Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
Encyclopedia
Beginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical
, psychological
, and sexual abuse
, including torture
, rape
, sodomy
, and homicide
of prison
ers held in the Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq
(also known as Baghdad
Correctional Facility) came to public attention. These acts were committed by military police personnel of the United States Army
together with additional US governmental agencies
.
Revealed in the Taguba Report
, an initial criminal investigation by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway, where soldiers of the 320th Military Police Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice
with prisoner abuse
. In 2004, articles describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel appearing to abuse prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II
news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker
magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.
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, eleven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner
, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England
, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer of all Iraq detention facilities, Brigadier General
Janis Karpinski
, was reprimanded for dereliction of duty and then demoted to the rank of Colonel
on May 5, 2005. Col. Karpinski has denied knowledge of the abuses, claiming that the interrogations were authorized by her superiors and performed by subcontractors, and that she was not even allowed entry into the interrogation
rooms.
The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was in part the reason that on April 12, 2006, the United States Army
activated the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, the first of four joint interrogation battalions.
hanging, whereby the victim is hung from the wrists with the hands tied behind the back. His death has been labeled a homicide
by the US military, but neither of the two men who caused his death have been charged. The private contractor was granted qualified immunity
.
has stated that there is photographic evidence of rape being carried out at Abu Ghraib. An Abu Ghraib detainee told investigators he heard an Iraqi teenage boy screaming and saw an Army translator having sex with him while a female soldier took pictures. The alleged rapist was identified by a witness as an American-Egyptian who worked as a translator, and who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US. Another photo shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner. Other photos show sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, and a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts. Taguba has supported President Obama's decision not to release the photos, stating, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."
In other alleged cases, female inmates were said to be raped by soldiers. In one reported case, senior US officials admitted rape had taken place at Abu Ghraib.
informed the media that an official investigation had begun involving abuse and humiliation
of Iraqi detainees by a group of US soldiers. On February 24, it was reported that 17 soldiers had been suspended. The military announced again, on March 21, 2004, that the first charges had been filed against six soldiers.
It was not until late April 2004 that U.S.
television news-magazine 60 Minutes II
broadcast a story on the abuse. The story included photographs depicting the abuse of prisoners.
The news segment had been delayed by two weeks at the request of the Department of Defense
and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Gen. Richard Myers
. In the CBS report, Dan Rather
interviewed then-deputy director of Coalition operations in Iraq Brig. Gen Mark Kimmitt
who said:
At the same time, Kimmitt said: "I'd like to sit here and say that these are the only prisoner abuse cases that we're aware of, but we know that there have been some other ones since we've been here in Iraq."
Former Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan was also interviewed, stating: "We went into Iraq to stop things like this from happening, and indeed, here they are happening under our tutelage."
Rather interviewed Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, a participant in the abuse, whose civilian job was as a corrections officer at a Virginia prison. Frederick stated, "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations", says Frederick. "And it just wasn't happening." Frederick's video diary, sent home from Iraq, provided some of the images used in the story.
In the diary are listed detailed, dated entries that chronicle abuse and names, for example,
and, "MI (Military Intelligence) 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." The CBS report did not explain who had taken the photographs showed to viewers, nor was it explained how CBS had come by them. They were not released to CBS by the specialists interviewed, nor was any member of the US armed forces charged with supplying these photographs to the media.
magazine explored the abuses in detail, and used as its source a copy of the Taguba report.
The New Yorker, under the direction of editor David Remnick
, posted a report on its website by Hersh, along with a number of graphic and disturbing images of the torture taken by U.S. military prison guards with digital cameras. The article, entitled "Torture at Abu Ghraib", was followed in the next two weeks by two more articles on the same subject, "Chain of Command" and "The Gray Zone", also by Mr. Hersh.
It was only after CBS
learned that The New Yorker planned to publish the pictures in its next issue that they went ahead with their report on April 28.
Seymour Hersh
's undercover sources claimed that an interrogation
program called "Copper Green
" was an official and systemic misuse of coercive methods which, although deemed "successful" during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan
, would be heavily criticized in intelligence circles as an improper application to the context of fighting citizen-"insurgents
" in Iraq. This theory, and the existence of "Copper Green" itself, has been denied by The Pentagon
.
Hersh has a history of exposing war crimes. His investigative journalism is largely credited with bringing the American public's attention to the 1968 My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.
