US compounds own problems in Iraq, moderates say

[dArKeR]

AP , BAGHDAD
Friday, May 07, 2004,Page 6

In the year since American troops rolled into Baghdad, moderate Iraqis have counseled patience to allow Washington time to deliver on its promise to replace Saddam Hussein's dictatorship with democratic rule. Others dismissed the occupiers as "infidels" from whom nothing good could come.

Photographs showing Iraqi prisoners sexually humiliated by smiling American guards, combined with long-standing complaints of heavy handedness and cultural insensitivity by US troops, have lent significant weight to the radical camp, compounding problems faced by Washington as it prepares to hand back power to Iraqis while dealing with Shiite and Sunni revolts.

The US military and top officials in President George W. Bush's administration have strongly condemned the abuses, emphasizing they were the work of a small number of soldiers. The military in Iraq also decided to grant the international Red Cross and Iraq's ministries of interior and human rights regular access to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

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