WASHINGTON, May 10: Up to 90 per cent people arrested by US troops in Iraq were detained by mistake, a Red Cross report disclosed on Monday. The report has been confirmed as 'authentic' by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and includes eyewitness accounts by ICRC delegates who visited US prison facilities in Iraq.

It emphasizes two key points: US military intelligence officers used intimidating technique, and in some cases torture, to extract information from the prisoners and that the abuses were part of a system used to interrogate the prisoners and 'not individual acts' of some soldiers.

"Red Cross delegates directly witnessed and documented a variety of methods used to secure the cooperation of the persons deprived of their liberty," the report said. Red Cross officials also saw evidence supporting prisoners' claim that they were abused and tortured, such as burns, bruises and other injuries, the report said.

The Red Cross, however, said most of the abuses were committed during interrogation and once the detainees were moved to regular prison facilities, the abuses usually stopped.

The abuses the report classified as 'tantamount to torture' included brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of "imminent execution." "These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and other forms of cooperation from person who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offences or deemed to have an 'intelligence value,' the report said.

The report said that while talking to Red Cross delegates, some US military intelligence officers acknowledged that "between 70-90 per cent of the persons detained in Iraq had been arrested by mistake.