[JURIST] In an address [notice] to the San Francisco Commonwealth Club public affairs forum Friday, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski said that ample evidence exists to prove the use of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison [JURIST news archive] was authorized by the highest levels of the US government. Karpinski served as commander of military prisons in Iraq when the abuse scandal broke in 2003 and contends that reservists jailed to date did not devise the techniques used to interrogate prisoners. Karpinski notes that the humiliation techniques used required a detailed knowledge of Arab culture, a knowledge most reservists charged did not possess. Last month the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First sued [JURIST report] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and several other top US military officials on behalf of eight former detainees who claim they were tortured and abused by US personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reuters has more.