Rumsfeld and Pentagon brass blamed over prisoner abuse

TOP Pentagon officials and the military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which prisoners were abused at Abu Ghraib prison, a high-level panel investigating the detentions has concluded, a defence official said yesterday.

The independent four-member panel headed by former Defence Secretary James Schlesinger found that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to exercise proper oversight over confusing detention policies at US prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said the panel did not find that Mr Rumsfeld or military leaders directly ordered abuse such as stripping prisoners naked and sexually humiliating them.