Commander of coalition prisons apologizes for abuse of Iraqi inmates

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq — The commander of U.S.-run prisons in Iraq apologized Wednesday for the "illegal or unauthorized acts" committed by soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs showed Iraqi prisoners being abused by smiling American guards.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller also said some interrogation techniques would be halted while others would be limited. He also invited the Red Cross to open an office at the prison.

"I would like to apologize for our nation and for our military for the small number of soldiers who committed illegal or unauthorized acts here at Abu Ghraib," Miller told Arab and Western reporters taken on a military tour of the prison.

"These are violations not only of our national policy but of how we conduct ourselves as members of the international community.

"It has brought a cloud over all the efforts of all of our soldiers and we will work our hardest to re-establish the trust that Iraqis feel for the coalition and the confidence people in American have in their military."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the spokesman for the U.S. command, also apologized.

"My Army has been embarrassed by this. My Army has been shamed by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those soldiers did to your citizens," Kimmitt said. "It was reprehensible and it was unacceptable."

President Bush was to conduct brief interviews with the U.S.-sponsored Al-Hurra television network and the Arab network Al-Arabiya on Wednesday to address Iraqi and Arab outrage at the photographs.

The prison was a notorious center for torture and killings during the rule of Saddam Hussein.

As Miller spoke to reporters in cellblock 1A, where the photos showing prisoner abuse were taken, five women inmates screamed, shouted and waved their arms through the iron bars.

"I've been here five months," one woman shouted in Arabic. "I don't belong to the resistance. I have children at home."

At a tent camp inside the prison used for detainees with medical conditions, prisoners ran out shouting at the bus of journalists. Some hobbled on crutches while one man waved his prosthetic leg in the air.

"Why? Why?" he shouted in Arabic. "Nobody has told me why I am here."

Another prisoner produced a bullhorn and read aloud a statement in English.