Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse

During the war in Iraq that began in March 2003, personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.^[1] These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder.^[2][3][4][5] The abuses came to widespread public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the soldiers received support from some conservative media within the United States.^[6][7]

The administration of George W. Bush attempted to portray the abuses as isolated incidents, not indicative of general U.S. policy.^[8][9] This was contradicted by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. After multiple investigations, these organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents, but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.^[9] Several scholars stated that the abuses constituted state-sanctioned crimes.^[8][9] There was evidence that authorization for the torture had come from high up in the military hierarchy, with allegations being made that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had authorized some of the actions.^[9]

The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, these soldiers were convicted in courts-martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner and PFC Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten and three years in prison, respectively. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted.

Documents popularly known as the Torture Memos came to light a few years later. These documents, prepared shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain enhanced interrogation techniques, generally held to involve torture of foreign detainees. The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas. Several subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, and ruled that Geneva Conventions apply.

Many of the torture techniques used were developed at Guantánamo detention centre, including prolonged isolation, the frequent flier program, a sleep deprivation program whereby people were moved from cell to cell every few hours so they couldn’t sleep for days, weeks, even months, short-shackling in painful positions; nudity; extreme use of heat and cold; the use of loud music and noise and preying on phobias.^[10]

Background

War on terror

The September 11 Attacks in the United States led to demands on US president George Bush to take actions that would prevent further attacks.^[9] This pressure led to the launch of the War on Terror.^[9] The fact that the perceived enemies in the War on Terror were stateless individuals, and the perceived threat of extreme strategies including suicide bombing, led to a pressure on the Bush administration to act decisively.^[9] In addition, these tactics created the perception that the "legitimate" techniques used in the cold war would not be of much use. US vice-president Dick Cheney stated, for example, that the US "[had] to work sort of on the dark side",^[9] and that it had to "use any means at [its] disposal".^[9]

Iraq War

The Iraq War began in March 2003 as an invasion of Ba'athist Iraq by a force led by the United States.^[11][12] The Ba'athist government led by Saddam Hussein was toppled within a month. This conflict was followed by a longer phase of fighting in which an insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government.^[13] During this insurgency, the United States was in the role of an occupying power.^[13]

Abu Ghraib prison

The Abu Ghraib prison in the town of Abu Ghraib was one of the most notorious prisons in Iraq during the government of Saddam Hussein. The prison was used to hold approximately 50,000 men and women in poor conditions, and torture and execution were frequent.^[14] The prison was located on 280 acres of land 32 kilometers west of Baghdad.^[15] After the collapse of Saddam Hussein's government, the prison was looted and everything that was removable was carried away. Following the invasion, the U.S. army refurbished it and turned it into a military prison.^[14] It was the largest of several detention centers in Iraq used by the U.S. military.^[16] In March 2004, during the time that the U.S. military was using the Abu Ghraib prison as a detention facility, it housed approximately 7,490 prisoners.^[17]

Three categories of prisoners were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib by the U.S. military. These were "common criminals," individuals suspected of being leaders of the insurgency, and individuals suspected of committing crimes against the occupational force led by the U.S.^[18] Although most prisoners lived in tents in the yard, the abuses took place inside cell blocks 1a and 1b.^[15] The 800th Military Police Brigade, from Uniondale, New York, was responsible for running the prison.^[16] The brigade was commanded by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of all of the U.S. run prisons in Iraq. She did not have previous experience in running a prison.^[18] The individuals who committed abuses at the prison were members of the 372nd Military Police Company, which was a constituent of the 320th Military Police Battalion, which was overseen by Karpinski's Brigade headquarters.^[19]

Emergence of the scandal

In June 2003 Amnesty International published reports of human rights abuses by the U.S. military and its coalition partners at detention centers and prisons in Iraq.^[20] These included reports of brutal treatment at Abu Ghraib prison, which had once been used by the government of Saddam Hussein, and had been taken over by the United States after the invasion. On June 20, 2003, Abdel Salam Sidahmed, Deputy Director of AI's Middle East Program, described an uprising by the prisoners against the conditions of their detention, saying "The notorious Abu Ghraib Prison, centre of torture and mass executions under Saddam Hussein, is yet again a prison cut off from the outside world. On 13 June there was a protest in this prison against indefinite detention without trial. Troops from the occupying powers killed one person and wounded seven."^[20]

On July 23, 2003, Amnesty International issued a press release condemning widespread human rights abuses by U.S. and coalition forces. The release stated that prisoners had been exposed to extreme heat, not provided clothing, and forced to use open trenches for toilets. They had also been tortured, with the methods including denial of sleep for extended periods, exposure to bright lights and loud music, and being restrained in uncomfortable positions.^[21]

On November 1, 2003, the Associated Press presented a special report on the massive human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib. Their report began; "In Iraq's American detention camps, forbidden talk can earn a prisoner hours bound and stretched out in the sun, and detainees swinging tent poles rise up regularly against their jailers, according to recently released Iraqis." The report went on to describe abuse of the prisoners at the hands of their American captors: "'They confined us like sheep,' the newly freed Saad Naif, 38, said of the Americans. 'They hit people. They humiliated people.'" In response, U.S. Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, at the time in charge of all U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, claimed that prisoners were being treated "humanely and fairly."^[22] The AP report also stated that as of November 1, 2003, there were two legal cases pending against U.S. military personnel, one involving the beating of an Iraqi prisoner, the other about the death of a prisoner in custody.^[22]

