THE US/IRAQ: President Bush will give a prime-time speech tonight to explain his Iraq policy and prepare Americans for "the difficult challenges ahead". The effort by the White House to regain the initiative in its Iraq policy comes as new allegations surface of high-level approval of abuse in Iraqi prisons, Conor O'Clery in New York reports
The Washington Post yesterday quoted claims from a company commander that the highest ranking US military commander in Iraq, Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, was aware of the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison.
It said a military lawyer stated at an open hearing on April 2nd that Capt Donald Reese told him Gen Sanchez and other senior military officers were aware of the ill-treatment of detainees.
The military lawyer, Captain Robert Shuck, represents Sgt Ivan "Chip" Frederick, one of seven guards facing courts martial for abusing Iraqi inmates.
The Pentagon yesterday denied the claim against Gen Sanchez, who testified to Congressional committees last week that he was unaware of the abuses until he ordered an investigation in January.
According to the transcript of the April hearing in Baghdad Capt John McCabe, the military prosecutor, asked Capt Shuck: "Are you saying Capt Reese is going to testify that Gen Sanchez was there and saw this going on?" "That's what he told me," Capt Shuck replied.
Capt Shuck also reportedly told the hearing that Capt Carolyn Wood, supervisor of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib, was "involved in intensive interrogations of detainees, condoned some of the activities and stressed that was standard procedure what the accused was doing".
Time Magazine reported yesterday that members of the Senate Armed Forces Committee believe their copy of the 6,000-page report on prison abuses produced by Maj Gen Antonio Taguba is missing about 2,000 pages.
"We'd certainly like to know why they're missing," said Republican Senator John McCain.
Newsweek claimed that in a crucial memo written four months after the September 11th, 2001, terror attacks, Justice Department lawyers advised that President Bush and the US military did not have to comply with any international laws in the handling of detainees in the war on terrorism.
The State Department reportedly protested about the memo, written by Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty, which argued that no international laws, "including the normally observed laws of war", applied to the United States because they did not have any status under federal law.
As he copes with the fall-out from the prison scandal, Mr Bush is also facing disaffection in Republican ranks over the situation in Iraq.
He was criticised yesterday by a leading Republican senator for not doing enough to combat terrorism and failing to offer solid plans for Iraq's future.
Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: "To win the war against terrorism, the US must assign economic and diplomatic capabilities the same strategic priority that we assign to military capabilities."
Mr Bush's speech tonight in Pennsylvania is the first in a series designed to counter the setbacks suffered by the president in recent weeks.
A White House spokesman said the speech would outline specific steps on security, sovereignty, diplomacy, humanitarian aid and improving Iraq's infrastructure.
Meanwhile the administration's split with Mr Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi Governing Council member once promoted as the leader of a liberated Iraq, is causing a political storm in Washington. Mr Chalabi yesterday denied charges that he had passed sensitive US information to Iran intelligence, and blamed CIA director Mr George Tenet of waging a campaign against him.
The attacks on Mr Chalabi have severely embarrassed his backers in the Pentagon, who provided funding for his Iraqi National Congress Party until this month.