The US commander for detention facilities in Iraq said Saturday there were no immediate plans to close the notorious Abu Ghraib prison after guards brutally abused detainees there.
"Currently, we will continue to operate at the Abu Ghraib facility," said Major General Geoffrey Miller amid calls from US politicians to shut it down. "If there are decisions about removing us from that facility, probably we will move to our facility at Camp Bucca," near the port of Umm Qasr in southern Iraq.
Miller said he wanted to reduce Abu Ghraib's population from 3,800 inmates to between 1,500 and 2,000 as he sought to undo the damage caused by images of abuse which have shocked the world.
As part of that push, Miller said 350 detainees had been released last week and another 350 were about to be freed.
The general, who previously headed the Guantanomo Bay detention facility, defended his August-September mission to Abu Ghraib near Baghdad in which he sought to teach his methods for extracting intelligence to the military in Iraq.
He denied his advice had any impact on the rampant abuse in October and November that climaxed in prison guards posing detainees in sexually humiliating positions, including tying a naked and hooded Iraqi to a leash and stacking naked detainees in a pyramid.
"There was no recommendation ... by this team - the team that I had here in August and September - that recommended that the MPs (military police) become actively involved in interrogation, in the interrogation booth," he said.
Miller said his 30-member team of experts recommended guards relay the behaviour patterns of detainees to interrogators but that their advice did not go beyond that passive form of intelligence gathering.
The 17 soldiers and officers, currently suspended from their duties and facing possible court-martials and career-killing reprimands, claim the wing where the abuses took place were under the control of military intelligence who encouraged guards to "soften" detainees up.
Miller said guards were now receiving training from a team of the military's top 31 corrections officers who will give tutorials on how to treat detainees and run a facility.
He also said the International Committee of the Red Cross has been invited to have a permanent presence at Abu Ghraib and share its reports with Iraq's interim government.
"Our activities must demonstrate our adherence to the Geneva Conventions," he said.
Miller also said he was coming with a plan to compensate prisoners who had suffered abuse at the hands of guards at Abu Ghraib.
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