No "systematic" abuse by UK troops in Iraq: report

LONDON (Reuters) - The British military has concluded that the killing and abuse of civilians by British troops in Iraq was not widespread but the fault of a few rogue soldiers.

Brigadier Robert Aitken, who carried out a three-year investigation into the abuses in 2003 and 2004, effectively gave the army a clean bill of health in a report released on Friday, saying that while a "tiny number" behaved extremely badly, the vast majority showed "courage, loyalty and integrity".

His findings will anger the families of four Iraqis killed at the hands of British soldiers in southern Iraq, including the relatives of Baha Musa, a young hotel worker who died under interrogation with 93 injuries to his body.

Twenty-one British soldiers and officers have been court-martialed over the deaths, but only one soldier has been convicted after he pleaded guilty.

Lawyers representing Musa's family and the families of the others killed have accused the military of protecting its own.

Parallels have been drawn with the humiliation and abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib prison. In that case, the U.S. military also concluded that the behavior was the result of a few bad apples rather than broader problems.

In his report, Aitken suggested that army interrogation techniques should be better explained to soldiers and that the army's "core values" should be better instilled in staff, but otherwise concluded that there was no "systematic abuse".

"What we're dealing with is individual instances where people behaved disgracefully," he said.

"The great majority of officers and soldiers who have served in Iraq have done so to the highest standards that the army or the nation might expect of them."

"HOODING"

Aitken's report did hint at shortcomings in the British government's planning for the Iraq war and questioned why interrogation techniques banned 35 years ago were used in Iraq.

Aitken suggested one reason the killings and abuse of Iraqis -- including a group who were bound and beaten by soldiers in events caught on film and later made public -- took place was the pressure on British forces.

"At one level, the paucity of planning for nation-rebuilding after the invasion (a consequence, in part, of the need to give last-minute diplomacy a chance of success), was certainly a factor," he said.

"Uncertainty over the reaction of the Iraqi people to being invaded was probably another: in some areas, we were probably surprised at how quickly the initial euphoria of liberation changed to insurgency."

The report looked at five interrogation techniques -- hooding, wall standing, subjection to noise, sleep deprivation and deprivation of food and drink -- that were banned by Britain in 1972.

Not all of them were used in Iraq, but Aitken said some of them, including hooding, were. His report failed to explain how they came to be used and he said after its release that it was an area that required further investigation.

"I think we should tell everyone in the army that none of the techniques should ever be used, anywhere, period," he said.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)