US detainee abuse 'unprecedented' - 13 May 09

A former state department official has accused the Bush administration of unprecedented abuse in its treatment of terror suspects.

Philip Zelikow said there was a "collective failure" on the question of torture and blamed both political parties in the US.

He also alleged that in 2006 former Bush administration officials sought to collect and destroy copies of a memo he wrote opposing the interrogation methods, as Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reveals