The picture is complicated. Standard procedures for interrogation--long predating the current war--include things like hoods, keeping people in the dark, rationing food, and other things that Dan listed here.

Is this abuse? Does it qualify as torture? It goes without saying that the Red Cross probably has a lower bar for these things than an intelligence interrogator of a bomb builder might.

The Red Cross report does not seem to be clear on dividing routine prisoners from "high value" ones. This is also important. I have only plowed through about half of it in detail so far, although I have certainly seen all the quotes that people have picked out.

The Stanford Experiment seems to indicate that it is not difficult to generate this behavior under stress conditions, and that prison--beset by prisoner riots, and insurgent attacks (some of which killed prisoners)--was certainly a stress situation.

What I am objecting to is the artificial attempt to draw a solid line between this behavior and the highest levels of the administration for undisguised political reasons. For the love of God, we are fighting people who will saw a man's head off on camera without blinking. And did so once before, long before the prison abuse was an issue. How about some priorities? To hear some people talk, you would think Rumsfeld and Bush regularly toured the prison sporting monocles and swatting riding crops against their thighs as they ordered leashes put on prisoners.

I would expect the idea that aberrant behavior can be generated by the environment is not going to fit their political agenda as easily as the idea that this was specifically directed at the highest levels.