The fresh allegations put new pressure on President George W. Bush to act against his defence adviser.
The Pentagon last night called the report on Mr Rumsfeld – by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker magazine – outlandish and conspiratorial, and denied he authorised any program that could have produced the abuses documented in the photographs that have shocked the world.
A Pentagon statement said the abuses had “no basis in any sanctioned program, training manual, instruction, or order”, and said the article was riddled with errors.
A list of possible measures, such as sleep disruption for up to 72 hours and the use of dogs to frighten prisoners, had previously been possible with the approval of the top US general in Iraq.
