US forces beat three Iraqis working for Reuters and subjected them to sexual and religious taunts and humiliation during their detention last January in a military camp near Falluja, the three said on Tuesday.
The three first told Reuters of the ordeal after their release but only decided to make it public when the US military said there was no evidence they had been abused, and following the exposure of similar mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Two of the three said they had been forced to insert a finger into their anus and then lick it, and were forced to put shoes in their mouths, particularly humiliating in Arab culture.
All three said they were forced to make demeaning gestures as soldiers laughed, taunted them and took photographs. They said they did not want to give details publicly earlier because of the degrading nature of the abuse.
The soldiers told them they would be taken to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, deprived them of sleep, placed bags over their heads, kicked and hit them and forced them to remain in stress positions for long periods.
The US military, in a report issued before the Abu Ghraib abuse became public, said there was no evidence the Reuters staff had been tortured or abused.
Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of ground forces in Iraq, said in a letter received by Reuters on Monday but dated March 5 that he was confident the investigation had been "thorough and objective" and its findings were sound.
The Pentagon has yet to respond to a request by Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger to review the military's findings about the incident in light of the scandal over the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Asked for comment on Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said only: "There are a number of lines of inquiry under way with respect to prison operations in Iraq. If during the course of any inquiry, the commander believes it is appropriate to review a specific aspect of detention, he has the authority to do so."
The abuse happened at Forward Operating Base Volturno, near Falluja, the Reuters staff said. They were detained on January 2 while covering the aftermath of the shooting down of a US helicopter near Falluja and held for three days, first at Volturno and then at Forward Operating Base St Mere.
The three - Baghdad-based cameraman Salem Ureibi, Falluja-based freelance television journalist Ahmad Mohammad Hussein al-Badrani and driver Sattar Jabar al-Badrani - were released without charge on January 5.
"When I saw the Abu Ghraib photographs, I wept," Ureibi said on Tuesday. "I saw they had suffered like we had."
Ureibi, who understands English better than the other two detainees, said soldiers told him they wanted to have sex with him, and he was afraid he would be raped.
Schlesinger sent a letter to Sanchez on January 9 demanding an investigation into the treatment of the three Iraqis.
The US army said it was investigating and requested further information. Reuters provided transcripts of initial interviews with the three following their release, and offered to make them available for interview by investigators.
A summary of the investigation by the 82nd Airborne Division, dated January 28 and provided to Reuters, said "no specific incidents of abuse were found". It said soldiers responsible for the detainees were interviewed under oath and "none admit or report knowledge of physical abuse or torture".
"The detainees were purposefully and carefully put under stress, to include sleep deprivation, in order to facilitate interrogation; they were not tortured," it said. The version received on Monday used the phrase "sleep management" instead. The US military never interviewed the three for its investigation.