UNITED NATIONS, June 9: The Bush administration should immediately explain who reviewed and approved a high-level classified Pentagon memorandum that sought to justify the use of torture, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that a lengthy memorandum argued that the US president could order the torture of detainees with legal impunity. Human Rights Watch said the administration should make the full text of the memorandum public and disclose any actions taken in response to it, including whether President George W. Bush or Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld in fact ultimately authorized the use of torture.

"We now know that at the highest levels of the Pentagon there was a shocking interest in using torture and a misguided attempt to evade the criminal consequences of doing so," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

"If anyone still thinks the abuses at Abu Ghraib were only dreamed up by a handful of privates and sergeants, this memo should put that myth to rest." The WSJ reported that the secret memorandum was apparently created to provide advice to the administration on what interrogation methods could be used against uncooperative detainees held at the US Guantanamo Bay detention facilities.

The memo was created by a working group of high-level administration lawyers, directed by the Pentagon's general counsel William J. Haynes, after consulting with the military branches, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Department of Justice, and the intelligence services.

The memo argued that President Bush's powers as military commander-in-chief included the authority to authorize the use of torture in the defence of national security and suggested a series of legal arguments to avoid the prosecution of any government agents who engaged in torture at his direction. Human Rights Watch said that the argument was riddled with legal error.