US: There was "animal house on the night shift" at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to the chairman of a committee investigating abuse of prisoners held by the US abroad, but "there was no policy of abuse, quite the contrary".
Announcing the inquiry's conclusions at the Pentagon, former defence secretary James Schlesinger said: "There was sadism on the night shift at Abu Ghraib, sadism that was not authorised.
"It was kind of animal house on the night shift. There was direct responsibility for those activities on the part of commanders at the scene up to brigade level \ indirect responsibility at higher levels."
While not explicitly faulting top Pentagon chiefs, Mr Schlesinger said: "Corrective action could and should have been taken right up the chain of command as far as Washington is concerned."
This aspect of the report is an embarrassment for Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld and Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is also faulted for not exercising sufficient oversight of confusing policies and interrogation techniques.
Mr Schlesinger, who was appointed to head the four-man commission of Pentagon advisers by Mr Rumsfeld himself, said he based his conclusion that there was no policy of abuse on interviews with the Defence Secretary and other top officials.
They had told him repeatedly that Geneva Convention regulations were supposed to apply in Iraq, he said. At Guantanamo, however, "we had taken prisoner people who were believed to have information about 9/11 and possible subsequent terrorist activities"; Mr Rumsfeld "authorised techniques, later modified", and "gave permission in two cases at Guantanamo" for such techniques.
"There was chaos at Abu Ghraib," said Mr Schlesinger, who accused Iraqi police of corruption and slipping weapons to detainees. The ratio of military police was unacceptable at one to 75. "They were under-trained for detention operation and they had arrived with their equipment missing." He disclosed some 300 cases of abuse were being investigated, many of them beyond Abu Ghraib.
However, contrary to speculation, the abuses "did not come from authorised interrogation, they did not come from seeking intelligence, they were freelance activities by those on the night shift at Abu Ghraib".
Lieut Gen Ricardo Sanchez, who was in charge of the 150,000 US troops in Iraq at the time of the scandal, was cited for not paying enough attention to the worsening conditions in Abu Ghraib.
Criticism of Mr Rumsfeld and other senior officials was limited, however, to not exercising sufficient oversight. None will be singled out as legally culpable or for reprimand, Pentagon officials said.
Another report to be issued today by an army inquiry headed by Maj Gen George Ray is expected to name over two dozen military and intelligence officials and outside contractors implicated in the scandal, all of whom could be subject to legal action.
The highest ranking of those officers, Col Thomas Pappas, could be named for possible legal action, sources said. Up to now the highest-ranking soldier to be charged is Staff Sgt Ivan Frederick, who has made a plea bargain at a court martial at a US base in Germany.
The Schlesinger committee interviewed Mr Rumsfeld twice in its mandate to find out how policy decisions affected conditions in US prisons in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The report also blames Brig Gen Janis Karpinski - commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib - for faulty leadership. She has been blamed in other investigation reports but has denied knowing about any abuses until they become public.
The Schlesinger commission also included former defence secretary Harold Brown, former Republican representative Tillie Fowler of Florida, and retired air force general Charles Horner.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan, with President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, had no immediate comment on the Schlesinger report.
The scandal arose when a soldier, Joseph Darby, gave senior officers pictures last January of naked prisoners being humiliated and threatened with dogs. Mr Darby and his wife have been taken into protective custody in the US after threats to their lives.
The report by Mr Schlesinger and the army findings are likely to be greeted with scepticism by critics, who believe that the abuse of prisoners was sanctioned higher up. Dog handlers, for example, have told investigators that the use of unmuzzled military police dogs was sanctioned by top military intelligence officers. But the new report says military police were using their animals to threaten detainees as part of an unusual competition among themselves - not in accordance with intelligence officers.