Army general is said to urge use of dogs to scare prisoners

WASHINGTON -- A US Army general dispatched by senior Pentagon officials to bolster the collection of intelligence from prisoners in Iraq last fall inspired and promoted the use of guard dogs there to frighten the Iraqis, according to sworn testimony by the top US intelligence officer at the Abu Ghraib prison.

According to the officer, Colonel Thomas Pappas, the idea came from Major General Geoffrey Miller, who at the time commanded the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and was implemented under a policy approved by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top US military official in Iraq.

''It was a technique I had personally discussed with General Miller, when he was here" visiting the prison, testified Pappas, head of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the officer placed in charge of the cellblocks at Abu Ghraib prison where abuses occurred in the wake of Miller's visit to Baghdad between Aug. 30 and Sept. 9, 2003.

''He said that they used military working dogs at Gitmo [Guantanamo Bay], and that they were effective in setting the atmosphere for which, you know, you could get information" from the prisoners, Pappas told the Army investigator, Major General Antonio M. Taguba, said a transcript provided to the Post.

Pappas, who was under pressure from Taguba to justify the legality and appropriateness of using guard dogs to frighten detainees, said at two separate points in the Feb. 9 interview that Miller gave him the idea.

Miller, appointed as the new head of Abu Ghraib this month, denied through a spokesman that the conversation took place. ''Further, military dogs were never used in interrogations at Guantanamo," said Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, spokesman for US forces in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports today that a US Army summary of deaths and mistreatment of prisoners in military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals a widespread pattern of abuse that began earlier and continued longer than previously known.

One of the oldest cases involved the death of a prisoner in Afghanistan in December 2002 when enlisted active-duty Army personnel and members of an Ohio reserve unit were involved in ''assaulting and mistreating the detainee." The most recent was last month, when a prisoner detained by Navy commandos in Iraq died in a suspected case of homicide attributed to ''blunt force trauma to the torso and positional asphyxia," according the Army summary, dated May 5.

Pappas's statements provide the fullest public account to date of how he viewed the interrogation mission at Abu Ghraib and Miller's impact on operations there. Pappas said, among other things, that interrogation plans involving the use of dogs, shackling, ''making detainees strip down," or similar aggressive measures followed Sanchez's policy, but were often approved by Sanchez's deputy, Major General Walter Wodjakowski, or by himself.

The claims and counterclaims between Pappas and Miller concern one of the most notorious aspects of US actions at Abu Ghraib, as revealed in pictures taken by military personnel that became public late last month. The pictures show unmuzzled dogs being used to intimidate Abu Ghraib detainees, while the prisoners are cowering, naked, against a wall.