The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has criticized the United States for the abuse of prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and for the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

The group went as far as to urge the Bush Administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate any government officials who were involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal essentially saying it does not believe the White House's claims that the abuse was the work of a few soldiers acting independently.

In its annual report, Human Rights Watch held the U.S. particularly responsible because of its high standing in the world community. 'When most governments breach international human rights and humanitarian law, they commit a violation,' the report said. 'When a government as dominant and influential as the United States openly defies that law and seeks to justify its defiance, it also undermines the law itself and invites others to do the same.'

The report also said that America's actions were hurting its fight against terrorism and in the war in Iraq. 'In the midst of a seeming epidemic of suicide bombings, beheadings and other attacks on civilians and noncombatants all affronts to the most basic human rights values Washington's weakened moral authority is felt acutely.'

Human Rights Watch was also very concerned about the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan where millions of people have been displaced from their homes and tens of thousands have been killed. Arab residents of the Sudan have been evicting non-Arabs from their homes for years there.

The report was critical of the world community's lack of action in the Sudan. 'Continued inaction risks undermining a fundamental human rights principle: That the nations of the world will never let sovereignty stand in the way of their responsibility to protect people from mass atrocities,' Human Rights Watch said.