WASHINGTON, June 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – U.S. soldiers were ordered to use dogs to intimidate Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison last year, with the plan approved by the highest-ranking military intelligence officer at the notorious facility, investigations revealed Friday, June 11.

The sworn statements the dog handlers provided to military investigators coincided with a U.S. poll conducted by Los Angeles Times unveiled that a majority of Americans found that the Iraq situation did not merit a military offensive.

A military intelligence interrogator 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 of the handlers obtained by The Washington Post Friday.

The two handlers, Sgts. Michael Smith and Santos Cardona, told investigators that military intelligence personnel requested that they bring their dogs to prison interrogation sites multiple times to assist in questioning detainees in December and January, the American daily said.

In mid-December, the two dog handlers took their dogs – mainly used for searching for explosives - to an interrogation booth holding a detainee. Interrogators told them the dogs did not need to be muzzled.

"When we got to the room the detainee was sitting in the doorway, with his feet in the doorway and the door was open," Smith told the investigators, according to the Post.

"My dog and Sgt. Cardona's dog were both barking at the detainee and we never got closer than 18 inches. Neither dog had a muzzle on."

Also the same month, the dog handlers said they were asked by one of a Staff Sgt. for help in dealing with an uncooperative detainee.

Part of what followed was captured in photographs that have come to define the abuse at Abu Ghraib: A naked prisoner was up against a wall, two dogs squaring off against him.

"The first dog bit my leg and injured me there and this was bad luck. The bite from the first dog caused me to have 12 stitches from the doctor of my left leg as a result I lost a lot of blood, said the detainee, identified in the documents as Ballendia Sadawi Mohammed.

The newly obtained documents reinforce the picture that the abuse falls into two categories: sexual humiliation and beatings at the hands of military personnel, and intimidation using dogs that is clearly tied to military intelligence, said the statements carried by the American daily.

"I remember one of the males saying to the detainee, if the detainee did not provide the information the guy was asking about, then he would have me let . . . my dog go on him," said Master-at-Arms 1st Class William J. Kimbro, another Navy dog handler.

The sexual abuse happened weeks and even months before the dog incidents, some of which appear to be part of an organized strategy by U.S. military intelligence to scare detainees into talking, according to the statements carried by the American daily.

The dog handlers arrived at Abu Ghraib in late November, sometime after the abuse of detainees had been captured in photographs, including the images of the naked human pyramid and forced masturbation.

An Iraqi detainee intimidated by a U.S. soldier using a trained dog

Colonel Thomas Pappas, who was in charge of military intelligence at the prison, told both soldiers that the use of dogs in interrogations had been approved, according to the statements.

In Army memos regarding interrogation techniques at the prison, the daily said, the use of military working dogs was specifically allowed - as long as higher-ranking officers approved the measures.

According to one military intelligence memo obtained by The Post, the officer in charge of the military intelligence-run interrogation center at the prison had to approve the use of dogs in interrogations.

The paper said the army previously has said that the commanding general of U.S. troops in Iraq - Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez - would have had to approve the use of dogs.

"Using dogs to frighten and intimidate prisoners is a violation of the Geneva Convention," said Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First, an international organization based in New York, was quoted by the Post as saying.

"It's a violation of U.S. policy as stated in the Army field manual, and it's a violation of the prohibition against cruel treatment."

Bush and top Pentagon officials have said the criminal abuse at Abu Ghraib was confined to a small group of rogue military police soldiers who stripped detainees naked, beat them and photographed them in humiliating sexual poses.

But an Army investigation into the abuse included the use of unmuzzled dogs to frighten detainees among the "intentional abuse," said the investigation results.

This came as a majority of American registered voters said in a poll that conditions in Iraq did not merit the invasion of the oil-rich country.

In perhaps the most emphatic measure of anxiety about Iraq, 53% said they did not think the situation there merited the war; 43% said it did.

When LA Times polls asked that question in November and March, the numbers were essentially reversed.

Less than 20 percent said America should withdraw its troops within weeks, and 25 percent said the U.S. should set a deadline for pulling out.

"I never thought we should go to war in Iraq," said Anne Wardwell, a retired museum curator in Cleveland who responded to the poll.

"But I think we have to see it through, because if we don't it is going to be a disaster in the region."