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The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.
One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: "It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing."
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Using sexual jibes and degradation, along with stripping naked, is one of the methods taught on both sides of the Atlantic under the slogan "prolong the shock of capture", he said.
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The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops.
"The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11."
We know who to blame for that last part. As for the torture?
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An American general recommended that Army prison guards in Iraq become more involved in ``softening up'' prisoners for interrogations shortly before abuses occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison last fall, according to an internal report at the heart of the controversy.
It is a role that military police are not trained to perform and are prohibited from doing, the Army says; that led members of Congress to press Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday, largely unsuccessfully, for details on what role MPs played at the troubled prison.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Rumsfeld whether military intelligence or the MPs' direct commanders had authority over the military police prison guards at Abu Ghraib and what the MPs' instructions were.
Rumsfeld said authority over the guards had ``shifted over a period of time.''