Original Article 4 disciplined for abuse of Iraqis GIs were sanctioned over inappropriate Taser use on inmates R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Dec. 9, 2004 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - Four members of a U.S. special forces unit assigned to hunt down former senior government officials in Iraq received administrative sanctions this summer for abusing prisoners with Taser guns, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The sanctions, a previously undisclosed facet of the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees during the U.S. occupation, were not described by Pentagon officials. But they said the punishments did not include criminal penalties. Asked at a news conference whether the inappropriate use of Taser guns, which fire an electrically charged projectile into the skin, was tantamount to torture, spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said, "I have nothing to say on that. I just don't know." Di Rita's disclosure came a day after the American Civil Liberties Union released a June 25 memorandum from the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency to Stephen Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. In the memo, Cambone reported that two defense interrogators had seen prisoners arriving at a prison in Baghdad "with burn marks on their backs." Other prisoners had bruises and some complained of kidney pain, said the memo from Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby, a Navy vice admiral. The memo also said that members of the special forces unit had attempted to obstruct the interrogators' complaints about the abuse by confiscating their car keys, threatening them and ordering them not to talk to anyone in the United States about what they had seen. In response, Di Rita and other officials said, the commander of the task force - whose identity the department would not reveal - imposed the administrative sanctions, which amounted in this case to written reprimands. The four people involved were reassigned to tasks other than interrogation, and two were transferred out of the unit altogether. The defense officials also said the complaints were forwarded to the Army's criminal investigation division, but they could not explain why no criminal charges were filed. Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer, said, "It sounds like torture to us, but even if it isn't, it is unlawful." In all, Di Rita said, the special forces unit in question has issued 10 letters of reprimand for detainee abuse.