Since the beginning of the invasion, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been allowed to oversee the prison, and submitted reports about the treatment of the prisoners. In response to an ICRC report, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who oversaw all US detention facilities in Iraq, stated that several of the prisoners were intelligence assets, and therefore not entitled to complete protection under the Geneva Convention.^[16] The ICRC reports led to General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the Iraqi task force, appointing Major General Antonio Taguba to investigate the allegations on 1 January 2004.^[16] Taguba submitted his findings (the Taguba Report) in February 2004, stating that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force."^[16] The report stated that there was widespread evidence of this abuse, including photographic evidence. The report was not released publicly.^[14]

The scandal came to widespread public attention In April 2004, when a 60 Minutes II news report was aired on April 28 by CBS News, describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel taunting naked prisoners.^{[9][16][23][15]} An article was published by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue),^[14] which also had a widespread impact.^[23] The photographs were subsequently reproduced in the press across the world.^[16] The details of the Taguba report were made public in May 2004. Shortly afterwards, U.S. President George W. Bush stated that the individuals responsible would be "brought to justice," while United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan said that the effort to reconstruct a government in Iraq had been badly damaged.^[16]

Authorization of torture

Executive Order

On December 21, 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union released copies of internal memoranda from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that it had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These discussed torture and abuse at prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq. One memorandum dated May 22, 2004 was from an individual described as the "On Scene Commander – Baghdad," but whose name had been redacted.^[24] This individual referred explicitly to an Executive Order that sanctioned the use of extraordinary interrogation tactics by U.S. military personnel. The torture methods sanctioned included sleep deprivation, hooding prisoners, playing loud music, removing all detainees' clothing, forcing them to stand in so-called "stress positions", and the use of dogs. The author also stated that the Pentagon had limited use of the techniques by requiring specific authorization from the chain of command. The author identifies "physical beatings, sexual humiliation or touching" as being outside the Executive Order. This was the first internal evidence since the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse affair became public in April 2004 that forms of coercion of captives had been mandated by the president of the United States.^[25]

Authorization from Ricardo Sanchez

Documents obtained by The Washington Post and the ACLU showed that Ricardo Sanchez, who was a Lieutenant General and the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq, authorized the use of military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, and sensory deprivation as interrogation methods in Abu Ghraib.^[26] A November 2004 report by Brigadier General Richard Formica found that many troops at the Abu Ghraib prison had been following orders based on a memorandum from Sanchez, and that the abuse had not been carried out by isolated "criminal" elements.^[27] ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said in a statement from the union that "General Sanchez authorized interrogation techniques that were in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and the army's own standards."^[28] In an interview for her hometown newspaper The Signal, Karpinski stated that she had seen unreleased documents from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld which authorized the use of these tactics on Iraqi prisoners.^[29]

Alleged authorization from Donald Rumsfeld

A 2004 report by the New Yorker stated that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had authorized the interrogation tactics used in Abu Ghraib, and which had previously been used by the US in Afghanistan.^[30] On November 2006, Janis Karpinski, who had been in charge of Abu Ghraib prison until early 2004, told Spain's El País newspaper that she had seen a letter signed by Rumsfeld, which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation. "The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorized these specific techniques."^[31] According to Karpinski, the handwritten signature was above his printed name, and the comment "Make sure this is accomplished" was in the margin in the same hand-writing.^[31] Neither the Pentagon nor U.S. Army spokespeople in Iraq commented on the accusation. In 2006, a criminal complaint was filed in a German Court against Donald Rumsfeld by eight former soldiers and intelligence operatives, including Karpinski and former army counterintelligence special agent David DeBatto. Among other things, the complaint stated that Rumsfeld both knew of and authorized enhanced interrogation techniques that he knew to be illegal under international law.^{[31][32][33][34][35]}

Prisoner abuse

Death of Manadel al-Jamadi

Manadel al-Jamadi, a prisoner at Abu Ghraib prison, died after a CIA officer and a private contractor interrogated and tortured him in November 2003. The torture included physical violence and strappado hanging, wherein the victim is hung from the wrists with their hands tied behind their back. Although the US military labeled the death a homicide, neither of the two men who caused his death were charged.^[36] The private contractor was granted qualified immunity.^[37]

Prisoner rape

In 2004, Antonio Taguba, a major general in the U.S. Army, wrote in the Taguba Report that a detainee had been sodomized with "a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick."^[38] In 2009, Taguba stated that there was photographic evidence of rape having occurred at Abu Ghraib.^[39] An Abu Ghraib detainee told investigators that he heard an Iraqi teenage boy screaming, and saw an Army translator raping him, while a female soldier took pictures.^[40] A witness identified the alleged rapist as an American-Egyptian who worked as a translator. In 2009, he was the subject of a civil court case in the United States.^[39] Another photo shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner.^[39] Other photos show interrogators sexually assaulting prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, and a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.^[39] Taguba supported United States President Barack Obama's decision not to release the photos, stating, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."^[39] Obama, who initially agreed to release the photographs, later changed his mind, as he believed their release would put troops in danger and "inflame anti-American public opinion".^[39]

