The Christian Science Monitor is investigating rumors of American torture but has not found substantiation.
Three recent examples of alleged torture, alleged execution of an Iraqi in US medical care, and the alleged rape of two Iraqi women - all later proven to be false, or almost certain to be - show how such perceptions take seed, spread and can be believed.
"Because of the tough way Americans are behaving and treating people, Iraqis tend to believe anything they hear about the Americans," says Saad Jawad, a political scientist at Baghdad University. On top of that, the civilian administrator Paul Bremer, "is doing nothing to win over Iraqis," he says. "That's leading to anger - people see no positive sign, and so [they] believe anything."
US officers insist that they adhere to the Geneva Conventions as the occupying power in Iraq. But a preoccupation with security and frequent lethal attacks by anti-US forces have triggered questions of possible abuse, and resulted in civilian deaths.
Applying electric shocks to a prisoner in US custody is not unprecedented - an American soldier was found to have done so to a detainee in Somalia in 1993. But US legal officers in Iraq who investigated the case of Hamza and his fellow detainees say that the claim in this instance is false.
The US military is investigating whether its troops were responsible for the death of an Iraqi prisoner of war in a detention camp near Nasiriyah. And the British military is looking into the deaths of two Iraqis who were under British control and into allegations of torture or beatings by British troops.
A very cautious article that with the main story being that Iraqis are believing the worst about American troops. It doesn't mention that in the British case they have photos.
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