Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other high-ranking Bush administration officials were responsible for the harsh interrogations against captured terrorist suspects that took place at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, according to a bipartisan report issued Thursday by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Rumsfeld had attributed such abuses to lower-level members of the military acting on their own.

But the 19-page report released by the committee’s Democratic chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, and ranking Republican Sen. John McCain, said Rumsfeld bears responsibility for the abuses, which have been widely regarded as torture. The report is the final installment in the Armed Services Committee’s 18-month investigation into the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, which generated 38,000 pages of documents and relied upon the testimony of 70 people.

“Attempts by senior officials to pass the buck to low ranking soldiers while avoiding any responsibility for abuses are unconscionable,” Levin said in a statement. “The message from top officials was clear; it was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees.”

Regarding the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, the committee’s report concluded that it “was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own.”

“Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s… authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques and subsequent interrogation policies and plans approved by senior military and civilian officials conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody,” the report said. “What followed was an erosion in standards dictating that detainees be treated humanely.”

The report added: “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there.”

“Secretary Rumsfeld’s… approval of [Pentagon senior counsel William] Haynes’s recommendation that most of the techniques contained in [Guantanamo's] October 11, 2002 request be authorized, influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques, including military working dogs, forced nudity, and stress positions, in Afghanistan and Iraq,” according to the report.   

Such degrading tactics would appear to contravene the Geneva Convention, which bars abusive or demeaning treatment of captives.

The panel’s report included some new information about the harsh interrogation against a detainee accused of being involved in the “Millennium Plot” to blow up airports. He has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since the summer of 2002.

“On April 16, 2003… the Secretary authorized the use of 24 specific interrogation techniques for use at [Guantanamo],” the report said. “Just a few months later, one such request for “additional interrogation techniques” arrived on Secretary Rumsfeld’s desk. The detainee was Mohamedou Ould Slahi. While documents relating to the interrogation plan for Slahi remain classified, a May 2008 report from the Department of Justice Inspector General includes declassified information suggesting the plan included hooding Slahi and subjecting him to sensory deprivation and “sleep adjustment.”

“The Inspector General’s report says that an FBI agent who saw a draft of the interrogation plan said it was similar to [alleged 20th 9/11 hijacker Mohammed al] Khatani’s interrogation plan. Secretary Rumsfeld approved the Slahi plan on August 13, 2003.”

Glenn Fine, the Department of Justice’s inspector general, testified in June that Rumsfeld ignored FBI agents’ warnings about the treatment of detainees.

“The FBI believed that these techniques were not getting actionable information, that they were unsophisticated and unproductive,” Fine told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June. “They raised their concerns with the Department of Defense, but the Department of Defense, from what we were told, dismissed those concerns and that no changes were made in the Department of Defense’s strategy.”

Fine issued a 437-page report in May that singled out Rumsfeld and said he was responsible for prisoner abuse and harsh interrogation techniques.

In October 2002, Fine said, FBI agents raised concerns with Marion Bowman, the Justice Department’s deputy general counsel in charge of national security, about the methods used during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. An FBI agent stationed at Guantanamo then sent the agency an analysis on November 27, 2002 calling into question the legality of the interrogation techniques, stating that the methods used appeared to violate the U.S. Torture statute. Bowman then alerted Jim Haynes, the DOD’s general counsel.

The same day Bowman raised concerns with Haynes, Haynes advised Rumsfeld to approve of the “enhanced interrogation” methods, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, (D-Calif.), who chaired the committee hearing in June.

“According to Mr. Bowman, Haynes claimed he didn’t know anything about the coercive interrogation techniques that were occurring at Guantanamo, despite the fact that he recommended on November 27, 2002, that Secretary Rumsfeld formally approve the very techniques that were being used at Guantanamo,” Feinstein said.

On Nov. 23, 2002, four day before the FBI agent alerted the DOJ about interrogation tactics he witnessed, Rumsfeld verbally authorized interrogators to used harsh methods during their interrogation of Mohammed al-Qhatani, the so-called 20th hijacker, who was being held at Guantanamo. Al-Qahtani was sentenced to death earlier this year, but the Pentagon dropped war-crimes charges against him last month.

A Dec. 20, 2005, Army Inspector General Report relating to the capture and interrogation of al-Kahtani included a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt. It said Secretary Rumsfeld was “personally involved” in the interrogation of al-Qahtani and spoke “weekly” with Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commander at Guantanamo, about the status of the interrogations between late 2002 and early 2003.

Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, an attorney with Center for Constitutional Rights, the organization defending al-Kahtani from charges of war crimes, said in a sworn declaration that his client, imprisoned at Guantanamo, was subjected to months of torture based on verbal and written authorizations from Rumsfeld.

“At Guantánamo, Mr. al-Qahtani was subjected to a regime of aggressive interrogation techniques, known as the ‘First Special Interrogation Plan,’ that were authorized by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,” Gutierrez said.

“Those techniques were implemented under the supervision and guidance of Secretary Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller. These methods included, but were not limited to, 48 days of severe sleep deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress positions and prolonged sensory over-stimulation, and threats with military dogs.”

In June, the Armed Services Committee issued the first installment of its investigation into harsh interrogations. That report showed the pattern of humiliation, abuse and even torture inflicted on detainees was a deliberate policy of the Bush administration – debated by mid-level lawyers at the CIA and the Pentagon, given legal cover at the Justice Department and approved at the highest levels of government.

“The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees,” the report released Thursday said. “Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.”