In other instances of sexual abuse, soldiers were found to have raped female inmates, and senior U.S. officials admitted that rape had taken place at Abu Ghraib.^[41][42] Some of the women who had been raped became pregnant, and in some cases, were later killed by their family members in what were thought to be instances of honor killing.^[43] In addition, children were raped in front of watching women.^[44]

Other abuses

In May 2004, the Washington Post reported evidence given by Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik, detainee No. 151362. It quoted him as saying; "They said we will make you wish to die and it will not happen [...] They stripped me naked. One of them told me he would rape me. He drew a picture of a woman to my back and made me stand in shameful position holding my buttocks."^[45] "'Do you pray to Allah?' one asked. I said yes. They said, '[Expletive] you. And [expletive] him.' One of them said, 'You are not getting out of here health[y], you are getting out of here handicapped. And he said to me, 'Are you married?' I said, 'Yes.' They said, 'If your wife saw you like this, she will be disappointed.' One of them said, 'But if I saw her now she would not be disappointed now because I would rape her.' " [...] "They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive." [...] "I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, 'But I believe in torture and I will torture you.'"^[45]

On January 12, 2005, The New York Times reported on further testimony from Abu Ghraib detainees. The abuses reported included urinating on detainees, pounding wounded limbs with metal batons, pouring phosphoric acid on detainees, and tying ropes to the detainees' legs or penises and dragging them across the floor.^[46]

In her video diary, a prison guard said that prisoners were shot for minor misbehavior, and claimed to have had venomous snakes used to bite prisoners, sometimes resulting in their deaths. The guard said that she was "in trouble" for having thrown rocks at the detainees.^[47] Hashem Muhsen, one of the naked prisoners in the human pyramid photo, later said the men were also forced to crawl around the floor naked while soldiers rode them like donkeys.^[48]

Systematic torture

On May 7, 2004, Pierre Krähenbühl, Operations Director for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), stated that inspection visits made by the ICRC to detention centers run by the U.S. and its allies showed that acts of prisoner abuse were not isolated acts, but were part of a "pattern and a broad system." He went on to say that some of the incidents they had observed were "tantamount to torture".^[49]

Armed forces in the U.S. and the UK are jointly trained in techniques known as resistance to interrogation (R2I) techniques. These R2I techniques are taught ostensibly to help soldiers cope with, or resist, torture if they are captured. On May 8, 2004, The Guardian reported that according to a former British special forces officer, the acts committed by the Abu Ghraib prison military personnel resembled the techniques used in R2I training.^[50] Other tactics that were used included "pride-and-ego down" techniques, which attack prisoners' sense of self-worth to make them more willing to cooperate.^[51]

The same report stated that:

The US commander in charge of military jails in Iraq, Major General Geoffrey Miller, has confirmed that a battery of 50-odd special "coercive techniques" can be used against enemy detainees. The general, who previously ran the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, said his main role was to extract as much intelligence as possible.

— The Guardian

Historian Alfred W. McCoy, who authored a book on torture in the Philippines armed forces, noted similarities in the abusive treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the techniques described in the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual published by the United States Central Intelligence Agency in 1963. He asserts that what he calls "the CIA's no-touch torture methods" have been in continuous use by the CIA and the U.S. military intelligence since that time.

An article by Seymour M. Hersh on May 25, 2004 in The New Yorker magazine suggested a connection between the Abu Ghraib incidents and a chain of events set in motion by senior government officials following the September 11 attacks. Specifically, Hersh made a connection to a "special access" or "black ops" program known as Copper Green. According to Hersh, officials concerned with extracting intelligence from terrorists stretched the bounds of interrogation to or beyond the extreme legal limits. Subsequently, methods which were originally intended to be used only on high value Taliban and Al-Qaeda "enemy combatants" came to be improperly used on Iraqi prisoners. The Department of Defense immediately characterized Hersh's report as "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture".

Media coverage

Associated Press report, 2003

On November 1, 2003, the Associated Press published a lengthy report on inhumane treatment, beatings, and deaths at Abu Ghraib and other American prisons in Iraq.^[52] This report was based on interviews with released detainees, who told journalist Charles J. Hanley that inmates had been attacked by dogs, made to wear hoods, and humiliated in other ways.^[53] The article gained little notice.^[54] One freed detainee said that he wished somebody would publish pictures of what was happening.^[53]

When the U.S. military first acknowledged the abuse in early 2004, much of the United States media once again showed little initial interest. On January 16, 2004, the United States Central Command informed the media that an official investigation had begun involving abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees by a group of U.S. soldiers. On February 24, it was reported that 17 soldiers had been suspended. The military announced on March 21, 2004, that the first charges had been filed against six soldiers.^[55][56] None of these stories received significant coverage in the mainstream press.

