Activists urge probe of US detention policies

WASHINGTON -- Questions raised by a series of Bush administration memos that seem to condone the use of torture require a thorough, independent investigation of all American detention and interrogation policies, legal specialists and human rights activists said yesterday.

A letter from 500 law professors and other academics that was submitted to Congress yesterday said a wider investigation should be conducted to ''identify officials at all levels who must be held accountable for enabling these abuses to occur," and if necessary, the officials should lose their posts.

At the same time, Amnesty International called for the immediate appointment of a special counsel to investigate the treatment of prisoners in Iraq and the war on terrorism, contending that the senior government officials now conducting the investigations have a conflict of interest.

''The acts of abuse in Abu Ghraib prison constitute violations of both the domestic and international legal obligations of the United States and its agents," the professors wrote. ''Accepting the applicability of international and domestic law, military officials have initiated prosecutions of lower-level personnel. That response, while necessary, is clearly insufficient. Congress has an obligation to investigate and assess responsibility at all levels of the executive branch from highest officers on down for the abuses in Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisoners."

The letter, released by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, also said the torture allegations require a wholesale review of whether coercive interrogation techniques should be official policy and, if so, what safeguards should guard against violations.

''Military and intelligence officials have acknowledged that official US policy now involves use of coercive methods that are morally questionable and that may violate international and domestic law," wrote the academics, who are professors of law, ethics, and international relations. ''The question whether various forms of coercion against persons under American control can be justified goes to the heart of our identity as a democratic community."

The letter was the most forceful call to date to investigate whether administration policy led to the abuse of prisoners in US custody. A series of legal memoranda, including one from the Justice Department in 2002 and another from the Defense Department in 2003, said that under some circumstances, such as in the interest of national security, the president is not bound by legal restrictions on torture.

''The soldiers responsible for these atrocities need to be held accountable," Kennedy said in a statement yesterday. ''But so do those responsible for setting the policy."

Addressing the new concerns that the Bush administration may have approved the use of torture in some cases, the Senate passed a resolution yesterday reaffirming that the United States will not use torture against detainees. ''The world is watching us," said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the sponsor of the measure.

Amnesty International said yesterday that because the senior administration officials now overseeing the abuse investigations also drafted the overall policies, they should recuse themselves from the process, and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft should appoint an independent investigator. ''Only a special counsel can scrutinize the role of senior officials in countenancing and possibly permitting the use of torture," said William F. Schulz, Amnesty's executive director.

New questions were also raised yesterday about whether top US officials tried to cover up abuses in Iraq. A soldier said yesterday that he was stripped of his duties and ordered to see a health counselor after he reported that three of his comrades in the California National Guard abused Iraqi prisoners in the town of Samarra last year, the Associated Press reported.

Today, Human Rights First, another rights organization, plans to release a report outlining what it believes to be all the known and suspected US detention facilities around the world, including facilities on ships at sea. The group plans to call on the United States to fully identify all the facilities and open them up to review by the International Committee of the Red Cross. ''US-operated detention facilities function with excessive secrecy and inadequate oversight," the group said yesterday.