Washington: Amidst the raging controversy over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, a new report has said the US Government last year approved interrogation techniques for use at its detention facility in Guantanamo Bay that permitted disrobing detainees, reversing sleep patterns and exposing prisoners to heat, cold and "sensory assault".

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Though Guantanamo prisoners were treated better than those in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, they too were subjected to severe stress to make them talk.

A classified list of about 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the justice department in April 2003 and represents the first publicly known documentations of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically and psychologically stressful methods during questioning, 'The Washington Post' reported quoting unnamed Defence officials. The use of any of these techniques required the approval of senior Pentagon officials and in some cases, of the Defence Secretary.

Interrogators must justify that the harshest treatment is "militarily necessary" according to the document, as cited by one official. Once approved, the harsher treatment must be accompanied by "appropriate medical monitoring".

"We wanted to find a legal way to jack up the pressure," said one lawyer who helped write the guidelines. "We wanted a little more freedom than in a US prison, but not torture."

Defence and intelligence officials said similar guidelines have been approved for use on "high-value detainees" in Iraq those suspected of terrorism or of having knowledge of insurgency operations.

Separate CIA guidelines exist for agency-run detention centres.

Some prisoners could be made to stand for four hours at a time. Questioning a prisoner without clothes was permitted if he is alone in his cell. Ruled out were techniques such as physical contact even poking a finger in the chest and the "washboard technique" of smothering a detainee with towels to threaten suffocation, the report said.

Placing electrodes on detainees' bodies "wasn't even evaluated it was such a no-go," said one of the officials involved in drawing up the list.

It could not be learned whether similar guidelines were in effect at the US run Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, which has been the focus of controversy in recent days.

But lawmakers have said they want to know whether the misconduct reported at Abu Ghraib, which included sexual humiliation was an aberration or whether it reflected an aggressive policy taken to inhumane extremes.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment for the record. Several officials interviewed for this article, including two lawyers who helped formulate the guidelines, declined to be identified because the subject matter is so sensitive.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the US military and the CIA have detained thousands of foreign nationals at the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The Pentagon guidelines for Guantanamo were designed to give interrogators the authority to prompt uncooperative detainees to provide information.

Defence officials said yesterday that the techniques on the list are consistent with international law and contain safeguards such as legal and medical monitoring.