60 Minutes II broadcast, 2004

In late April 2004, the U.S. television news-magazine 60 Minutes II, a franchise of CBS, broadcast a story on the abuse. The story included photographs depicting the abuse of prisoners.^[58] The news segment was delayed by two weeks at the request of the Department of Defense and Richard Myers, an air force general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. After learning that The New Yorker magazine planned to publish an article and photographs on the topic in its next issue, CBS proceeded to broadcast its report on April 28.^[59] In the CBS report, Dan Rather interviewed then-deputy director of Coalition operations in Iraq, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, who said:

The first thing I'd say is we're appalled as well. These are our fellow soldiers. These are the people we work with every day, and they represent us. They wear the same uniform as us, and they let their fellow soldiers down [...] Our soldiers could be taken prisoner as well. And we expect our soldiers to be treated well by the adversary, by the enemy. And if we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect [...] We can't ask that other nations do that to our soldiers as well. [...] So what would I tell the people of Iraq? This is wrong. This is reprehensible. But this is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are over here [...] I'd say the same thing to the American people ... Don't judge your army based on the actions of a few.^[58]

Kimmitt also acknowledged that he knew of other cases of abuse during the American occupation of Iraq.^[58] Bill Cowan, a former Marine lieutenant colonel, was also interviewed, and said: "We went into Iraq to stop things like this from happening, and indeed, here they are happening under our tutelage."^[58] In addition, Rather interviewed Army Reserve Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick, who was party to some of the abuses. Frederick's civilian job was as a corrections officer at a Virginia prison. He said, "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations, and it just wasn't happening."^[58] Frederick's video diary, sent home from Iraq, provided some of the images used in the story. In it he listed detailed, dated, entries that chronicled abuse of CIA prisoners, as well as their names: "The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake [intravenous drip] in his arm and took him away. This [CIA prisoner] was never processed and therefore never had a number."^[60] Frederick implicated the Military Intelligence Corps as well, saying "MI has been present and witnessed such activity. MI has encouraged and told us great job [and] that they were now getting positive results and information."^[60]

New Yorker article, 2004

In May 2004, Seymour M. Hersh published an article in The New Yorker magazine discussing the abuses in detail, and used as its source a copy of the Taguba report. Under the direction of editor David Remnick, the magazine also posted a report on its website by Hersh, along with a number of images of the torture taken by U.S. military prison guards. The article, entitled "Torture at Abu Ghraib", was followed in the next two weeks by two further articles on the same subject, "Chain of Command" and "The Gray Zone", also by Hersh.^[59] Hersh's undercover sources stated that an interrogation program called "Copper Green" was an official and systemic misuse of coercive methods of torture. They said it was deemed "successful" during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. It was strongly criticized in intelligence circles as an improper application to the context of fighting the insurgency in Iraq. This theory, and the existence of "Copper Green", has been denied by The Pentagon.

Later coverage, 2006

In February 2006, previously unreleased photos and videos were broadcast by SBS, an Australian television network, on its Dateline program. The Bush administration attempted to prevent release of the images in the U.S., arguing that their publication could provoke antagonism. These newly released photographs depicted prisoners crawling on the floor naked, being forced to perform sexual acts, and being covered in feces. Some images also showed prisoners killed by the soldiers, some shot in the head and some with slit throats. BBC World News stated that one of the prisoners, who was reportedly mentally unstable, was considered by prison guards as a "pet" for torture.^[61] The UN expressed hope that the pictures would be investigated immediately but the Pentagon stated that the images "have been previously investigated as part of the Abu Ghraib investigation."^[62]

On March 15, 2006, Salon published what was then the most extensive documentation of the abuse.^[63] A report accessed by Salon included the following summary of the material: "A review of all the computer media submitted to this office revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts."^[63]

Reactions

Iraqi response

The news website AsiaNews quoted Yahia Said, an Iraqi scholar at the London School of Economics, as saying: "The reception [of the news about Abu Ghraib] was surprisingly low-key in Iraq. Part of the reason was that rumors and tall stories, as well as true stories, about abuse, mass rape, and torture in the jails and in coalition custody have been going round for a long time. So compared to what people have been talking about here the pictures are quite benign. There's nothing unexpected. In fact what most people are asking is: why did they come up now? People in Iraq are always suspecting that there's some scheming going on, some agenda in releasing the pictures at this particular point."^[64] CNN reporter Ben Wedeman reported that Iraqi reaction to George W. Bush's apology for the Abu Ghraib abuses was "mixed": "Some people react[ed] positively, saying that he's come out, he's dealing frankly and openly with the problem and that he has said that those involved in the abuse will be punished. On the other hand, there are many others who says it simply isn't enough, that they – many people noted that there was not a frank apology from the president for this incident. And, in fact, I have a Baghdad newspaper with me right now from – it's called 'Dar-es-Salaam.' That's from the Islam Iraqi Islamic Party. It says that an apology is not enough for the torture [...] of Iraqi prisoners."^[65]

General Stanley McChrystal, who held several command positions in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said that, "In my experience, we found that nearly every first-time jihadist claimed Abu Ghraib had first jolted him into action."^[66] He also said that, "mistreating detainees would discredit us. ... The pictures [from] Abu Ghraib represented a setback for America's efforts in Iraq. Simultaneously undermining U.S. domestic confidence in the way in which America was operating, and creating or reinforcing negative perceptions worldwide of American values, it fueled violence".^[67]

On May 7, 2004 Nick Berg, an American businessman who went to Iraq after the US Invasion, was captured and decapitated by the Islamist militant organization al-Ansars in response to Abu Ghraib.^[68] The masked man who carried out the execution is believed to have been Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Response of U.S. government

