WASHINGTON — An Army investigation disclosed Thursday that it had reviewed nearly 100 cases involving prisoners in U.S. hands who were abused or died in custody in Iraq and elsewhere, but described the misconduct as "aberrations" committed by a few soldiers -- not a systemic failure.
The report on the five-month investigation, the first of 11 inquiries sparked by sexual abuse and humiliation of war detainees in Iraq, was greeted with skepticism by Democrats and some Republicans in Congress who had expected a more critical look at the military prison system.
Some lawmakers privately questioned the timing of the report, which was released on the day the findings of the Sept. 11 commission dominated the news.
Although the investigation by Lt. Gen. Paul T. Mikolashek, the Army's inspector general, made 52 recommendations for preventing abuses in the future, it blamed the abuses on "unauthorized actions taken by a few individuals, coupled with the failure of a few leaders to provide adequate monitoring, supervision, and leadership over those soldiers."
The 94 confirmed and alleged cases -- called "regrettable" in the Mikolashek report -- reflect a higher figure than previously reported by the Pentagon, but the report says the number is small considering that 50,000 detainees were in U.S. custody worldwide. The cases include 20 deaths of detainees under U.S. military control, the report states.
However, the total number of abused prisoners is likely to be considerably higher. The report, for example, counts multiple incidents of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad as a single case.
The Mikolashek report cites serious flaws in the prison system, including a shortage of interrogators and interpreters; inadequately trained intelligence officers; and detentions lasting for longer periods than Army guidelines recommend. But the inspector general said he detected no "pattern of abuse."
The report is at odds with studies the International Committee of the Red Cross presented to the military this year concluding that the abusive tactics at Abu Ghraib -- including threatening prisoners with military dogs and forcing detainees to perform humiliating sex acts -- were done "in a systematic way."
