File photo shows detainees stand inside the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, waiting to be released.

Three Iraqis and a Jordanian filed federal lawsuits Monday alleging they were tortured by US defense contractors while detained at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.
According to AP, the lawsuits allege that those arrested and taken to the prison were subjected to forced nudity, electrical shocks, mock executions and other inhumane treatment.
They seek payments high enough to compensate the detainees for their injuries, and to deter contractors from such conduct in the future.
“These innocent men were senselessly tortured by US companies that profited from their misery,“ said lead attorney Susan L. Burke, of the Philadelphia law firm Burke O’Neil.
Allegations of abuse at the Baghdad prison first erupted in 2004 with the release of pictures of grinning US soldiers posing with detainees, some naked, being held on leashes or in painful and sexually humiliating positions. Eleven US soldiers were convicted and five others disciplined in the scandal.
The contractors named as defendants in the lawsuit are CACI International Inc. of Arlington, Va., and New York-based L-3 Communications Corp., formerly Titan Corp.
Three of the complaints were filed in US district courts in Seattle, Greenbelt, Md., and Columbus, Ohio, where the three of the defendants reside. The fourth was filed in Detroit, where L-3 recruited heavily for translators, according to that complaint. L-3 didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Three of the lawsuits also name individual employees of those companies as defendants. They are Adel L. Nakhla, a former L-3 translator, of Montgomery Village; Daniel “DJ“ Johnson of Renton, Wash., who worked as a CACI interrogator, and Timothy L. Dugan of Pataskala, Ohio, who also worked as a CACI interrogator, according to the complaints.

Jordan’s Iraq Envoy
In another development, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has named a new ambassador to Iraq. The official Petra news agency said Nayef Al-Zaidan was sworn in at a brief ceremony Monday at the royal palace, attended by the king and his top aides.
Earlier in June, Abdullah promised visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki that he would soon send an envoy to Baghdad. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain also promised to reopen their embassies in Baghdad.
The Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad is run by a charge d’affaires and Amman hasn’t sent an ambassador because of security concerns. Al-Zaidan has served as Jordan’s consul general in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Sunni Bloc Back
Also on Iraq, the country’s largest Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc is set to join the Shiite-led cabinet of Maliki after boycotting it for nearly a year, the spokesman for the faction said on Tuesday.
Saleem Abdallah, MP and spokesman of the National Concord Front, said his group had given a list of new candidates for the five ministerial posts which it previously held in Maliki’s cabinet.
Last August the Sunni bloc, which has 44 MPs in the 275-member parliament, pulled its five ministers from the cabinet in protest at what it viewed as the monopolization of power by the other factions in government.

Bush War Bill
In other news, US President George Bush on Monday signed legislation to pay for the war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of his presidency and beyond, hailing the $162 billion plan as a rare product of bipartisan cooperation.
“This bill shows the American people that even in an election year, Republicans and Democrats can come together to stand behind our troops and their families,“ AP quoted Bush in an Oval Office ceremony as saying.
The legislation will bring to more than $650 billion the amount Congress has provided for the Iraq war since it began more than five years ago. For operations in Afghanistan, the total is nearly $200 billion, according to congressional officials.

More Troops Ahead
Meanwhile, the United States will send six additional combat units, totaling some 33,000 soldiers and marines, to Iraq in early 2009, the Pentagon announced Monday.
Officials said the units would replace troops currently serving in Iraq, and will allow the Pentagon to hold steady at 15 fighting brigades there, AP reported.
“This is a planning effort to sustain the current level of operations,“ said spokesman Bryan Whitman, who added that US military leaders “can always have units that redeploy earlier and deploy later“ as needed.

The Knesset approved on Monday the referendum law, which mandates a national referendum or a two thirds Knesset majority prior to a withdrawal from any territory under Israeli territory.
The law was approved in its first reading by a majority of 65 Knesset members to 18, according to Haaretz.
The vote came as indirect peace talks were underway between Israel and Syria, revolving around the Syrian demand that Israel return the Golan Heights, which it occupied from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War, in return for peace. A third round of talks was to begin this week.
Earlier Monday, the “Golan Lobby“ convened at the Knesset ahead of the vote. The meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister Eli Yishai (Shas), who said that the law is a positive and important measure, though his party generally opposes holding referendums.
The current law eliminated the need to enact a Basic Law. Instead, it requires that territorial concessions be approved by a national referendum or general elections or a majority of 80 Knesset members.

New Settlements
Israel has announced a new construction plan for setting up of 10,000 new houses in the occupied lands of Beit-ul- Moqaddas, a move which can deal a further blow to the so-called peace talks with the Palestinians.
Khalil Al-Tufekchi, head of the Maps Bureau of the East Beit-ul- Moqaddas Organization, told Alalam on Monday that the Israeli regime plans to construct new houses in Wadi Al-Helwah and the Prophets Shrines neighborhoods in an old section of Beit-ul- Moqaddas, known as “the Sacred Pond“.
Little progress has been made between Palestinians and Israelis since the US-sponsored peace talks in Annapolis, Maryland, with the thorny settlements issue one of the major bones of contention.
East Beit-ul- Moqaddas was occupied by the Israeli regime in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognized by the international community.