The Bush administration did not initially acknowledge the abuses at Abu Ghraib. After the pictures were published and the evidence became incontrovertible, the initial reaction from the administration characterized the scandal as an isolated incident uncharacteristic of U.S. actions in Iraq.^[9] Bush described the abuses as the actions of a few individuals, who were disregarding the values of the US.^[9] This view was widely disputed, notably in Arab countries: in addition, the International Red Cross had been making representations about abuse of prisoners for more than a year before the scandal broke.^[69] Scholars studying the abuses have stated that the abuses were part of a widespread pattern. Vice-president Dick Cheney's office had played a central role in eliminating limits on coercion in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the administration later portrayed as the initiatives of lower-ranking officials.^[70] On May 7, 2004, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated in a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

These events occurred on my watch. As Secretary of Defense, I am accountable for them. I take full responsibility. It is my obligation to evaluate what happened, to make sure those who have committed wrongdoing are brought to justice, and to make changes as needed to see that it doesn't happen again. I feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees. They are human beings. They were in U.S. custody. Our country had an obligation to treat them right. We didn't do that. That was wrong. To those Iraqis who were mistreated by members of U.S. armed forces, I offer my deepest apology. It was un-American. And it was inconsistent with the values of our nation.^[71]

He also commented on the very existence of the evidence of abuse:

We're functioning in a – with peacetime restraints, with legal requirements in a wartime situation, in the information age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon.^[72]

Rumsfeld was careful to draw a distinction between abuse and torture: "What has been charged so far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture. I'm not going to address the 'torture' word."^[73]

Several senators commented on Rumsfeld's testimony. Lindsey Graham stated that "the American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here."^[74] Norm Coleman said that "It was pretty disgusting, not what you'd expect from Americans".^[75] Ben Nighthorse Campbell said "I don't know how the hell these people got into our army".^[76]

James Inhofe, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, stated that the events were being blown out of proportion: "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment [...] [They] are not there for traffic violations. [...] these prisoners – they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. [...] Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."^[77]

On May 26, 2004, Al Gore gave a sharply critical speech on the scandal and the Iraq War. He called for the resignations of Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, and Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone, for encouraging policies that led to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and fanned hatred of Americans abroad. Gore also called the Bush administration's Iraq war plan "incompetent" and described Bush as the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon. Gore commented; "In Iraq, what happened at that prison, it is now clear, is not the result of random acts of a few bad apples. It was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy."^[78] Rumsfeld was also criticized by both Republican and Democrat lawmakers, including Senators John Kerry, and Joe Biden, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The revelations were also the impetus for the creation of the Fay Report, named for its lead author George Fay, as well as the Taguba Report.

United States media

Several periodicals, including New York Times and The Boston Globe, called for Rumsfeld's resignation.^[79] The cover of The Economist, which had backed President Bush in the 2000 election, carried a photo of the abuse with the words "Resign, Rumsfeld."

Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh contended that the events were being blown out of proportion, stating that "this is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of emotional release?"^[6][7] Conservative talk show host Michael Savage said, "Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite put in their orifices", and that "we need more of the humiliation tactics, not less." He repeatedly referred to Abu Ghraib prison as "Grab-an-Arab" prison.^[80]

Political commentator Christopher Hitchens, an Iraq War supporter, opined; "Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad....Before March 2003, Abu Ghraib was an abattoir, a torture chamber, and a concentration camp. Now, and not without reason, it is an international byword for Yankee imperialism and sadism. Yet the improvement is still, unarguably, the difference between night and day."^[81]

Global reaction

The torture? A more serious blow to the United States than September 11, 2001 attacks. Except that the blow was not inflicted by terrorists but by Americans against themselves.

— Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, foreign minister of the Vatican.^[82]

The Bahraini English-language newspaper Daily Tribune wrote on May 5, 2004, that "The blood-boiling pictures will make more people inside and outside Iraq determined to carry out attacks against the Americans and British." The Qatari Arabic-language Al-Watan predicted on May 3, 2004 that due to the abuse, "The Iraqis now feel very angry and that will cause revenge to restore the humiliated dignity."^[83]

On May 10, 2004, swastika-covered posters of Abu Ghraib abuse photographs were attached to British and Indian graves at the Commonwealth military cemetery in Gaza City. Thirty-two graves of soldiers killed in World War I were desecrated or destroyed.^[84] In November 2008, Lord Bingham, the former UK Law Lord, describing the treatment of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib, said: "Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration."^[85]

Repercussions

Convictions of soldiers

Eleven soldiers were convicted of various charges relating to the incidents, with all of the convictions including the charge of dereliction of duty. Most soldiers only received minor sentences. Three other soldiers were either cleared of charges or were not charged. No one was convicted for the murders of the detainees.

