US military: Iraqi hospital chief suspected of supplying patient details to al-Qaida

US military: Iraqi hospital chief suspected of supplying patient details to al-Qaida

By: KIM GAMEL -- Associated Press

The U.S. military on Wednesday brought another stunning twist to the plot -- that the acting director of a psychiatric hospital could have betrayed his ethics and turned over patient details to insurgents blamed for the attack, which killed nearly 100 people. - The questioning of the hospital administrator fits into a wider campaign to confront insurgents' changing tactics -- such as using women as suicide bombers -- as they seek to bypass stepped-up security measures and bounce back from losses in recent U.S.-led offensives.

But the joint U.S.-Iraqi raids Sunday on the al-Rashad hospital seek to dig deeper into just one deadly day -- the Feb. 1 bombings and whether a physician entrusted to care for the mentally disabled could have aided al-Qaida.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a military spokesman, said the hospital official was detained "in connection with the possible exploitation of mentally impaired women to al-Qaida."


It was not immediately clear what direct contact occurred between the detained hospital administrator and the two women who carried the explosives into the crowded outdoor pet markets with cages of birds and other small animals.

A spokesman for U.S. troops in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Steve Stover, said the hospital official was suspected of providing names and files of patients at the hospital to insurgents -- suggesting the probe could be broader than the attacks earlier this month. He said the hospital director's computer and files were seized in the raid.

Stover declined to speculate on a motive, but said al-Qaida often uses threats and extortion to gain recruits or assistance. The hospital is located in a mostly Shiite district, and Sunnis dominate the insurgents inspired by al-Qaida.

The military did not identify the suspect, saying he was still under questioning. But a hospital official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said the detainee was Dr. Sahi Aboob al-Maliki, who had been on the job for two months after his predecessor was assassinated.

The official said the soldiers were "very preoccupied" with the search of al-Maliki's office.

"It was a surprise for us when they detained him," the official said. "He was a professional doctor and we didn't notice anything strange or abnormal about him."

The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the attacks was initially met with skepticism. Iraqi authorities said they based the assertion on photos of the bombers' heads that purportedly showed the women had Down syndrome, and have not offered any other proof.

The U.S. military later backed the Iraqi account of the bombings, which led Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to call al-Qaida in Iraq "the most brutal and bankrupt of movements."

Smith said Iraqi and U.S. soldiers conducted a "thorough search" of the hospital in a tree-lined complex in eastern Baghdad.

"The administrator remains in coalition force detention and is being questioned to determine what role, if any, he played in supplying al-Qaida with information regarding patients at the al-Rashad psychiatric hospital or from other medical facilities in Baghdad," he added.

It was the latest allegation from the U.S. military that al-Qaida could be looking to society's most vulnerable groups as part of shifting strategies.

Last week, the military presented videos seized from suspected al-Qaida in Iraq hide-outs showing militants training children who appear as young as 10 to kidnap and kill. It was viewed as a sign that the terror network -- hungry for recruits -- may be using younger Iraqis in propaganda to lure a new crop of fighters.

The scenes included boys mimicking the violence and aggression that have become familiar to Iraqi children since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The video also appeared to show organized militant training sessions, suggesting an effort by al-Qaida-inspired insurgents to train ever-younger -- and perhaps less conspicuous -- militants.

In a December raid north of Baghdad, U.S. troops also found an Arabic movie script with scenes of terrorists training children, and children interrogating and executing victims, the military said.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari also said he believed insurgents were kidnapping an increasing number of Iraqi children, though he could not offer details or figures.

Women have been used in ever greater frequency in suicide attacks -- six times now since November.

It's not the first time health officials have been implicated in violence in Iraq.

Two former officials with the Shiite-dominated Health Ministry were arrested last year, accused of letting death squads use ambulances and government hospitals to carry out kidnappings and killings and siphoning millions of dollars to militia fighters.

Ellie