The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report, issued jointly by Carl Levin and John McCain, concluded that the United States' own Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape protocols had been used as a model for the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. SERE techniques had been developed to aid US personnel in case of capture during the Cold War, these training techniques had never been intended to be used against detainees. Senior Defense Department officials had inquired about the SERE program as early as December of 200. The Committee concluded that actions and statements taken by senior Bush Administration officials had lead to the abuses at Abu Ghraib, creating an atmosphere where such abuses as those that occurred there to be acceptable procedure.