their "son was in trouble" and to pass along a request from the soldier's attorney to begin obtaining "character statements" on his behalf.

"What we have been told," Markert said, "is that there is an investigation underway involving very serious violations of the Uniform Military Code."

Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., the U.S. commander of military forces in Baghdad, is overseeing the investigation.

"In the eyes of the military, these soldiers are innocent until proven guilty," Task Force Baghdad spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said in an interview from Baghdad.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Division and other military officials have ordered soldiers not to discuss the investigations, and many of the troops are anxious, according to one member of the battalion who spoke on condition of anonymity.

One high-ranking officer held a meeting with company leaders in recent weeks and declared that "this is us against them," — active-duty Army investigators versus part-time "citizen soldiers" from the National Guard — said the battalion member.

"There is a lot of fear," a second member of the battalion said.   "There is a lot of uncertainty."

Members of the battalion caused a stir last year when several were quoted in a Times story expressing concerns that their training was poor and inadequate.   Some soldiers in the battalion blame its current woes on their allegedly poor training.

"This is a battalion that is just rotting," one said.   "There is no trust in each other.   There is no confidence in leadership."

Boylan said the allegations have nothing to do with the military's efforts to prepare National Guard troops for war.

"It is not a matter of training," he said.   "It comes down to a matter of right and wrong."

Among the allegations now under investigation is that at least six soldiers from the battalion took part in a scheme to extort money from Iraqi shopkeepers, apparently in exchange for protection from insurgents.

The payments allegedly exceeded $30,000, two sources said, and were made in U.S. currency, according to one member of the battalion who has been briefed on the investigation.   Another soldier said the scheme allegedly was carried out during night patrols in the Baghdad area.

It is unclear whether any soldier has been charged in connection with those allegations.

The military revealed earlier this month that 11 U.S. soldiers have been charged with dereliction of duty in connection with the alleged mistreatment of detainees in Iraq but did not identify their names or unit.   Baldwin confirmed on Tuesday that the soldiers are members of Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment.

Boylan said some of the soldiers were also charged with mistreatment of a person under their control, assault and making a false statement.   One soldier was charged with obstruction of justice.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Division will determine whether the soldiers will face court-martial.

Two members of the battalion who spoke on condition of anonymity said that as many as 17 soldiers are now under investigation in connection with the alleged mistreatment of detainees.   All but one of the detainees who were allegedly abused have been released from custody.

Stun Gun used to abuse or torture

The alleged abuse took place after an attack by insurgents in June on a Baghdad-area power plant, military officials said.   The bulk of the investigation appears to be focused on an incident in which an electric stun gun was used to abuse or torture Iraqi detainees, several sources within the battalion said.

"They did a pretty good job on them," one soldier said.

The use of a stun gun to abuse one detainee — a man who had been handcuffed and blindfolded — was captured on videotape, one soldier said.   A soldier happened upon the tape while using the computer, a member of the battalion said.

Separately, the first sergeant of another of the battalion's companies has been relieved of duty after being accused of mistreating an Iraqi detainee, military officials said.   The sergeant's identity could not be confirmed.

Sources within the battalion said the sergeant is accused of shooting a water heater during an interrogation, then turning to an Iraqi detainee and saying: "You're next."   The sergeant then held his pistol to the man's head, moved it a few inches to the side and fired, sources said.

The first sergeant holds an important position of authority in a company and is largely responsible for overseeing the preparedness and welfare of the soldiers in the unit — "bullets and beans," in the vernacular of the Army.

There are conflicting reports about the status of many of the battalion's soldiers.

One source within the battalion said soldiers from Alpha Company have been removed from standard infantry duties, such as night patrol and convoy protection, and are now restricted to the base and are guarding its gates.   Another source offered a different version of the status of those soldiers, saying that while they are restricted to the base, they were merely swapped out of patrol duties as part of a standard rotation.

When members of the battalion complained last year of inadequate preparation and supplies, they cited a shortage of night-vision goggles and little guidance in guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs.

The Army conducted a brief investigation and concluded that the soldiers, while not "finely honed," were being prepared adequately for battle.   Army commanders blamed the strife on the government's need to shore up its strained military by turning part-time National Guard soldiers into front-line combat troops.

David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland, said it is possible that the soldiers received inadequate training, but training complaints cannot explain the allegations of widespread misconduct.

"Soldiers who were not trained well still know the difference between right and wrong," he said.   "It sounds like it's something beyond insufficient training.   I'm inclined to think the problems existed before they were called up for Iraq … a more general problem in the culture of the battalion."

