British troops were told to treat POWs in Iraq properly: commanding officer

OSNABRUECK, Germany, Jan 25 (AFP) - The overall commanding officer of three British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi civilians said on Tuesday he had warned his troops on the eve of the US-led invasion that they must treat prisoners of war properly.
Colonel David Paterson was giving evidence on the sixth day of the soldiers' court martial at an army base in Germany which has put the conduct of British soldiers in Iraq under the microscope.
Defence lawyers say unclear orders from their officers left the accused unsure about how severely they should treat Iraqi looters caught stealing food aid from a complex of food warehouses known as Camp Bread Basket in Basra, southern Iraq, in May 2003.
Photographs taken by soldiers at the complex recall abuses by US guards at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and the hearing comes at a sensitive time for British forces in Iraq where a general election is taking place on Sunday.
Under questioning from the defence, Paterson said he had stood on an armoured personnel carrier in Kuwait in March 2003 to address more than 1,300 troops from the First Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers as they were about to cross into Iraq.
He told them "we would be an army of liberation and not of conquest".
"I wanted my troops to be absolutely clear that it was not something to be taken lightly and prisoners of war were to be treated properly," he said.
Stephen Vullo, defending Lance Corporal Mark Cooley, asked Paterson if he had wanted to use the speech to "repair the damage" caused by a US commander, Lieutenant General David McKiernan, in his pre-invasion address to coalition troops.
The court heard that McKiernan said that if prisoners of war were caught, soldiers should "slap them on their skinny asses and send them back down the road".
Paterson said he could not comment on McKiernan's speech, but he had wanted to leave his soldiers in no doubt as to the approach to take.
The soldiers' immediate commanding officer, Major Dan Taylor, has admitted he ordered that looters caught at the complex should be "worked hard" in a bid to deter them from stealing again.
The court has heard that forcing civilian detainees to do unpaid work contravenes the Geneva Convention.
The prosecution alleges the soldiers went much further than Taylor's orders by simulating violent attacks on detainees and forcing them to simulate sex for a series of photographs.
Taylor told the court earlier that he had destroyed notebooks about the activities at Camp Bread Basket just two weeks ago because he was "downsizing" after moving house from Germany to England.
Regimental Sergeant Major Wilton Brown, who had previously been in charge of the accused, said Iraqi looters had been made to "jog" back into the compound carrying boxes of food they had stolen but said he had not seen them being prodded in the legs to make them run faster.
Brown was shown photographs of Iraqis with the food boxes on their heads with soldiers next to them holding cam poles, which are used to support camouflage netting for tanks.
Questioned by Joseph Giret, defending Corporal Daniel Kenyon, Brown admitted these were "trophy photographs" but he said he saw nothing wrong with taking them.
Giret said: "The problem is that it sets a very bad example to the rank and file. The men no longer treat it as a military operation as soon as the trophy photos start to be taken."
The soldiers face a total of nine charges ranging from assault to indecency.
Kenyon and Cooley deny all charges, while Lance Corporal Darren Larkin admits one assault but denies another charge.
The hearing, which is expected to run until mid-February, was adjourned until Wednesday.

01/25/2005 18:11 GMT - AFP