A US soldier has pleaded guilty before a court martial to abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Sergeant Ivan Frederick told the hearing at a US military base in the Iraqi capital that he had been trying to humiliate the prisoners and set the scene for interrogation.
He is expected to be sentenced tomorrow.
In total, seven military police and an intelligence officer have been charged in connection with the abuse.
Earlier in London, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, told MPs at Westminster that multinational forces in Iraq are about to enter a period of increased activity.
However, Mr Blair repeated that no decision had yet been taken on an American request for British troops to provide backup for US units fighting insurgents.
Mr Blair is under increasing pressure from the majority of his own backbenchers as well as many opposition MPs not to sanction the redeployment of over 600 British troops to back up the US military.
But there is widespread assumption on all sides at Westminster that Britain has already indicated to Washington that the troops will be provided.
While Mr Blair added that there was a limit on what he could say publicly about the disposition of forces in Iraq, he warned MPs that the military situation there was now entering a period of increased activity in the run-up to planned elections in Iraq.
But given the proximity of the US election, there is now growing disquiet on the Labour benches over the expected deployment, even from MPs who supported the controversial decision to go to war in the first place.
