A Senate committee in the US will today question the army general who reported on abuses of Iraqi detainees by soldiers.
Following Friday's all-day questioning of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Senate Armed Services Committee will first hear from Maj Gen Antonio Taguba, who wrote a report outlining the abuses.
The committee will also question Under Secretary of Defence Stephen Cambone, who is in charge of intelligence, and other Pentagon officials about the scandal that has sparked international outrage and calls from Democrats for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation.
In his report, completed in March, Maj Gen Taguba cited the "systematic and illegal abuses of detainees," and said between October and December 2003, "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees".
Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said Maj Gen Taguba's report described "in sickening detail" the cases of mistreatment that also were shown through graphic photographs televised around the world of naked prisoners stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts at the Abu Ghraib
prison.
The hearings come as the Congress prepares to see a new set of photographs and a video that Mr Rumsfeld warned may be even more shocking.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Mr Warner, a Virginia Republican, asked the Pentagon to hold off on delivering the classified material until legal questions are answered on how it could affect criminal investigations, privacy protections and other issues, his spokesman said.
The Senate yesterday unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution condemning the mistreatment. It also said the government should conduct a full investigation of abuses and take measures to see they do not happen again, with oversight by congressional committees.