IRAQ PRISONER CRISIS: British Defence Secretary Mr Geoff Hoon has said he did not see the damning Red Cross report about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners until after the media storm broke last week.
And he has admitted the British government has made no specific complaints to its senior coalition partner in Washington about the revelations which even loyal Labour MPs believe are now threatening their political project in Iraq and further endangering British and American troops serving there.
Mr Hoon's clarification and concession came in an interview on BBC Radio 4's PM programme last night after a Commons statement in which he robustly defended the Blair government against charges of "complacency" over the concerns and allegations separately raised by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Amnesty International.
Downing Street confirmed at the weekend that the ICRC report had been received in February. However, Mr Hoon told MPs it "was not seen by ministers until very recently" because the concerns raised specific to British troops had already been dealt with.
The three specific concerns related to the death of Baha Mousa in custody last September, into which an inquiry had already begun; the routine hooding of prisoners, which Mr Hoon said had ended in September; and the confiscation of a prisoner's car, resulting in the issue of a claim form to which there had been no further response.
Vowing that any troops guilty of abuse would be "rooted out and dealt with", Mr Hoon said 15 of 33 cases investigated so far had been resolved "with no case to answer", while decisions on prosecutions in two cases were imminent.
However - while again casting doubt on the authenticity of pictures published by the Daily Mirror last week - Mr Hoon also seemed to confirm that some British personnel were also facing allegations of abuse involving sexual humiliation.
Mr Hoon repeated Prime Minister Blair's unreserved apology to any Iraqis who had been mistreated, and insisted the British government "would have no objection whatsoever" if the ICRC decided to publish its interim report of last February.
At the same time the Defence Secretary sought to rally the House when he declared: "The unauthorised actions of a very few must not be allowed to undermine the outstanding work of tens of thousands of British soldiers and civilians."
However, Mr Hoon failed to convince the Conservative front bench, which continued to distance itself from the government's handling of the post-conflict situation in Iraq. He also came under repeated questioning about the position of his Armed Forces Minister, Mr Adam Ingram, who told MPs last Tuesday he had received no "adverse or other reports" about the behaviour of British troops.
And he was pressed by former foreign secretary Mr Robin Cook, who insisted the ICRC report was "not about individual cases" but concluded rather that abuse had followed a "consistent pattern" and been "systematic".
Disturbingly for 10 Downing Street, Labour loyalist Mr David Winnick warned Mr Hoon that Britain and America were now in danger of "losing the peace" and demanded the resignation of US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld.
Shadow defence secretary Mr Nicholas Soames said if Mr Hoon had not known about the ICRC report, "he most emphatically should have done and he is unacceptably complacent and negligent in not having done so".
Senior editors at the BBC have been cleared by an internal inquiry into the broadcaster's coverage of Iraq's weapons threat.
The BBC declined to comment on the fate of individual employees, saying only that none had been dismissed.