An undated photo published by the Post shows an unmuzzled dog appearing to be used to frighten an Iraqi detainee at Abu Ghraib

CAIRO, June 12 (IslamOnline.net) – The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, gave free reign to U.S. officers in charge of Abu Ghraib prison to adopt various torture and abuse tactics used at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo, Cuba, a U.S. daily revealed on Saturday, June 12.

Sanchez "borrowed heavily" from the Guantanamo high-pressure interrogation selection, which included the use of military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation and poor diets, the Washington Post reported citing newly obtained documents.

The Guantanamo torture list was originally given the thumbs-up in a series of memos singed by top Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who personally approved the use of dogs to provoke fear, said one of the de-classified documents.

In October, Sanchez was forced to cut down the 32 tactics after pressures from senior officials at the Florida headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which has overall military responsibility for Iraq .

The options that remained included taking someone to a less hospitable location for interrogation; manipulating his or her diet; imposing isolation for more than 30 days; using military dogs; and requiring someone to maintain a "stress position" for as long as 45 minutes, said the mass-circulation daily.

Sanchez approved the long-term isolation on 25 occasions after October 12, the Post quoted U.S. military officials as confirming.

The tactics were not dropped by Sanchez until a scandal erupted in April over photographs depicting graphic abuse of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers at the prison.

One of the shocking pictures, broadcast by the American news network CBS, showed a hooded prisoner with wires attached to his hands, standing on a box.

CBS said he had been told that if he fell off, he would be electrocuted.

The Post on May 22 published testimony of soldiers speaking of fun and sadistic pleasure in abusing prisoners.

A day earlier it published a new photo gallery and a video clip of Iraqis being beaten and sexually humiliated. (Click here to read the statements).

Wide Latitude

Another photo shows a U.S. soldier giving the "thumbs up" sign as she appears to be stitching up a prisoner's leg wound at Abu Ghraib

Approved by Sanchez last September, the tactics were imposed without first seeking the approval of anyone outside the prison, which gave the U.S. jailers at Abu Ghraib wide latitude in handling detainees, the daily added.

Sanchez had instructed his personnel to use the more severe methods at any time at Abu Ghraib with the consent of the interrogation officer in charge.

Intelligence officers arranged for military police to help impose some of the more severe tactics, leaving wide latitude for potentially abusive behavior.

Spec. Luciana Spencer, a member of the 66th Military Intelligence Group, told investigators that the military police did not know their boundaries.

"When I began working the night shift I discussed with the MPs what their SOP [standard operating procedure] was for detainee treatment," Spencer recalled in a statement.

"They informed me they had no SOP. I informed them of my IROE [interrogation rules of engagement] and made clear to them what I was and wasn't allowed to do or see."

She said a photograph of the pyramid of naked Iraqi detainees -- one of the most notorious portraits of abuse -- was used as a screen saver on a computer in the isolation area where intelligence officers worked.

Some of the rules for U.S. military personnel at the prison made it easy for people to duck responsibility for their actions, a factor that may also have opened the door to abuse, one of the documents said.

The prison officers had been also given orders not to address each other by true name and rank, according to an undated prison memo titled "Operational Guidelines".

Another document, an October 9 memorandum on "Interrogation Rules of Engagement," which each military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib was asked to sign, sets out in detail the wide range of pressure tactics approved in September.

They included methods that were close to some of the behavior criticized this March by the Army's own investigator, Major General Antonio M. Taguba, who said he found evidence of "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuse" at the prison.

The Post revealed on May 23 that Sanchez was present during some of interrogations that saw the torture and abuse of prisoners, according to a military lawyer for a U.S. soldier in the center of the Iraqi prisoners scandal.

The American New Yorker magazine also disclosed on May 16 that saying the torture at Abu Ghraib was Okayed by Rumsfeld.