US lawmakers said after a private meeting Tuesday with General Antonio Taguba that they were assured that the prison abuse scandal in Iraq was limited to the facility at Abu Ghraib.
"The general theme of General Taguba's statements ... after visiting most, if not all of the detention centers in Iraq, that the problem was limited to Abu Ghraib and that a breakdown in leadership at the prison was the primary cause," said US Representative Jim Saxton, chairman of the House Terrorism and Special Operations Subcommittee.
Taguba was the author of a Pentagon report last January revealing "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" against Iraqi prisoners by their US jail-keepers.
According to the document, military intelligence officers told US military police guards to give Iraqi detainees rough treatment to facilitate interrogation, leading to the abuses highlighted in shocking photos and video images broadcast around the world.
Taguba held Tuesday's two-hour briefing with members of the House of Representatives one week after providing testimony at an open Senate committee hearing.
Lawmakers said Taguba also reiterated an earlier conclusion that there was no official policy of mistreatment or order to guards from top Pentagon officials to abuse detainees.