NEW YORK - U.S. military police stacked Iraqi prisoners in a human pyramid,
and attached wires to one detainee to convince him he might be
electrocuted, according to photographs obtained by CBS News which led to
criminal charges against six American soldiers.

CBS said the photos, to be shown Wednesday night on "60 Minutes II," were
taken late last year at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, where American
soldiers were holding hundreds of prisoners captured during the invasion
and occupation of Iraq.

In March, the U.S. Army announced that six members of the 800th Military
Police Brigade faced court martial for allegedly abusing about 20 prisoners
at Abu Ghraib. The charges included dereliction of duty, cruelty and
maltreatment, assault and indecent acts with another person.

In addition to those criminal charges, the military has recommended
disciplinary action against seven U.S. officers who helped run the prison,
including Brig. Gen. Janice Karpinski, the commander of the 800th Brigade,
a senior military official said Wednesday in Baghdad.

The investigation recommended administrative action against several of the
commanders, which could include punishments up to relieving them of their
commands, said the official, speaking on condition on anonymity.

When the abuse charges were first announced, U.S. military officials
declined to provide details about the evidence. But on Wednesday, at a news
briefing in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said the investigation began
in January when an American soldier reported the abuse and turned over
evidence that included photographs.

"That soldier said, 'There are some things going on here that I can't live
with,'" said Kimmitt, who also confirmed that CBS had obtained the
photographs.

One picture, according to CBS, shows an Iraqi prisoner who was told to
stand on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his hands. CBS
said the prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be
electrocuted.

In another photograph, CBS said, prisoners' bodies were stacked in a
pyramid, and one man had a slur written in English on his skin.

The Army ordered an investigation into the actions of 17 soldiers from the
800th Brigade, which is based in Uniondale, N.Y. Ten were investigated for
criminal actions, six of whom were charged in March.

The other seven were officers who faced an administrative investigation.
Those officers have received copies of the probe and will now have the
chance to rebut the claims, with a final decision expected within a month,
the senior military official said.

In an interview with CBS correspondent Dan Rather, Kimmitt said the
photographs were dismaying.

"We're appalled," Kimmitt said. "These are our fellow soldiers, these are
the people we work with every day, they represent us, they wear the same
uniform as us, and they let their fellow soldiers down."

"If we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with
dignity and respect, we can't ask that other nations do that to our
soldiers," Kimmitt said.

"60 Minutes II" identified one of the implicated soldiers as Army Reserve
Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, who described to Rather what he saw in the Iraqi
prison.

"We had no support, no training whatsoever, and I kept asking my chain of
command for certain things, rules and regulations, and it just wasn't
happening," Frederick said, according to a CBS News release.

"60 Minutes II" also quoted from an e-mail which Frederick reportedly sent
to his family in which he said of Iraqi prisoners: "We've had a very high
rate with our styles of getting them to break; they usually end up breaking
within hours."

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, said in March
that many former detainees in Iraq claimed to have been tortured and ill-
treated by coalition troops during interrogation.

Methods often reported, it said, included prolonged sleep deprivation,
beatings, exposure to loud music and prolonged periods of being covered by
a hood.

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