US/IRAQ: The International Committee of the Red Cross gathered "credible" reports that US personnel at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba abused the Koran, and raised the issue with the Pentagon several times, according to a Red Cross and US government officials in Washington.
This comes as Washington tries to defuse anger in Muslim countries over Newsweek's report that the Muslim holy book was flushed down a toilet at the Guantanamo prison in front of a detainee.
The image of US treatment of prisoners in the Muslim world received another setback yesterday with the publication for the first time of graphic details of the killing of two prisoners by US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Images of Saddam Hussein in his underwear published in the Sun and the New York Post have also complicated US efforts to show that it is not trying to humiliate and dominate its enemies.
US president George Bush said yesterday of the pictures: "I don't think a photo inspires murderers," and blamed "an ideology that's so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think".
The Red Cross claims about the disrespect for the Koran at Guantanamo were relayed to the Pentagon several times in 2002 and early 2003, Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno said. "The US government took corrective measures and those allegations have not resurfaced," he said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that in 2003 the Pentagon issued strict guidelines on how US personnel should handle the Koran and that US authorities provided detainees with the Koran, indicated the direction to Mecca, provided the call to prayer and served meals according to Muslim customs.
The Red Cross said that the fact that the organisation documented and formalised the allegations made a difference.
"We researched them and found they were credible allegations," Mr Schorno said.
Newsweek retracted its report about a Koran being flushed down a toilet, saying its official source had expressed doubts after publication.
A White House spokesman blamed the magazine for stirring up deadly riots in Afghanistan and causing "lasting damage" to the US image.
Human Rights Watch alleged in New York yesterday, however, that US interrogators repeatedly sought to offend the religious beliefs of Muslim detainees as part of their interrogation strategy.
It said the dispute over Newsweek overshadowed the fact that religious humiliation of detainees has been widespread.
It noted that on December 2nd, 2002, US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld authorised a list of techniques for interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo, which included "removal of all comfort items (including religious items)", "forced grooming (shaving of facial hair, etc.)", and "removal of clothing", each of which is considered offensive to Muslims.
It quoted Erik Saar, a former army translator at Guantanamo, that guards routinely tossed the Koran on the ground.
The account of the death of two detainees at Bagram air base in Afghanistan emerged from a 2,000 page confidential file obtained by the New York Times and published over two pages.
No one has yet been convicted of either of the deaths which occurred in late 2002.
The report described the last hours of a 22-year-old taxi driver known as Dilawar who was abused even when dying.
He was taken for interrogation four days after being chained by his wrists to the ceiling of his cell. When he asked for a drink, water was squirted in his face. His legs had been kicked so badly he could not kneel as ordered.
Mr Dilawar was taken back to his cell and chained up again. Several hours later he was dead.
Investigators later learned that most of the interrogators believed Dilawar was an innocent man who had happened to drive his taxi past the American base shortly after a rocket attack.
The other detainee to die was "Mullah" Habibullah.
He was declared in good health by a doctor when he was brought to the base, though an intelligence officer later said he was already in bad condition.
Mr Habibullah struck back at the guards and was then subjected to what was described as standard procedure: hooded, shackled and isolated for up to 72 hours of captivity.
After a series of beatings and kicks he could not sit in a chair for questioning and was coughing and complaining of chest pains.
He was chained to the ceiling again and hooded and died in this position.
The New York Times said the file depicted young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. Sometimes the torment was used to extract information, at other times through boredom or cruelty.
In sworn statements, soldiers described a female interrogator stepping on the neck of a prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals, and of a chained prisoner being forced to roll back and forth kissing the boots of two interrogators.
The dossier shows that shortly before the two deaths, observers from the Red Cross specifically complained to the military authorities at Bagram about the chaining of prisoners in "fixed positions".
The Washington Post first reported on September 3rd, 2004 that US Army investigators would recommend charges be brought against soldiers for their roles in the deaths of two Afghan detainees at Bagram.
The New York Times reported that in October 2004, the US Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offences - ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter - in the Dilawar case.
Fifteen were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case. So far only seven soldiers have been charged, including four last week.
Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes, even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides.
At one time the US commander in Afghanistan, General Daniel McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse had contributed to the two deaths.