From Agence France Press: The US military knew troops had abused Iraqi prisoners for months before graphic, humiliating photographs surfaced last week, a journalist who read a US army report says. "There were three investigations, each by a major general of the army," Seymour Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition. "Clearly somebody at a higher level understood there were generic problems." Hersh published his article in The New Yorker, based on an army investigation by Major General Antonio Taguba, which was not intended for public release. "Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses' at Abu Ghraib," a US-run prison in Baghdad. Hersh said the abuses went far beyond those portrayed in the widely broadcast photographs of sexual abuse, nudity and humiliation that have angered the Arab world. They were first shown on CBS television's "60 Minutes II." The army investigation resulted in discipline and courts-martial for troops involved. However, the 53-page report also made it clear that the troops would not have attempted to break down prisoners in this way, Hersh said, unless higher-ups or intelligence agents wanted them to soften the prisoners up for later to interrogation, or, euphemistically, to "set the conditions" for the session.