US: The leading US-based human rights group has called for a special prosecutor to conduct a criminal investigation into the conduct of secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and the former director of central intelligence, George Tenet, concerning the abuse of detainees held by the US military.
This coincides with a report of a high-level US army panel at the weekend clearing the former top US commander in Iraq Gen Ricardo Sanchez and other senior commanders of responsibility for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.
Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, who commanded military police at Abu Ghraib, was relieved of her command and given a written reprimand, despite her claims that she is a scapegoat for the others.
"This just proves that the military can't investigate itself," said Human Rights Watch spokesman Reed Brody. "If the United States is to wipe away the stain of Abu Ghraib, it needs to allow an independent investigation of those at the top who ordered or condoned torture."
In a report issued on Saturday, the New York-based rights group said Mr Rumsfeld "approved interrogation techniques which violated the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against Torture, such as the use of guard dogs to frighten prisoners and painful 'stress' positions.
"There is no evidence that, over a three-year period of mounting reports of abuse, Rumsfeld exerted his authority and warned those under his command that the mistreatment of prisoners must stop," it said.
The report, Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the US Abuse of Detainees, was issued to mark the first anniversary of the publication of the Abu Ghraib photographs on April 28th.
It alleged that Gen Sanchez gave the interrogators at Abu Ghraib the green light to use dogs to terrorise detainees and did not step in to stop abuses. It cited "overwhelming evidence" that US mistreatment and torture took place at Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, at Guantanamo and at "secret locations" around the world.
Human Rights Watch said there was substantial evidence warranting criminal investigations of Gen Sanchez and Gen Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.