• Colonel Thomas Pappas was relieved of his command on May 13, 2005, after receiving non-judicial punishment for two instances of dereliction of duty, including that of allowing dogs to be present during interrogations. He was fined $8000 under the provisions of Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (non-judicial punishment). He also received a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand which effectively ended his military career. He did not face criminal prosecution.^[86]
• Lieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan became the highest-ranking officer to have charges brought against him in connection with the Abu Ghraib abuse on April 29, 2006.^[87] Prior to his trial, eight of the twelve charges against him were dismissed, including two of the most serious, after Major General George Fay admitted that he did not read Jordan his rights before interviewing him. On August 28, 2007, Jordan was acquitted of all charges related to prisoner mistreatment, and received a reprimand for disobeying an order not to discuss a 2004 investigation into the allegations.^[88]
• Specialist Charles Graner was found guilty on January 14, 2005 of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, failing to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty, and maltreatment, as well as charges of assault, indecency, adultery, and obstruction of justice. On January 15, 2005, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, dishonorable discharge, and reduction in rank to private.^[89][90] Graner was paroled from the U.S. military's Fort Leavenworth prison on August 6, 2011 after serving six-and-a-half years.^[91]
• Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick pleaded guilty on October 20, 2004 to conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault and committing an indecent act, in exchange for other charges being dropped. His abuses included forcing three prisoners to masturbate. He also punched one prisoner so hard in the chest that he needed resuscitation. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, forfeiture of pay, a dishonorable discharge and a reduction in rank to private.^[92][93][94] He was released on parole in October 2007, after four years in prison.^[95]
• Sergeant Javal Davis pleaded guilty on February 4, 2005 to dereliction of duty, making false official statements, and battery. He was sentenced to six months in prison, a reduction in rank to private, and a bad conduct discharge.^[96]
• Specialist Jeremy Sivits was sentenced on May 19, 2004 by a special court-martial to the maximum one-year sentence, in addition to a bad conduct discharge and a reduction of rank to private, upon his guilty plea.^[97]
• Specialist Armin Cruz was sentenced on September 11, 2004, to eight months confinement, reduction in rank to private and a bad conduct discharge in exchange for his testimony against other soldiers.^[98]
• Specialist Sabrina Harman was sentenced on May 17, 2005, to six months in prison and a bad conduct discharge after being convicted on six of the seven counts. Previously, she had faced a maximum sentence of five years.^[99] Harman served her sentence at Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar.^[100]
• Specialist Megan Ambuhl was convicted on October 30, 2004, of dereliction of duty, and sentenced to reduction in rank to private, and loss of a half-month's pay.^[101]
• Private First Class Lynndie England was convicted on September 26, 2005, of one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. She was acquitted on a second conspiracy count. England had faced a maximum sentence of ten years. She was sentenced on September 27, 2005, to three years confinement, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, reduction to Private (E-1) and received a dishonorable discharge.^[94] England had served her sentence at Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar.^[102] She was paroled on March 1, 2007, after having served 1 year and 5 months.^[102]
• Sergeant Santos Cardona was convicted of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the U.S. civilian justice system. A military judge imposed a fine and reduction in rank, and he served 90 days of hard labor at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.^[103] Cardona was unable to re-enlist due to the conviction. On September 29, 2007, Cardona left the Army with an Honorable Discharge.^[104] In 2009, he was killed in action while working as a government contractor in Afghanistan.^[105]
• Specialist Roman Krol pleaded guilty on February 1, 2005 to conspiracy and maltreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib. He was sentenced to ten months confinement, reduction in rank to private, and a bad conduct discharge.^[106]
• Specialist Israel Rivera, who was present during abuse on October 25, was under investigation but was never charged and testified against other soldiers.^[107][108]
• Sergeant Michael Smith was found guilty on March 21, 2006 of two counts of prisoner maltreatment, one count of simple assault, one count of conspiracy to maltreat, one count of dereliction of duty and a final charge of an indecent act, and sentenced to 179 days in prison, a fine of $2,250, a demotion to private, and a bad conduct discharge.^[109]

Senior personnel

• Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who had been commanding officer at the prison, was demoted to colonel on May 5, 2005. In a BBC interview, Janis Karpinski said that she was being made a scapegoat, and that the top U.S. commander for Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, should be asked what he knew about the abuse.^[110]
• Donald Rumsfeld stated in February 2005 that as a result of the Abu Ghraib scandal, he had twice offered to resign from his post of Secretary of Defense, but U.S. President George W. Bush declined both offers.^[111]
• Jay Bybee, the author of the Justice Department memo defining torture as activity producing pain equivalent to the pain experienced during death and organ failure,^[112] was nominated by President Bush to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he began service in 2003.^[113]
• Michael Chertoff, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division advised the CIA on the outer limits of legality in coercive interrogation sessions, was selected by President Bush to fill the cabinet-level vacancy at Secretary of Homeland Security created by the departure of Tom Ridge.^[114][115]
• Karpinski's immediate operational supervisor and Sanchez' deputy, Major General Walter Wojdakowski, was cleared of all charges, and was subsequently appointed Chief of the US Army Infantry School at Fort Benning.^[116]
• Pappas's boss, Barbara Fast, was subsequently appointed Chief of the US Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca.^[117]

The Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense detention operations specifically absolved U.S. military and political leadership from culpability: "The Panel finds no evidence that organizations above the 800th MP brigade or the 205th MI Brigade-level were directly involved in the incidents at Abu Ghraib."^[118]

Legal issues

International law

The United States has ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions. The Bush Administration took the position that: "Both the United States and Iraq are parties to the Geneva Conventions. The United States recognizes that these treaties are binding in the war for the 'liberation of Iraq'".^[119]

The Convention Against Torture defines torture in the following terms:

For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

— United Nations Convention Against Torture, (Article 1)

According to Human Rights Watch:

Al-Qaeda detainees would likely not be accorded Prisoner of War (POW) status, but the Conventions still provide explicit protections to all persons held in an international armed conflict, even if they are not entitled to POW status. Such protections include the right to be free from coercive interrogation, to receive a fair trial if charged with a criminal offense, and, in the case of detained civilians, to be able to appeal periodically the security rationale for continued detention.^[120]

