The scandal over the treatment of foreign prisoners by American soldiers widened yesterday with US army officials confirming that they have been investigating the deaths of 25 prisoners held by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, writes Conor O'Clery, North America Editor, in New York.
News of the investigations came as the Pentagon warned members of Congress that there was more to be revealed about abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, following the publication of pictures showing US soldiers grossly humiliating inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.
Two Americans, one an Army soldier and the other a civilian contractor, were responsible for two deaths, army officials said in Washington. The soldier was convicted by a courtmartial of killing a prisoner by hitting him with a rock, and was reduced in rank to private and discharged, but did not serve any jail time.
The private contractor worked for the CIA and was found to have committed the other homicide, and his fate was not stated.
Another report being investigated by Pentagon officials is that the woman soldier who was shown pointing at naked prisoners in the photographs had sexual intercourse with a military policeman in front of inmates.
Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy emerged from a briefing by Pentagon officials on Capitol Hill to say that he feared the allegations made public so far are "the beginning rather than the end" of the scandal. In further fallout from the affair, the US-appointed human rights minister in Baghdad, Mr Abdul-Basat al-Turki, has resigned in protest and demanded that Iraqi officials be allowed to participate in the running of prisons.
In Geneva the UN Commission on Human Rights has reacted by opening an investigation into civil rights in Iraq.
US officials said yesterday they had ordered the end of the use of hoods to blindfold Iraqi prisoners. The pictures taken by soldiers and first broadcast on CNN showed hooded detainees being abused at Abu Ghraib prison. Six US soldiers have been reprimanded and six others face courtmartial for their actions. Meanwhile several Iraqis who have been released from US custody have given horrifying accounts in the US media of ill-treatment and beatings.
In his first comments about the matter yesterday, the US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said: "We're taking and will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to hold accountable those that may have violated the code of military conduct and betrayed the trust placed in them by the American people."
The Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, said he believed only a "small number" of American troops had been involved and vowed they would be quickly brought to justice for the world to "observe and watch."
Because of embarrassment over the affair, the State Department has delayed the release of a human rights report due out today criticising other nations.