US: A military investigation into abuses of prisoners at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the year following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington found that interrogators forced a detainee to wear women's lingerie on his head, intimidated him with snarling dogs, and led him around on a leash while forcing him "to perform a series of dog tricks".
Similar tactics were later used at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and caused a major scandal when exposed in a series of graphic leaked photographs. The tactics at Guantanamo were among 16 approved by defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani, the "20th hijacker", and other detainees. The investigation concluded that the techniques used at Guantanamo were sometimes degrading but did not amount to torture - a word used in FBI accounts of the treatment of detainees that sparked the inquiry three months ago. The report of the inquiry was published as military investigators briefed the US Senate Armed Services Committee.
The findings cast doubt on the military claims that the later use of the tactics at Abu Ghraib was primarily the unauthorised work of rogue military police.
Lieut Gen Randall Schmidt, who conducted the investigation at Guantanamo, said that stripping detainees, using dogs and smearing them with red ink to look like menstrual blood were approved techniques.
Lieut Gen Schmidt said that Qahtani, who was subject to sleep-deprivation and other harsh techniques, suffered "degrading and abusive treatment" but not "torture".
Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, in charge of Guantanamo at the time of the abuses and later transferred to Iraq, was recommended for reprimand by investigators but this was rejected by Gen Bantz Craddock, head of the US Southern Command.