According to the Associated Press (AP) news service, General George Casey, America’s top US commander in Iraq, wrote a memo on June 22 saying he had received reports of serious prisoner abuse.
The document is dated well before the shocking discovery of 173 bruised and malnourished detainees who been held in a clandestine facility inside Iraq’s interior ministry on November 13.
Some of the inmates reportedly showed signs of having been tortured.
After stumbling upon the bunker in a search for a missing teenage boy who was not found, US and Iraqi forces began a joint investigation into the prison.
Checks on conditions at all other Iraqi-run detention facilities were also ordered.
But according to the AP, General Casey had issued a policy memorandum five months earlier on the importance of Iraqi security forces being trained to respect the rule of law and basic human rights.
“Over the past several months I have received reports of serious physical abuse of detainees by ISF,” the general reportedly wrote, using the acronym for the Iraqi security forces.
“Abuse of detainees by ISF is a violation of Iraqi law and counterproductive to our intended efforts here.”
In the wake of the interior ministry prison scandal, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asked his military commanders to clarify the circumstances under which American troops are obliged to intervene to stop abuse that may be witnessed being carried out by Iraqi counterparts.
Mr Rumsfeld has given no public indication of whether he knew about the reports of Iraqi abuse dating back to before November.