Forensic examinations have revealed that torture at Guantanamo Bay had been sanctioned by the most senior advisers to the US president.

According to Philippe Sands, the international lawyer and professor of law at University College London, who trailed the chain of command, the US vice president and the secretary of defense were directly involved in designing the interrogation policies at Guantanamo.

Sands in his Vanity Fair article says on a trip to Guantanamo in 2002, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Dick Cheney's chief counsel David Addington, and the general counsel of the Department of Defense William Haynes, discussed interrogation techniques and witnessed interrogations.

Sands also believes attorney John Yoo wrote a Justice Department memo which acted as the basis for a decision by Rumsfeld to authorize new techniques of interrogation in December, 2002.

The British attorney's article, which describes Gonzales, Haynes, Addington, and Yoo as Bush's 'torture team of lawyers,' contradicts the administration's account to Congress, which placed the responsibility on military commanders and interrogators.

Sands concludes that actions of these government officials, which have amounted to war crimes, could result in their prosecution overseas.

CS/GM/BGH