Official: CIA Not Involved in Abu Ghraib Abuses

[Theophylact]

But a close reading of what he said suggests a rather more limited denial than the headline does. I've emphasized some phrases that suggest a bit of -- uh, hedging?

The CIA inspector general is conducting an investigation of the death of an Iraqi prisoner while being held at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, a senior CIA official said on Monday.

But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was not aware that any CIA officers involved in interrogating prisoners there participated in the abuses depicted by recent photographs.

"I know of no CIA officers involved in the abuses which are now so famously described," the official told Reuters.

"There were a small number of prisoners at Abu Ghraib who are of interest to CIA, and a small number of CIA officers would periodically visit the prison to interrogate them," the official said.

"But I don't know of anything which connects us to those particularly ugly photos," the official said.

The CIA inspector general was continuing an investigation into the death of the one prisoner who had been interrogated by CIA officers, the official said.

"One prisoner at that prison who we were talking to did die, and so there is an ongoing IG investigation about why did that guy die," the official said. "But I don't have anything to connect us to the ugliness that went on there."