Maine’s four members of Congress on Wednesday urged further investigation into accounts of Iraqi prisoner abuse. They also said they do not believe them to be isolated incidents involving only low-level military police.

U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans, said it appears intelligence officials likely were complicit in the psychological and physical abuse.

Collins, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, took issue with Army investigator Maj. Antonio Taguba’s recent conclusion that the MPs implicated in the scandal had acted on their own in devising various forms of sexual abuse.

“It implies too much knowledge of what would be particularly humiliating to these Muslim prisoners,” Collins said. “And that is why, even though I do not yet have the evidence, I cannot help but suspect that others were involved, that military intelligence personnel were involved or people further up the chain of command.”

Snowe, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, echoed Collins’ hunch.

“While we must determine who bears the ultimate responsibility for these horrendous acts, it certainly appears that intelligence officials played a role,” she said in a written statement. “As a member of (the Intelligence Committee), I will continue to work to determine what their involvement was, review the rules that govern their conduct and investigations and work on substantial reforms so this will never happen again.”

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Carbone is expected to appear before that committee in closed session Thursday.

Since graphic photos of the detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad became public, some members of Congress have called for further administrative action, including the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Moral high ground

U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, a Democrat, said it was “especially wrong” that Pentagon officials had not briefed Congress on the cases of abuse when they learned about them months ago.

Michaud said the current congressional hearings are “an important step towards getting the full truth and ensuring that all of those who shirked their responsibility up and down the chain of command are held to account.” Those hearings, he said, “must be followed by a thorough bipartisan investigation,” which he called for last week.

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, also a Democrat, said “dramatic action” is needed if the United States hopes to regain the moral high ground in Iraq.

First, Rumsfeld must resign, he said. Second, the prison must be razed. Third, some form of international oversight of prisoner detention must be created.

He said he believes MPs at the prison were following orders from intelligence agents to “soften up” the detainees for future questioning.

Allen said he viewed additional photos and video footage Wednesday showing prisoner abuse. The images were shared only with congressional delegates and kept from public view.

“It’s revolting,” he said. “There was an obvious breakdown in discipline and decency.”

Allen predicted: “We’ll pay a terrible price for it for years to come.”

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