'Inhumane' interrogation over
2004-05-15 14:54
Baghdad - The US military said it had scrapped inhumane interrogation techniques used in Iraq as casualties mounted in violence across the country on Saturday ahead of the June 30 transfer of sovereignty.
Defence officials revealed that in the wake of the prisoner abuse scandal the US commander in Iraq scrapped controversial interrogation methods after a senior Pentagon official admitted they were "not humane".
The order to soften the prisoner interrogation procedures, issued by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez on Thursday, coincided with an unexpected trip to the Iraqi capital by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"On May 13, General Sanchez modified the policy," said a senior military official who spoke to reporters on Friday on condition of anonymity. "The May 13 policy took out certain techniques - I'm sorry, certain approaches, which were not being used in any event."
The move follows an outcry in the US congress over an interrogation policy approved for Iraqi detainees late last year, which some legal experts said paid scant regard to the Geneva Conventions.
The classified guidelines that surfaced at congressional hearings this past week allowed US military intelligence to seek permission to use "dietary manipulation", or food denial, place detainees in "stress positions" for up to 45 minutes and deny them sleep for up to three days in a row.
They also made it possible to threaten inmates with military dogs and resort to so-called "sensory deprivation", a euphemism for placing hoods over their heads for up to 72 hours.