The Penatagon has issued a furious denial of a magazine claim that US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised the use of unconventional interrogation methods in Iraq which lead to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
The New Yorkermagazine reports on its Web site that Mr Rumsfeld authorised methods previously used in Afghanistan for gathering intelligence on members of al Qaeda.
The Pentagon, however, called the assertions, "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with anonymous conjecture," and strongly denied that Mr Rumsfeld, who has been under fire for the prisoner abuse scandal, or any Pentagon official had sanctioned the interrogation program.
Defence Department spokesman Mr Lawrence Di Rita said the abuses of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison depicted in photos and videos had "no basis in any sanctioned program, training manual, instruction, or order of the Department of Defence".
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.
The New Yorkersaid the interrogation plan was a highly classified "special access program," or SAP, that gave advance approval to kill, capture or interrogate so-called high-value targets in the battle against terror.
The report says Mr Rumsfeld and Defence Undersecretary for Intelligence Mr Stephen Cambone approved the introduction of techniques used in Afghanistan into Abu Ghraib, the article said.
The magazine, which based its article on interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, reported the plan was approved and carried out last year after deadly bombings in August at the UN headquarters and Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad.
A former intelligence official quoted in the article said Mr Rumsfeld and Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, approved the program but may not have known about the abuse.
The rules governing the secret operation were "grab whom you must. Do what you want," the unidentified former intelligence official said.
Mr Rumsfeld left the details of the interrogations to Mr Cambone, the article quoted a Pentagon consultant as saying.
"This is Cambone's deal, but Rumsfeld and Myers approved the program," said the Pentagon consultant in the article.