The ICRC is the body officially mandated by the Geneva Conventions to visit prisoners of war to ensure they are being humanely treated. And the Red Cross had visited Abu Ghraib many times, it knew of the abuses, but only went public with its knowledge when forced to. Critics now accuse the Red Cross - widely regarded as the guardian of the Geneva Conventions - of being the last to mention that the conventions are being violated. No comment : The ICRC can be a difficult assignment for journalists: Red Cross delegates are active in some of the most newsworthy parts of the world, but they have a policy of not talking about their work. When the first, shocking pictures of Iraqi prisoners appeared - naked and terrified in Abu Ghraib prison - my first reaction as Geneva correspondent was to call the ICRC. "We can't comment on those pictures', came the reply. "But you've visited Abu Ghraib prison haven't you?" I asked. "We never discuss our prison visits." It went on like this all week, more pictures were published - and still the Red Cross would not talk. Getting information out of the sphinx seemed a more likely possibility. But the silence ended when the Red Cross' confidential report to the US government on conditions in Abu Ghraib was leaked to the media. Something close to panic broke out at Red Cross headquarters. This normally peaceful, elegant building, overlooking Lake Geneva and surrounded just now by spring flowers, became a hive of frantic communication. The determinedly neutral organisation, invented after all in neutral Switzerland, was going to have to comment on a major political scandal.  At a hastily organised press conference, visibly nervous ICRC officials were forced to confirm that they had documented a systematic pattern of abuse by US troops at the prison, abuse, the report said, "which was tantamount to torture".

Registering prisoners: So why keep quiet about it for so long? "We're not some dial-a-quote organisation," spokesman Florian Westphal said. "There are human rights groups who can publicly denounce abuses." Many people do confuse the Red Cross with groups like Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch.  In fact, the organisation's real role is one my grandparents' generation would recognise. To them, the Red Cross sent messages saying a loved husband or brother was alive, but a prisoner of war, somewhere in Germany.  And for prisoners, Red Cross delegates were the ones who brought food, a bar of soap perhaps, and best of all, a letter from home. That is what the Red Cross does now too - in 2003, their delegates visited 468,000 prisoners of war and other detainees in more than 70 countries. So if you are a detainee in some hot, dusty, forgotten corner of the world, and the white jeep with the Red Cross on the side turns up, do not assume that your liberation has arrived. The Red Cross delegates will not spend time on the justice or otherwise of your imprisonment, but they will do their best to ensure you are not beaten, that you have food, water, and fresh air, and that your family knows where you are. Red Cross workers insist that the policy of talking only to prison authorities about abuses they have witnessed is what opens the prison gates for them. Access is not easy, when the prison guards are often brutalised young men, scarcely out of their teens, who see no reason to behave humanely to prisoners they regard as enemies.

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