GENEVA - The Red Cross discovered "serious violations" of the rights of Iraqi prisoners, with abuse so widespread it may be considered to have been tolerated by the U.S.-led coalition, the Wall Street Journal said on Friday.

In a confidential 24-page document, which was seen by the financial newspaper, the International Committee of the Red Cross said treatment in some cases was "tantamount to torture," particularly when interrogators were seeking information or confessions.

An official at the Geneva-based ICRC said the document, covering the period March-November 2003, was genuine, adding that the leak was a "major breakdown in confidentiality."

In a rare break with its normal practice, the ICRC said that it would release the full text at a 1400 GMT news conference.

The use of ill-treatment "went beyond exceptional cases and might be considered a practice tolerated" by coalition forces, the newspaper quoted the ICRC as saying.

That differs sharply from the view of senior officials in the administration of President Bush that military higher-ups had not condoned abuse, the newspaper said.

In the report, the ICRC said prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison were held in empty cells naked and beaten by soldiers. Three former military policemen at the prison told Reuters on Thursday that abuse was commonplace.

The aid group also said coalition forces fired on unarmed prisoners from watchtowers and killed some of them, as well as committing "serious violations" of the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of war prisoners, the Journal said.

The newspaper report comes a day after the Red Cross said on Thursday it had repeatedly urged the United States to take "corrective action" at a Baghdad jail at the center of a scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

The Geneva-based humanitarian agency, mandated under international treaties to visit detainees, has had regular access to Abu Ghraib prison since U.S.-led forces began using it last year, a Red Cross spokeswoman said.

Pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers abusing naked Iraqis at Abu Ghraib -- the largest prison in the country and notorious for torture under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- have sparked an international outcry.

Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited.

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