BAGHDAD, July 31 (Xinhuanet) -- After the scandalous photos of the US soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison surfaced more than a year ago, the issue is back to light when some American soldiers were brought to trial charged with using dogs to terrify Iraqi prisoners.

    Many Iraqis following the trials that took place near Washington of two soldiers using dogs to terrify Iraqi detainees and force them to piss in their pants were not satisfied with this "play".

    "What happened caused a great damage to the credibility of the Americans, but only the common soldiers were brought to trial. The high-ranking officers who were involved in the violations were exempt and there was no investigation taking place with a civil leader in the Pentagon or in the CIA," said Salam Al Shamaa, an Iraqi journalist.

    Shamaa's opinion was echoed by Mohammed Salih Al Aswad, a legal expert, who said it had been proved that such methods of forceful investigation used against Iraqi detainees were approved by the top leaders.

    "Thus the leaders should be held criminally responsible, which is an established legal principle in the laws of the USA or the international laws," Aswad insisted.

    Earlier on Wednesday, the former warden of Abu Ghraib, Maj. David Dinenna, testified that the use of dogs during interrogations at the prison was recommended by the commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention center during a visit in 2003.

    Dinenna's testimony came at the end of a two-day preliminary hearing to determine whether the dog handlers, Sgts. Santos A. Cardona and Michael J. Smith, should face a court-martial.

    Investigations into detainee abuse have led to charges against several soldiers at the prison but have found no fault with high-level officials such as Defense Minister Donald H. Rumsfeld, which raised criticism that the military has been unable to properly investigate its top-level leadership.

    "The scandal of Abu Ghraib uncovered the ugliness of occupation and refuted all allegations taken by the occupiers to justify their aggression against our country," said Ibrahim Al Heety, a university professor.

    "They had fallen one after the other, and the last of which was the one about freedom, democracy, and human rights," he continued. After the scandal of the Abu Ghraib prison was uncovered in April 2004, US President George W. Bush promised that the actions, which he named "wrong", would not pass unaccounted for and that the committers would be brought to justice.

    By holding those perpetrators accountable, the US administration hopes to ease the fury of Iraqis towards Americans, but many Iraqis still feel the trials are just routines and will never erase the hideous crimes.

    Saed Al Samarae, the owner of an internet cafe in the Mansour district in Baghdad, was annoyed by a photo posted on the internet, in which an Iraqi detainee was terrified half to death before a fierce dog led by an American soldier.

    "The crime is doubled when people found that many of the detainees who were tortured did not have anything to do with
political or armed groups," he said. Enditem