Report: Bush polices contributed to Iraq abuse

A new report from the U.S. says that the government backing for the tactics used by the CIA during interrogation helped establish the scene for the abuse carried out by a minority of US troops towards Iraqi prisoners.

The report was published by the Senate Armed Services Commission and says that it was not right to place all of the blame on lower ranked officers working in the US Army for some of the abuses which occurred at the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison. The report says that officials from higher up gave the impression that such methods were acceptable. The report comes swiftly on the heels of the publishing of memos from the Bush administration where the methods used by the CIA were given justification. The senate committee published a 263-page report which they called "Inquiry into the treatment of detainees in US custody". It looked at how the tough interrogation techniques which were used by the CIA in Guantanamo Bay got the go-ahead and how this affected how other prisoners may be treated elsewhere. The report says that once the methods that were approved were filtered down to to soldiers based in Iraq and Afghanistan it set the scene for the the abuse in Abu Ghraib and in other areas. Senator Carl Levin said: "In my judgment, the report represents a condemnation of both the Bush administration's interrogation policies and of senior administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse - such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan - to low-ranking soldiers." "Authorisations of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials resulted in abuse and conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in US military custody."