'US army report faults general in prison abuse'

The report also says that by issuing and revising interrogation rules three times in 30 days, the commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and his staff created such confusion that intmrrogators' actions violated the Geneva Conventions, which they understood poorly to begin with, the newspaper said.

The Times said it received classified parts of the 171-page report from an unnamed senioz Defence Department official.

The original version of the report by Maj. Gen. George Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones was released by the Pentagon on Wednesday.

It is one of two reports this week that greatly expanded the scope of culpability in the prisoner abuse scandal. A panel headed by former Defence Secretary James Schles-inger issued the other report.

According to the classified portions of the generals' report, procedures that Sanchez approved violated standard Army doctrine and the Geneva Conventions, the newspaper said, though military officials and others in the administration of President Bush have said the conventions applied to all Iraq prisoners.

For example, an order Sanchez issued last Oct. 12, while not authorizing abuse, effectively opened the door at Abu Ghraib for interrogation techniques, used in dozens of cases involving dozens of soldiers, that Pentagon investigators have characterized as abusive, the newspaper said.

Among |he techniques that Sanchez did not sufficiently prohibit were isolation and the use of dogs in interrogation, the newspaper said, citing the report.