U.S. general faces Iraq abuse questions, groups say

By Andrew Gray

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's nominee to command U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan should face questions about detainee abuse in Iraq at his confirmation hearing, human rights groups say.

U.S. Army Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, who goes before senators for his hearing on Tuesday, has spent the past 10 months or so in a senior Pentagon desk job, but ran the secretive Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008.

During that time, troops who worked for the command committed abuses including beating detainees with rifle butts, simulated drowning, and using them for target practice in paintball games, according to a 2006 New York Times report that cited documents and interviews with more than a dozen people.

Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union have also documented reports of detainee abuse by special operations forces in Iraq.

"We hope that the questioning will focus on the command responsibility for this torture and abuse and also on the cover-up of this torture and abuse," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a surprise shake-up last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates dismissed Army General David McKiernan as the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and picked McChrystal to replace him, saying it was time for "fresh thinking."

Pentagon officials have praised McChrystal as a dynamic, creative leader and members of the Senate's Armed Services Committee, who will examine his nomination at Tuesday's hearing, have not voiced any concerns.

They are reported to have looked into reports of prisoner abuse before confirming McChrystal last year for his current job as director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.