The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has summoned Army officials to face his panel today to address the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. troops. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the pictures that’ve surfaced of smiling American soldiers behind stacks of naked, hooded Iraqi prisoners is a disgusting outrage. Grassley says “The United States’ strong point in the world community of nations is the high moral standard that we set.” He says this alleged incident at a prison near Baghdad shows the U.S. is hypocritical. Grassley says “We are promoting the rule of law in international as well as domestic issues. Obviously the rules of war, the Geneva standard for the treatment of prisoners, is very basic to the things we believe in. We expect other nations to abide by it as they treat our prisoners according to those rules.” Seven officers have been reprimanded and two have been relieved of duty. The military is pursuing cases involving six other soldiers. The Pentagon was reportedly looking into how prisons in Iraq were being run long before commanders learned about allegations Iraqi prisoners were being abused — as the first abuse report was dated January 13th.
