US detainee abuse 'unprecedented'

A former US official has accused the administration of George Bush, the former president, of authorising "unprecedented" acts of abuse during the interrogation of terror suspects.

Phillip Zelikow told a US senate hearing on torture practices that the Bush administration was guilty of a "collective failure" over the interrogation of "war on terror" detainees.

"The US government over the past seven years adopted an unprecedented programme in American history of cruelly calculated dehumanising abuse and physical torment to extract information," Zelikow said on Wednesday.

"This was a mistake, perhaps disastrous one. It was a collective failure in which a number of officials and members of congress and staffers of both parties played a part, endorsing a CIA programme of physical coercion."

The Bush administration has been widely criticised for allowing the use of "waterboarding", which simulates the sensation of drowning, sleep deprivation and other interrogation methods, all practices heavily criticised by human rights groups.

Zelikow, who served as an aide to Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state, also testified that in 2006, former administration officials sought to collect and destroy copies of a memo he wrote opposing those methods.

"I heard the memo was not considered appropriate for further discussion and that copies of my memo should be collected and destroyed."

The hearings come as Barack Obama, the US president, challenged the Pentagon's planned release of photos depicting abuse of detainees in Afghanistan or Iraq.

The White House said he wasacting on advice from military commanders that publishing the photos could endanger US troops.

Torture row

Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, has also come under recent fire over whether she knew about torture practices carried out under the Bush administration.

Recent reports allege that CIA officials had briefed an aide to Pelosi about interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, which was used hundreds of time on top al-Qaeda suspects.

Memo written by Bush-era legal officials released last month argued that tactics that also included face slapping and using insects to scare prisoners were not torture.

A Senate Intelligence Committee also released last month also said top Bush officials, such as Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, and Dick Cheney, the former vice-president, had approved the CIA's interrogation programme, including waterboarding, in 2002.

Rice has denied she approved the torture of detainees.

The Obama administration has left the door open to prosecute those who authorised torture, but has said it will not charge people who carried out orders to use torture.

Obama blocks abuse image release

Barack Obama, the US president, is to appeal a legal ruling ordering the release of dozens of images of depicting abuse of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama, who had previously supported the release of the photographs, was acting on advice from military commanders that publishing them could endanger US troops overseas, the White House said on Wednesday.

Obama's concern was based "what the release of the these [images] would do to our national security," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, on Wednesday.

The US department of defence was to release the images by May 28 in response to legal action filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The photographs come from more than 60 criminal investigations between 2001-2006 and are of military personnel suspected of abusing detainees, officials said in April.

"The president does not believe that the strongest case regarding the release of these photos was presented to the court and that was a case based on his concern about what the release would do to our national security,"
Gibbs said.

The administration of George Bush, the previous US president, had argued against the release of the photos in part by saying it violated the privacy rights of the detainees and military personnel.

Accountability call

The ACLU was quick to condemn Obama's decision.

"The decision to not release the photographs makes a mockery of President Obama's promise of transparency and accountability,'' said Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer

"It is essential that these photographs be released so that the public can examine for itself the full scale and scope of prisoner abuse that was conducted in its name."

Obama told his legal team last week that although he did not feel comfortable with the release of the photos although in no way did he excuse the behaviour of those responsible for tough interrogation tactics, a US official said.

The release of photos of abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004 caused widespread anger.

The case could now be decided by the US supreme court.