It wasn't simply the work of "a few bad apples," or misbehavior by low-level soldiers.

Blame for the notorious abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has been placed where it should be — with high-ranking Bush administration officials, including then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

A Senate Armed Services committee report, approved 17-0 last week with no dissensions, traced many of the now-infamous abuses — naked, hooded Iraqis stacked in a pyramid, threatened by dogs, placed in painful stress positions and more — directly to Rumsfeld and his underlings, who dismissed concerns by military lawyers and approved specific interrogation techniques for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002.

And even though Rumsfeld rescinded some of the techniques in 2003, the report noted that his "initial approval ... continued to influence interrogation policies" in Afghanistan and Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. It puts to rest shameful attempts by Rumsfeld and others to solely blame some enlisted soldiers and an Army Reserve brigadier general for abuses at the prison.

Those lies were bad enough. But the policy of using the abusive techniques, which many military experts warned were ineffective, was worse.

"Those efforts," the report said, "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority."

Abu Ghraib and its aftermath have clouded our vision of the war on terror. Americans need to understand the full extent of such abuses against foreign detainees — a complete accounting remains undone — so such actions won't be repeated.

The report, a bipartisan one, is a solid step in that direction.