A US report claims US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved interrogation methods in Iraq (AFP) http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1109140.htm

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a plan that brought unconventional interrogation methods to Iraq to gain intelligence about the growing insurgency, the New Yorker magazine reports. The magazine reports that Mr Rumsfeld, who has been under fire for a prisoner abuse scandal, gave the green light to methods previously used in Afghanistan for gathering intelligence on members of Al Qaeda.

Pentagon spokesman Jim Turner says he has not seen the story and could not comment. The article hits newsagencies tomorrow.

US interrogation techniques have come under scrutiny amid revelations that prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad were kept naked, stacked on top of one another, forced to engage in sex acts and photographed in humiliating poses.

Mr Rumsfeld, who has rejected calls by some Democrats and a number of major newspapers to resign, calls the scandal a "body blow".Seven soldiers have been charged. The abuse has prompted worldwide outrage and has shaken US global prestige as President George W Bush seeks re-election in November. Mr Bush has backed Mr Rumsfeld and says the abuse was abhorrent but the wrongful actions of only a few soldiers.

The US military has now prohibited several interrogation methods from being used in Iraq, including sleep and sensory deprivation and body "stress positions".The New Yorker reports the interrogation plan was a highly classified "special access program", or SAP, that gave advance approval to kill, capture or interrogate "high-value" targets. Such secret methods were used extensively in Afghanistan but more sparingly in Iraq - only in the search for former President Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.

As the Iraqi insurgency grew and more US soldiers died, Mr Rumsfeld and Defence Under Secretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone expanded the scope to bring the interrogation tactics to Abu Ghraib. The magazine, which bases its article on interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, reports the plan was approved and carried out last year after deadly bombings in August at the UN headquarters and Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.

-- Reuters Sunday, May 16, 2004. 9:58am (Australian time)