Speaking for the first time since she was jailed more than a year ago, England revealed the abusive nature of her relationship with fellow reservist Charles Graner and suggested that her actions inside the Baghdad jail were largely directed by him.

She has also reiterated claims made by her lawyers that much of the mistreatment of prisoners was carried out at the behest of military intelligence officers or the CIA.

"Yeah, I thought it was weird, " said England, referring to the human pyramids she and other reservists constructed from naked and shackled Iraqi prisoners. "We were told we were supposed to do those things. They said 'Good job.

Keep it up'."

Speaking from the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in San Diego, California, England, 23, described how her sexually-charged relationship with Graner . . . who she now describes as a "shithead" . . .

focused on her efforts to please him.

He would take photographs of her during sex, sometimes as she performed oral sex on him.

"I didn't want him to take the pictures but he took pictures of everything, " said England. "He kept a camera in his cargo pocket. He was always taking his camera out. Sometimes he took the pictures for himself. Sometimes he took them for documentation."

In September 2005, England, who has a two-year-old son fathered by Graner, was sentenced to three years in jail by a court martial after being convicted of conspiracy, maltreating detainees and committing an indecent act.

She was one of a group of reservists from the 372nd Military Police Company involved in the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners being held at Abu Ghraib jail.

The abuse came to light after a series of photographs emerged showing the reservists posing alongside shackled and hooded prisoners, often naked and often being sexually humiliated.

England was notoriously shown in one image leading a naked prisoner by a dog leash. Further investigations suggested that a number of prisoners were abused and some even killed as a result of interrogation efforts carried out by soldiers, CIA officers and private contractors . . . apparently as part of a coordinated effort to obtain actionable information from prisoners.

In her interview with Marie Claire magazine, England, from a small village in West Virginia, revealed how, soon after being deployed to Iraq, a group of soldiers discovered some animal carcasses, a goat and a cat, and cut off their heads. They took turns taking photographs, one as a soldier pretended to have sex with a goat's head.

"Then they cut off the cat's head and shoved it on top of a soda bottle, " said England. Around this time, Graner also instituted a different kind of amusement when he would walk around the camp naked with fluorescent dye poured over his penis.

England's civilian lawyer, Roy Hardy, said: "Everything they did, they took a picture of. I asked Lynndie why she let him. She said 'Guys like that. I just wanted to please him.' She was like a little plaything for him. The sexual stuff . . . the way he put her in those positions, that was just his way of saying 'Let's see what I can make you do'."

A total of seven soldiers were punished for their roles in Abu Ghraib . . . with Graner receiving the longest prison sentence of 10 years.

The commanding officer of the prison, Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, was demoted to the rank of colonel.

Yet some critics have argued that the various inquiries carried out by the Pentagon did not sufficiently investigate the role of other senior officers in creating an environment in which abuse of prisoners was allegedly encouraged.

In her interview, England makes a series of other claims about abuse that allegedly took place in the jail in the second part of 2003. "I heard [a US contractor] did things to boys in his cellf I was told there were hangings of people in the doorways of cells."

England said that Graner, who has since married another of the reservists who was present at Abu Ghraib, had never admitted to being the father of her son, Carter.

"He's not on the birth certificate, " she told the magazine. "In order to get that we'd need a paternity suit.

That would give him rights and I don't want him to have any. I don't want him around Carter."

The young woman is eligible for parole next year though she anticipates she will be made to serve the full three years of her sentence.

She said she has been researching possible positions for electricians, for when she leaves. She has also been taking parenting classes inside the prison.

As to telling her son about his father, she said she has not decided, even though he sometimes asks. "I don't know, " she said.