Washington: Admitting that a failure in leadership and lack of discipline led to the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the US Army General who investigated abuse has told the US Congress that military police who acted improperly did so "of their on volition" Maj Gen Antonio Taguba told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday (May 11, 2004) that abuses happened because of "failure in leadership from the brigade commander on down; lack of discipline; no training whatsoever; and no supervision".

But, he disagreed sharply with Pentagon's undersecretary for intelligence Stephen Cambone about who had the "tactical control" of the prison when the mistreatment occurred.

When control of the prison was turned over to military intelligence officials, they had authority over the military police that were guarding prisoners, Taquba said.

Cambone rejected it saying authority for the handling of detainees remained with the military police.

"I do not believe that the order placing military intelligence officer in charge gave him the authority to address the military police's activities," he said.

In the daylong hearing, Committee's chairman, John Warner, said the photos were taken in an apparent effort to help future interrogations.

"They staged those photographs, which I understand were going to be shown to the prisoners' families by way of threats unless he came forward with some valuable information," he said.