U.S. officials told a United Nations panel Wednesday that the U.S. had tortured individuals under the Bush Administration following the Sept. 11 attacks, but was no longer doing so.

Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for human rights, told the U.N.'s Convention Against torture monitoring group that a little more than 10 years "our government was employing interrogation methods that ... crossed the line, and we take responsibility for that."

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Obama administration officials went on to say the U.S. has taken measures to prevent future use of "unlawful, coercive interrogation techniques."

Acting legal adviser to the State Department, Mary McLeod, said the U.S. didn't live up to its values in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. She said that transgression was a black mark on the nation's reputation as a leader in defending, promoting and respecting human rights and the rule of law.

While President Obama has acknowledged the use of torture during Bush's presidency, these admissions were the most public, and formal, presentations of the issue to the international community.

The U.N. panel listened to the U.S officials producing what essentially was a new American position on torture. McLeod acknowledged the treaty barring cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment applied to conduct the worldwide.

The Bush administration said the convention only applied to torture being used within national boundaries, in this case U.S. soil. Independent investigators and an international task force issued comprehensive studies of the use of torture by U.S. interrogators on terrorism suspects.

President Obama banned abusive interrogation tactics like waterboarding when he took office in 2009. However, even then, human rights advocates said abusive techniques continued at least through last year at Guantanamo Prison.

Obama administration officials continued to debate internally technical legalities pertaining to interrogation and unintended consequences, but all agreed that torture and cruelty, banned under U.S. law, should not be applied to suspects.

Officials stressed to the U.N. panel that an executive order from Obama bridged any ambiguous gaps in policy. McLeod and Malinowski each told the U.N. panel the U.S. was not now torturing suspects and would not do so in the future.

Panel members pressed the U.S. delegation on officials' interrogation policy, including policies limiting detainees to four hours of sleep over long periods of time and force-feeding prisoners on prolonged hunger strikes.

American delegates told panel members they would return Thursday with answers to those questions.

TagsU.N, U.S., Torture, Human Rights, bush administration, Obama administration, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay