PRISONER ABUSE Bush has vague reply to query on torture

Dog handlers at Abu Ghraib prison reportedly were involved in a contest.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Thursday that he ordered American troops to follow U.S. laws and international treaties banning torture, but he sidestepped a question about whether torture was ever justified.
Bush also said he couldn't remember whether he'd seen an advisory memo by a top Justice Department official that said torture was sometimes legally permissible in wartime, despite treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, which consider torture or inhumane treatment to be war crimes.
"The authorization I issued ... was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would conform to international treaty obligations," Bush told reporters at the conclusion of the G-8 Summit in Sea Island, Ga.
No direct answer
Asked whether torture was ever justified, Bush was vague.
"The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you," Bush replied. "We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you."
Bush's remarks came as the investigation into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners escalated. Apparently recognizing that the scandal goes beyond six rogue military police officers and might involve senior officials, the head of U.S. coalition forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, asked to be recused from the probe so that he could be questioned in connection to it.
Ashcroft in sights
Senate Democrats were preparing to bear down on Attorney General John Ashcroft, who earlier in the week refused lawmakers' requests for Justice Department memos on torture.
Although the contents of the memo have been leaked to various news organizations, Ashcroft refused to release them to the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying the Justice Department's legal advice for the president and the executive branch must remain confidential.
Terrorizing contest
Meanwhile, it was reported that U.S. intelligence personnel ordered military dog handlers at the Abu Ghraib prison to use unmuzzled dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees during interrogations late last year, a plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the facility, according to sworn statements the handlers provided to military investigators.
A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were "having a contest" to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs, according to the previously undisclosed statements obtained by The Washington Post.
Other developments in Iraq:
* U.S. troops held off intervening when Shiite gunmen loyal to a radical cleric ranksacked an Iraqi police station in the holy city of Najaf, saying the fighting was too close to Shiite shrines and the situation was unclear. Coalition forces came under fire in another Shiite city south of Baghdad.
But American soldiers clashed Thursday with other militants loyal to the cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, in Baghdad's Sadr City. At least one militant was shot and killed by a U.S. tank as he prepared to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the Americans.
* The U.S. command announced today that an American soldier died of wounds suffered in an ambush in eastern Baghdad. Four other soldiers were wounded in the Wednesday night attack. More than 820 U.S. service members have died since the Iraq conflict began March 2003.
* A roadside bomb exploded Thursday evening near a convoy of sport utility vehicles favored by Westerners in Iraq. There was no official conformation of casualties, but pools of blood could be seen around a wrecked vehicle.
* A majority of American registered voters now say conditions in Iraq did not merit war, but most are reluctant to abandon efforts there, according to a new Los Angeles Times poll. Fifty-three percent of respondents said the situation in Iraq did not merit war, while 43 percent said war was justified.
* South Korea plans to deploy 3,600 troops to an area around Irbil in northern Iraq by late August, a Defense Ministry official said today, as pressure mounted on the government to reconsider the long-delayed dispatch.