The panel’s investigation also suggests that the harsh interrogations methods used against detainees preceded a Department of Justice legal memorandum issued on Aug. 1, 2002 authorizing the CIA to use long outlawed tactics, such as the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, against prisoners in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The committee’s report said an action memorandum signed by President George W. Bush on Feb. 7, 2002 opened the door to “considering aggressive techniques” and directly led to abuses at Abu Ghraib and the brutal methods used against detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

“On February 7, 2002, President Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflict with al Qaeda and concluding that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or the legal protections afforded by the Third Geneva Convention,” the report said. “The President’s order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment, to al Qaeda or Taliban detainees.  

“While the President’s order stated that, as “a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of the Geneva Conventions,” the decision to replace well established military doctrine, i.e., legal compliance with the Geneva Conventions, with a policy subject to interpretation, impacted the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.”

The Feb. 7, 2002 memo led Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq to institute a “dozen interrogation methods beyond” the Army’s standard practice under the convention, according to a 2004 report on the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prepared by a panel headed by James Schlesinger.

Sanchez said he based his decision on “the President’s Memorandum,” which he said had justified “additional, tougher measures” against detainees, the Schlesigner report said.  

Christopher Anders, the American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative counsel, said the the committee’s report “makes clear the role of top White House and Defense Department officials in authorizing torture and abuse.

“It also includes a startling new fact, which is that a top Defense Department official was inquiring into methods of torture and abuse more than a month before President Bush ordered that the Geneva Conventions would not apply to the detainees,” Anders said. “There is now a whole new question that an independent prosecutor should investigate on whether the president’s order taking away Geneva Conventions protections was part of a scheme to engage in illegal torture that was already being explored.”

The committee found that Rumsfeld and Pentagon official William Haynes solicited input from military psychologists in July 2002, months earlier than they had previously acknowledged, about developing harsh methods interrogators could use against detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.

But “Mr. Haynes was not the only senior official considering new interrogation techniques for use against detainees,” the committee’s report released Thursday said. “Members of the President’s Cabinet and other senior officials attended meetings in the White House where specific interrogation techniques were discussed. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was then the National Security Advisor, said that, “in the spring of 2002, CIA sought policy approval from the National Security Council (NSC) to begin an interrogation program for high-level al-Qaida terrorists.”

“Secretary Rice said that she asked Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to brief NSC Principals on the program and asked the Attorney General John Ashcroft “personally to review and confirm the legal advice prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel.”  She also said that Rumsfeld participated in the NSC review of CIA’s program,” according to the report.  

Rice admitted for the first time in September that she led high-level discussions beginning in 2002 with other senior Bush administration officials about subjecting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists detained at military prisons to the harsh interrogation technique known as waterboarding, according to documents released by Levin.

Responding in writing to questions by Levin, John B. Bellinger, Rice’s legal adviser at the State Department, said they recalled participating in meetings with Ashcroft and Rumsfeld in July 2002 about an Army and Air Force survival training program called Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) meant to prepare U.S. soldiers for abuse they might suffer if captured by an outlaw regime.

“SERE training techniques were designed to give our troops a taste of what they might be subjected to if captured by a ruthless, lawless enemy so that they would be better prepared to resist,” Levin said in a statement Thursday. “The techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.”

In April, President George W. Bush told an ABC News reporter during an interview that he approved of meetings of a National Security Council’s Principals Committee, whose advisers included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, former CIA Director George Tenet and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, where these officials discussed specific interrogation techniques the CIA could use against detainees.

The report begs for further investigation into possible war crimes by President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.

Civil rights organizations have pressed Obama to aggressively investigate the Bush administration’s actions once he is sworn in next month.

Obama has not indicated whether Eric Holder, his choice for Attorney General, will pursue an investigation into the Bush administration’s policies, particularly issues related to torture.

Remarkably, Silvestre Reyes, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said he told Obama’s transition team that some of the Bush administration’s controversial interrogation policies should remain intact.

In an interview with Congress Daily, Reyes, D-Texas, a Vietnam War veteran, said he advised Obama’s transition team that obtaining information from suspected terrorists is crucial and “some options” that extend beyond interrogation rules in the Army Field Manual need to be available.

“There are those that believe that this particular issue has to be dealt with very carefully because there are beliefs that there are some options that need to be available,” Reyes told Congress Daily. “We don’t want to be known for torturing people. At the same time we don’t want to limit our ability to get information that’s vital and critical to our national security. That’s where the new administration is going to have to decide what those parameters are, what those limitations are.”

In an interview with “60 Minutes” last month, Obama told correspondent Steve Kroft “that America doesn’t torture and I’m going to make sure we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has argued that there is no legal basis to prosecute current and former administration officials for authorizing torture and warrantless domestic surveillance because those decisions were made in the context of a presidential interest in protecting national security.

“There is absolutely no evidence that anybody who rendered a legal opinion, either with respect to surveillance or with respect to interrogation policies, did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful,” Mukasey said during a Dec. 3 roundtable discussion with reporters.

“If the word goes out to the contrary, then people are going to get the message, which is that if you come up with an answer that is not considered desirable in the future you might face prosecution, and that creates an incentive not to give an honest answer but to give an answer that may be acceptable in the future,” Mukasey told the reporters.

Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, immediately took issue with the “breadth” of Mukasey’s statement “and the blanket conclusion that everyone involved in approving these policies believed they were acting within the law.”

Conyers reminded Mukasey that reams of evidence – including testimony from career military and law enforcement officials – show that top White House officials may have broken the law by authorizing torture and warrantless domestic surveillance.

“The public record reflects ample warning to administration officials that its legal approach was overreaching and invalid, such as repeated objections by military lawyers … on interrogation issues and the stark warning by then-Deputy Attorney General [James] Comey that the [Justice] Department would be ashamed if the world learned of the legal advice it had given on torture issues,” Conyers said in a letter to Mukasey.

Indeed, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the investigation of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said “there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”