Prison rules 'not humane'

WASHINGTON -- Interrogation rules issued last year in Iraq are ''not humane," a ranking defense official conceded yesterday, and a top general told senators that they may violate the Geneva Conventions on proper handling of military detainees.

The rules designed to encourage cooperation with interrogators were contained in a one-page memorandum issued by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior American commander in Iraq, and released by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

On a case-by-case basis, according to the memorandum, prisoners could be forced to wear hoods for up to three days or squat in physically demanding positions for 45 minutes and be subjected to other conditions.

The memorandum and the testimony from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that Sanchez approved more stringent interrogation techniques than considered permissible by government legal specialists. Management of the Abu Ghraib prison, where Iraqi detainees were mistreated, fell under Sanchez's command.

In testimony on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld defended military guidelines for interrogation that he said he personally approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Those guidelines, he said, did not authorize the sort of treatment depicted in the photographs of military personnel at Abu Ghraib that have come to dominate debate over the US mission in Iraq.

Pace, the second-ranking military official, said yesterday that he had never seen the Iraq guidelines issued by Sanchez and did not know who had authorized them.

Asked in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee whether he would consider it a violation of international law to force a prisoner to squat, naked and hooded, in a cell for 45 minutes, Pace replied, ''I would describe it as a violation, sir."

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, pressed Wolfowitz to say whether he considered sensory deprivation techniques, such as placing a hood over a detainee's head for 72 hours, to be humane treatment.

''It strikes me as not humane, senator," Wolfowitz said.

The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, read from a separate military report dated Dec. 13, 2003, that said interrogators should ''submit memoranda for the record requesting harsh approaches for commanding general's approval prior to employment, sleep management, sensory deprivation, isolation longer than 30 days, and dogs."

''Is that something that either of you are familiar with, Secretary Wolfowitz? General Pace?" Levin asked.

Pace replied : ''No, sir. I haven't seen that."

Wolfowitz said he did not recall any harsher treatments being officially approved.

Wolfowitz and Pace appeared before the committee to discuss the Pentagon budget, but senators wanted to focus on the prisoner abuse controversy and Sanchez's one-page directive.

It listed a variety of methods soldiers could use in interrogations, including ''dietary manipulation," or depriving inmates of food for certain periods so long as they were monitored by a medical officer; changing their environment, such as from hot to cold; keeping inmates awake for as long as three days at a time; isolating them for up to 30 days; using military dogs to intimidate prisoners; or forcing them to assume ''stressful positions" for as long as 45 minutes.

The memo specifies that the measures were allowed on a case-by-case basis only with written approval from Sanchez. There is no public evidence so far that Sanchez approved any requests for permission to use the harsher techniques. The memo also states that handling of prisoners ''must always be humane and lawful."

But the memo clearly suggests that what Sanchez considered permissible in interrogating captured Iraqis may have gone further than what senior Pentagon officials in Washington signed off on in 2002 for interrogations at the Marine Corps base in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, where Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects are being held. The CIA, officials said, has operated under different, at times more permissive, guidelines than the military,

Wolfowitz agreed that forcing an inmate to squat, naked and hooded, for 45 minutes would not be humane, but insisted that he did not know what the guidelines in the memo meant. He also said that if such techniques were used, they may not have been expressly approved by commanders. ''I saw this document for the first time this morning," Wolfowitz said.

Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday that Pentagon lawyers approved a series of interrogation techniques after 9/11 attacks, including sleep deprivation, dietary changes, and forcing internees to assume stressful positions.

He and General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Appropriations Commitee that these techniques were not deemed to violate the Geneva Conventions.

''Any instructions that have been issued or anything that's been authorized by the department was checked by the lawyers . . . and deemed to be consistent with the Geneva Conventions," Rumsfeld said.

Myers, appearing at his side to discuss the defense budget, stressed that such measures for an ''excessive amount of time or that would hurt somebody is not approved."

Nevertheless, that appears to be what was done in Iraq, possibly with the permission of the military command.

''As I read General Sanchez's guidance, precisely that behavior could have been employed in Iraq," said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island.

Mark Jacobson, who formerly worked in the detainee policy group in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and is now a visiting scholar at Ohio State University, yesterday attributed the apparent discrepancy between Rumsfeld's comments on interrogation guidelines and the testimony by Wolfowitz and Pace to what appear to be different guidelines in place in Iraq. ''Guantanamo guidelines were approved at the secretary of defense level, but I don't know about Iraq."

International legal specialists said the apparent abuses at Abu Ghraib raise new questions about what is permissible under international law and what isn't.

''I think this is the beginning of a very public coversation," said Ruth Wedgwood, professor of international law at Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, the Navy's brig, where at least three prisoners from the war on terror are being held, got high marks in a recent inspection. Navy Secretary Gordon England said yesterday in Charleston, S.C., where the 400-cell Consolidated Naval Brig is located, that ''preliminary reports are very positive."

Jose Padilla, an American accused of plotting to set off a radioactive bomb, is being held at the brig along with Yaser Hamdi, a US-born terror suspect captured in Afghanistan, and Ali Saleh al-Marri of Qatar, accused of being part of an Al Qaeda cell.

Anne E. Kornblut and Charlie Savage of the Globe staff contributed to this report, and material from the Associated Press was used. Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.