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concluded in its confidential February 2004 report to the Coalition Forces (CF) that it had documented

serious violations of International Humanitarian Law relating to the conditions of treatment of the persons deprived of their liberty held by the CF in Iraq. In particular, it establishes that persons deprived of their liberty face the risk of being subjected to a process of physical and psychological coercion, in some cases tantamount to torture, in the early stages of the internment process.^[121]

There were several major violations described in the ICRC report. These included brutality against protected persons upon capture and initial custody, sometimes causing death or serious injury; absence of notification of arrest of persons deprived of their liberty to their families causing distress among persons deprived of their liberty and their families; physical or psychological coercion during interrogation to secure information; prolonged solitary confinement in cells devoid of daylight; excessive and disproportionate use of force against persons deprived of their liberty resulting in death or injury during their period of internment.^[121]

Some legal experts have said that the United States could be obligated to try some of its soldiers for war crimes. Under the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war and civilians detained in a war may not be treated in a degrading manner, and violation of that section is a "grave breach". In a November 5, 2003 report on prisons in Iraq, the Army's provost marshal, Maj. Gen. Donald J. Ryder, stated that the conditions under which prisoners were held sometimes violated the Geneva Conventions.

United Nations resolution 1546

In December 2005, John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), criticized the U.S. military's practice of holding Iraqi prisoners in Iraqi facilities such as Abu Ghraib. Pace stated that this practice was not mandated by UN Resolution 1546, according to which the U.S. government has claimed a legal mandate permitting its ongoing occupation of Iraq. Pace said, "All except those held by the Ministry of Justice are, technically speaking, held against the law because the Ministry of Justice is the only authority that is empowered by law to detain, to hold anybody in prison. Essentially none of these people have any real recourse to protection and therefore we speak ... of a total breakdown in the protection of the individual in this country."^[122]

Torture Memos

Alberto Gonzales and other senior administration lawyers argued that detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and other similar prisons should be considered "unlawful combatants" and were not protected by the Geneva Conventions. These opinions were issued in multiple memoranda, known today as the "Torture Memos," in August 2002, by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the U.S. Justice Department.^[123] They were written by John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney-general in the OLC, and two of three were signed by his boss Jay S. Bybee. (The latter was appointed as a federal judge in 2003, starting March 21, 2003.) An additional memo was issued on March 14, 2003, after the resignation of Bybee, and just prior to the American invasion of Iraq. In it, Yoo concluded that federal laws prohibiting the use of torture did not apply to U.S. practices overseas.^[124] Gonzales observed that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions, "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act."^[125] Congressman Elizabeth Holtzman wrote that Gonzales' statement suggested that policy was crafted to ensure that the actions of U.S. officials could not be considered war crimes.^{[125][126][127][128]}

Other legal proceedings

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), the US Supreme Court ruled that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applied to all detainees in the War on Terror. It said that the military tribunals used to try these suspects were in violation of U.S. and international law. It said that the president could not unilaterally establish such tribunals, and that Congress needed to authorize a means by which detainees could confront their accusers and challenge their detention.^[129]

On June 27, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals of lawsuits from a group of 250 Iraqis who wanted to sue CACI International Inc. and Titan Corp. (now a subsidiary of L-3 Communications), the two private contractors at Abu Ghraib, over claims of abuse by interrogators and translators at the prison. The suits had been dismissed by the lower courts on the grounds that the companies held a derivative sovereign immunity from suits based on their status as government contractors pursuant to a battle-field preemption doctrine.^[130][131]

On November 14, 2006, legal proceedings invoking universal jurisdiction were begun in Germany against Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, George Tenet and others for their alleged involvement in prisoner abuse under the command responsibility.^[132][133] On April 27, 2007, the German federal prosecutor announced that the government would not pursue charges against Rumsfeld and the 11 other U.S. officials, stating the accusations did not apply, in part because there was insufficient evidence that the acts occurred on German soil, and because the accused did not live in Germany.^[134]

In June 2011, the Justice Department announced it was opening a grand jury investigation into CIA torture which killed a prisoner.^[135][136]

In June 2014, the U.S. court of appeals in Richmond, Virginia, found that an 18th-century law known as the Alien Tort Statute, allowed non-US citizens access to U.S. courts for violations of "the law of nations or a treaty of the United States". This would enable abused Iraqis to file suit against contractor CACI International. Employees of CACI International are being accused of encouraging torture and abuse as well as taking part in it as the four Iraqi's contend that they were "repeatedly shot in the head with a taser gun", "beaten on the genitals with a stick", and forced to watch the "rape [of] a female detainee", during their time at the prison.^[137]

Military Commissions Act of 2006

Critics consider the Military Commissions Act of 2006 an amnesty law for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act.^[138] It abolished habeas corpus for foreign detainees, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them.^{[139][140][141][142]}

Later developments

On October 29, 2007, the memoir of a soldier stationed in Abu Ghraib, Iraq from 2005 to 2006 was published. Torture Central chronicled many events previously unreported in the news media, including torture that continued at Abu Ghraib over a year after the abuse photos were published.^[143]

In 2010, the last of the prisons were turned over to the Iraqi government to run. An Associated Press article said