The allegations come at a difficult time for the California National Guard, which has become beset with infighting and is being investigated by the state Senate for allegedly "monitoring" a Mother's Day antiwar rally at Sacramento.

Frey, the suspended commander, is a decorated soldier who took command of the battalion last summer, shortly before its deployment.

According to published reports, Frey served as a Marine during the Vietnam War and participated in the evacuation of Saigon.   He later served as a U.S. Army lieutenant and a Special Forces officer in the Army Reserve.

He has been lauded by the military in recent months for his outreach efforts in Iraq.

In March, he took some of his soldiers to the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Al-Dora to distribute shoes to poor children.

Gold reported from Houston and Tempest from Sacramento.

Witnesses testify that the soldiers unmuzzled military dogs at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in a game to get prisoners to soil themselves.

FT. MEADE, Md. — Military dog handlers at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq engaged in a competition to see which one could make inmates defecate and urinate on themselves, witnesses testified Tuesday at a preliminary hearing for two soldiers.

Army Sgts. Michael J. Smith, 24, and Santos A. Cardona, 31, are accused of using unmuzzled dogs to frighten prisoners.   One inmate was bitten by a dog, according to the testimony.

Witnesses against the dog handlers included two soldiers previously convicted of abusing prisoners at the American-run military prison near Baghdad.   Defense lawyers challenged their testimony and said they were trying to reduce their own sentences in exchange for their cooperation in the dog case.

Pvt. Ivan L. Frederick, who is serving an 8-year sentence at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., testified via telephone that a dog handled by Cardona bit a prisoner on both thighs.   His account was corroborated by another convicted soldier, Pvt. Sabrina Harman.

The inmate, Frederick said, was suspected of hiding weapons in his cell and had tried to attack another soldier who had entered his cell.

Frederick also said the defendants talked about a "game" to see "who could get the most detainees to urinate on themselves using the dogs."   Frederick said they were "laughing about it."

According to Army charge sheets, they are accused of maltreating detainees from Nov. 15, 2003, to Jan. 15, 2004 by "directing, encouraging, or permitting [their] unmuzzled military working dog[s] to bark and growl at detainees in order to unlawfully harass and threaten the detainees and in order to make the detainees urinate or defecate on themselves."

Cardona, of Fullerton, with the 42nd Military Police Detachment in Ft. Bragg, N.C., has been charged with nine counts. Smith, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with the 523rd Military Police Detachment in Ft. Riley, Kan., has been charged with 14 counts.

If convicted, Smith faces up to 29 1/2 years in a military brig, a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank to private, and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.   Cardona faces 16 1/2 years in jail and the same other penalties.

Frighten two juvenile detainees, 10 and 14 years old, who screamed in fear

Spc. John Ketzer, an interrogator at the Iraqi prison, testified by phone that a dog was used to frighten two juvenile detainees, described as about 10 and 14 years old, who screamed in fear.   Ketzer could not identify the dog handler by name but provided a description.

One of the counts against Smith accuses him of "an assault upon two juvenile detainees by unlawfully threatening them with a means or force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm."

In addition to Cardona and Smith, there were three Navy dog handlers assigned to Abu Ghraib.

Defense lawyers raised the possibility of mistaken identity, suggesting that witnesses might have confused the defendants with other dog handlers.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Aston, who oversaw a team of five interrogators at Abu Ghraib, said in phone testimony that on the night that Saddam Hussein was captured, his interrogators asked for the presence of military working dogs for one of three detainees who had arrived.   It was unclear from the testimony whether the detainee was connected with Hussein's capture.

Aston said he asked Col. Thomas M. Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade at Abu Ghraib, for permission to use dogs.   Aston said Pappas gave him permission but said that the dogs, when inside the interrogation booth, had to be muzzled.   He went over these ground rules with Cardona and Smith, Aston said.

That night, one dog was unmuzzled but did not enter the interrogation booth; it remained outside, by the door, close enough to "surprise and shock" the detainee, Aston said.

Harvey Volzer, a Washington lawyer representing Cardona, said his client and Smith were following orders from higher-ranking officers.

You know it happened

"You know it happened," Volzer said, referring to the fact that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top ground commander in Iraq, knew and approved of the use of dogs in the Iraqi prison.

Volzer said he planned to call one or two witnesses today, including Maj. David DiNenna Sr., who could show the "approval chain" in the military.

Soon after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke and photographs showed the use of muzzled dogs to menace prisoners, Sanchez ordered that interrogators no longer expose prisoners to military dogs.

The Article 32 hearing is the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing to determine if there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed and that the accused is responsible.   The presiding officer, Maj. Glenn Simpkins of Ft. Myer, Va., will determine if the case should be referred to a general court-martial.