Manfred Nowak, an Austrian law professor and the UN’s chief anti-torture campaigner, has never been to Iraq but said that he had based his claim on interviews with people in Amman, the Jordanian capital, and other sources.

“What most people tell you is that the situation as far as torture is concerned now in Iraq is totally out of hand,” he said. “The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than in the times of Saddam Hussein.”

Professor Nowak was speaking after a UN report showing that the number of Iraqi citizens killed in July and August was 6,599, a record-high. More than 5,100 were murdered in Baghdad and many victims had been tortured.

A State Department official in Washington, asked about Professor Nowak’s comments, told The Times: “How anyone could compare state-sanctioned torture under a dictator to the situation today is beyond us. We don’t agree with his assessment of the situation at all.”

• President Bush said that a compromise deal reached last night with Senate Republicans “clears the way to capture terrorists, to detain terrorists, to question terrorists and then to try them”.

  Mr Bush’s Bill on the treatment of terror suspects had previously been opposed by some Republican senators, led by John McCain, a potential presidential contender. “There’s no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved,” Mr McCain said after the deal was struck.

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