U.S. military intelligence officers were said to have worked poorly with private contractors hired to help interrogate prisoners in Iraq in 2003.

Officials said a report by the U.S. Army disclosed friction between military intelligence and private contractors at Abu Gharib prison north of Baghdad. The report said the friction was based on the difference between the two groups in accountability, experience and status.

The army report ø which investigated the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade and the 800th Military Police Brigade from July 2003 until February 2004 ø found both military officers as well as contractors culpable of charges of abuse at Abu Gharib prison. At least two private companies operated at the prison and helped in the interrogation of thousands of Iraqi prisoners in 2003 and 2004.

"It is also one of the challenges that most of our Military Intelligence interrogators are fairly junior personnel and the contractors tend to be older, senior," Gen. Paul Kern, commanding general of the Army's Materiel Command. "And so you put these two together and you are looking for something to happen which created some tension in some cases."

Kern, deemed the authority for the investigation, said the introduction of the private contractors was meant to bolster the skills of military intelligence. He said all of the civilians at Abu Gharib and at other U.S. military bases in Iraq were highly experienced as former military interrogators and helped obtain information required by the army.

But the mix of private contractors and military intelligence officers was said to have been fraught with ambiguity. A key question involved the level of accountability by civilian contractors for their actions in Iraq.

"The challenge, then, is to get a team that works together that does things the right way," Kern told a briefing on Aug. 25. "And what we have asked all of our commanders to look at very carefully, if you're going to use contractors, you had better read the contract very carefully and make sure that they, by their contracts, have the same requirements as our soldiers in abiding by law if we're going to put them under the same circumstances."

The report said 23 military intelligence personnel were involved in the alleged abuse at Abu Gharib and six others knew about it. The abuse comprised either intentional violence, including sexual abuse, or abusive actions based on misinterpretations of law or policy.

The army investigation recommended that six private contractors ø four allegedly involved in the abuse and two who knew about the improprieties ø undergo further investigation. Officials said these people have been reported to the Justice Department.

"For the civilian contractors, those reports will be turned over to the Department of Justice, outside of our military organization, for appropriate action," Kern said. "For those agencies that are not in the Department of Defense, we have asked the Department of Defense Inspector General and other government agency inspector generals to take action on further investigations and actions that need to be taken."

The two leading contractors at Abu Gharib were CACI International and Titan. Both companies said they did not condone abuse by their personnel in Iraq. Three CACI members have been implicated in the report and the company said two of them were no longer employees. CACI said it has continued operating in Abu Gharib.

Officials said the army has incorporated lessons from Abu Gharib in training military intelligence personnel. In August 2003, they said, Military Intelligence launched an effort to employ additional interpreters and interrogators versed in Arab culture. The report criticized the army's failure to employ additional interrogators to handle the influx of prisoners at Abu Gharib, which reached 7,000 in 2003. The facility now holds 2,500 inmates.

"The best interrogators, whether they are intel or criminal or whatever, understand psychologically how to do that," a senior army official said. "That takes time, experience and growth to get to a guy who can get inside the mind of the person thatÕs doing it and make them talk. The gifted are one in 100 or more and you know this. Just think about it. Not everybody's Columbo."

The official said the U.S. Army would continue to contract private Arabic-speaking interrogators even as the service trains additional personnel. The official said the rules for private contractors have not changed, but stressed that they no longer had authority over soldiers, including excluding them from interrogations.

"They can't tell soldiers what to do and the soldiers should be there," the official said. "We still need contract interrogators. We still need interpreters and we will for a while. We are trying to grow more interrogators, train more. It will take time. It doesn't happen magically."

A final report by an independent commission headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger ø expected to incorporate findings from the army investigation ø was scheduled to be released by Sept. 20. That commission has been investigating 300 cases of abuse at all detention facilities in Iraq.