Despite Abu Ghraib- or perhaps because of reforms in its wake- prisoners have more recently said they receive far better treatment in American custody than in Iraqi jails.^[144]

In September 2010, Amnesty International warned in a report titled New Order, Same Abuses; Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq that up to 30,000 prisoners, including many veterans of the U.S. detention system, remain detained without rights in Iraq and are frequently tortured or abused. Furthermore, it describes a detention system that has not evolved since Saddam Hussein's regime, in which human rights abuses were endemic with arbitrary arrests and secret detention common and a lack of accountability throughout the military forces. Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director, Malcolm Smart went on to say: "Iraq's security forces have been responsible for systematically violating detainees' rights and they have been permitted. U.S. authorities, whose own record on detainees' rights has been so poor, have now handed over thousands of people detained by U.S. forces to face this catalogue of illegality, violence and abuse, abdicating any responsibility for their human rights."^[145]

On October 22, 2010, nearly 400,000 secret United States Army field reports and war logs, detailing torture, summary executions and war crimes, were passed on to the British paper, The Guardian, and several other international media organisations through the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. Among other things, the logs detail how U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape, and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, whose conduct appeared to be systematic and normally unpunished, and that U.S. troops abused prisoners for years even after the Abu Ghraib scandal.^[146][147]

In 2013, Associated Press stated that Engility Holdings, of Chantilly, Virginia, paid $5.28 million in a settlement to 71 former inmates held at Abu Ghraib and other U.S. run detention sites between 2003 and 2007. The settlement was the first successful attempt by the detainees to obtain reparations for the abuses they had experienced.^[148]

Popular culture

• Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero created a series of paintings featuring the Abu Ghraib torture after he was shocked by the images shown by the press.
• British sculptor Tim Shaw created the installation Casting a Dark Democracy, based on the photograph of the hooded victim standing on the box.
• Pictures from Abu Ghraib can be seen in Alfonso Cuarón's film Children of Men (2006).
• The 2007 documentary Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, directed by Rory Kennedy, investigated the abuses.
• The documentary Standard Operating Procedure (2008), directed by Errol Morris, also explored the events at the prison.
• The movie Boys of Abu Ghraib (2014), is fictionalized story loosely based on the abuses that occurred in Abu Ghraib.
• The novel The Night Crew (2015) by Brian Haig, a police procedural/legal thriller, is a fictionalized story, loosely based on the legal defense of military personnel charged with abuse of Iraqi prisoners at a fictional prison.
• The song "Hey Blue Eyes" by American rock artist Bruce Springsteen from his 2014 EP American Beauty was described by Springsteen as "...a metaphor for the house of horrors our government's actions created in the years following the invasion of Iraq. At its center is the repressed sexuality and abuse of power that characterized Abu Ghraib prison. I feel this is a shadow we as a country have yet to emerge from."^[149]
• The song "Hero of War" by American rock band Rise Against references the mistreatment of prisoners of war at Abu Ghraib.
• The song "Dangerous Beauty", released by The Rolling Stones in their 2005 album A Bigger Bang, is about Private Lynndie England and her involvement in the Abu Ghraib affair.
• The song "Holy War" by Australian deathcore band Thy Art Is Murder references the image of Ali Shallal al-Qaisi in its music video.

See also

Incidents and coverage

Other

References

Notes

Sources

• Seymour M. Hersh (2004). Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-019591-6. 
• Master Sargeant Michael Clemens, Special Investigator (2010). The Secrets of Abu Ghraib Revealed: American Soldiers on Trial. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books. ISBN 1-59797-441-2. 
• McChrystal, Stanley A. (2013). My share of the task: A memoir. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-59184-475-4. 
• Greenberg, Karen J.; Dretel, Joshua L. (2005). The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521853248. 

Further reading

• Tucker, Bruce and Sia Triantafyllos (2008). "Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib, and the New Imperialism". Canadian Review of American Studies. 38 (1): 83–100. doi:10.3138/cras.38.1.83. 
• Clemens, Michael (2010). The Secrets of Abu Ghraib Revealed: American Soldiers on Trial. Potomac Books. ISBN 1-59797-441-2. Retrieved May 31, 2010. 
• Zimbardo, Philip (2007). The Lucifer effect: How good people turn evil. Rider. ISBN 978-1-84604-103-7. Archived from the original on December 19, 2008. Retrieved January 11, 2009. 
• Abu Ghurayb Prison – Sexual exploitation point-of-view
• The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor by Stjepan Meštrović
• Racial Spectacles: Explorations in Media, Race, and Justice (chapter on Abu Ghraib, new media and lynching photography) by Jonathan Markovitz
• U.S. government documents related to Abu Ghraib
• "You can't be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel" – interview with Philip Zimbardo, scientist behind the Stanford prison experiment and one of the expert witnesses in the Abu Ghraib trials
• Bibliography: Iraq Wars: Prisons and Prisoner Abuse by Edwin Moise
• Gourevitch, Philip; Errol Morris (2008). The Ballad of Abu Ghraib. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-311539-1. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse (category)

• Salon.com: The Abu Ghraib files, index of Abu Ghraib documents and reports
• Transcript of the ACLU report Archived March 31, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
• The Torture Archive at The National Security Archive
• "Abu Ghraib". JURIST. 
• The Road to Abu Ghraib by Human Rights Watch (June 9, 2004)
• Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, a documentary film by Rory Kennedy