Rules of Engagement

The abuse of Iraqis by British soldiers was the result of serious failings in army leadership, planning and training, particularly about treating civilians in an occupied country.

This was the conclusion of an internal investigation in January by Brigadier Robert Aitken, the army's director of personnel strategy.

Soldiers were not told about their obligations under international law, nor about a specific ban on hooding imposed by the government 36 years ago, he said. Troops were given "scant" information on how to treat civilian detainees and needed "a better understanding between right and wrong".

Evidence that British soldiers used "conditioning" techniques to "soften up" Iraqi detainees was at the center of the Mousa court martial.

Army officers had ignored a 1972 ban on hooding, putting detainees in stress positions, sleep or food deprivation and noise. Ignorance of the law, including the Geneva conventions, was compounded by pressure from the US.

Brigadier Euan Duncan, director of the army's intelligence corps, told the Mousa court martial that US commanders had criticised British forces in 2003 for failing to extract sufficient intelligence from detainees.

The implication, he said, was that "firmer" techniques should be used. Major Anthony Royce, the Queen's Lancashire Regiment's officer in charge of internment, said senior officers at the brigade headquarters had sanctioned "conditioning" and had cleared it with the chain of command. Yet Lt Col Nicholas Mercer, the army's senior legal adviser in Iraq, objected to the hooding techniques, the court martial heard.