, many more pictures and videotapes of the abuse at Abu Ghraib exist. Photos and videos were revealed by the Pentagon to lawmakers in a private viewing on 12 May 2004. Lawmakers disagreed over whether the additional photos were worse than those already released, with Senator Ron Wyden
saying the new pictures were "significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated [...] Take the worst case and multiply it several times over." while Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher
said the pictures were "not dramatically different". It was speculated that they depict dogs snarling at cowering prisoners, women forced to expose their breasts, hooded prisoners being forced to masturbate, and violent sexual acts.
A Department of Defense official said that most of the additional photos were pornography involving only US soldiers, and that most did not show abuse of prisoners.
The New York Times
, in a report on January 12, 2005, reported testimony suggesting that the following events had taken place at Abu Ghraib:
In her video diary, a prison guard said that prisoners were shot for minor misbehavior, and claimed to have had venomous snake
s bite prisoners, sometimes resulting in their deaths. By her own admission, that guard was "in trouble" for having thrown rocks at the detainees. Hashem Muhsen, one of the naked men in the human pyramid photo, said they were also made to crawl around the floor naked and that U.S. soldiers rode them like donkey
s. After being released in January 2004, Muhsen became an Iraqi police officer.
It was discovered that one prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi
, died as a result of abuse, a death that was ruled a homicide by the military.
One detainee claimed he was sodomized. The Taguba Report
found the claim ("Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick") to be credible.
interview, Chairman Myers said that he had not yet seen the Taguba
report, although the report was then nearly a month old.
In the documentary film Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
(2007), former US Justice Department counsel John Yoo
said that although he does not think the Geneva Conventions
covered the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, he believes the soldiers and their commanding officers felt the interrogation techniques used fell within the Geneva Conventions.
A 2008 report by the Wild River Review
followed the detainees' search for justice.
reported that Yahia Said, an Iraqi fellow at the London School of Economics
, said:
CNN
reporter Ben Wedeman
reported that Iraqi reaction to President Bush's apology for the Abu Ghraib abuses was "mixed". Specifically, he said:
George W. Bush
claimed the acts were in no way indicative of normal or acceptable practices in the United States Army
.
Vice-president Dick Cheney
's office played a central role in eliminating limits on coercion in US custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration later portrayed as the initiatives of lower-ranking officials. The Geneva Convention, which has been ratified by the US and is therefore the law of the land, is explicit and categorical in banning torture
, the use of "violence," "cruel treatment" or "humiliating and degrading treatment" against a detainee "at any time and in any place whatsoever." The War Crimes Act of 1996
made any grave breach of those restrictions a U.S. felony.
On May 7, 2004, United States Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld
made the following statements before the Senate Armed Services Committee:
He also was quoted:
Following Rumsfeld's testimony, several Senators
responded:
Senator Lindsey Graham
: "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here." "It was pretty disgusting, not what you'd expect from Americans", said Senator Norm Coleman
. "I don't know how the hell these people got into our army", said Colorado
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell
.
Senator James Inhofe, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, felt that the events did not deserve moral outrage: "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. [...] If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, 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."
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld stated, "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."
On May 26, 2004, Al Gore
gave a sharply critical speech on the Iraq crisis and the George W. Bush administration
. In the speech, Gore called for the resignations of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
, National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice
, Director of Central Intelligence Agency
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 called George W. Bush
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."
Criticism of Rumsfeld grew during the ensuing scandal. Democratic senators John Kerry
, Joe Biden
and Jon Corzine
called for Rumsfeld to resign. Their call for Rumsfeld's resignation was joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
, George Miller
, Tom Harkin
, and the Congressional Black Caucus
. John McCain
said that he had "no confidence" in the Secretary of Defense, his fellow Republican senator Trent Lott
said that he was "not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld."
Several periodicals, such as The New York Times
and The Boston Globe
also called for Rumsfeld's resignation. 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." Perhaps most notably, The Army Times claimed that Rumsfeld's role in the scandal "amount(ed) to professional negligence", wrote "shame... on the chairman (of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
) and secretary (of defense
)", and insinuated that Rumsfeld was a "moron."
Right-wing US radio host Rush Limbaugh
, on the other hand, contended 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?"
Politically conservative talk show host, Michael Savage
, said concerning Abu Ghraib: "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.
"The Bahraini English-language Daily Tribune wrote on May 5, 2004, '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 because of the images, 'The Iraqis now feel very angry and that will cause revenge to restore the humiliated dignity.'"
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.
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."
In August 2010, the release of Israel Defense Forces
photos with Palestinian prisoners
, some dead, has brought the treatment and abuse at Abu Ghraib back into the media discussion. The entrance of new media into such investigations has grown, as pictures are increasingly posted on Facebook and YouTube.
, a US civilian who went to Iraq seeking work repairing antennas. The CIA claims the video was the work of an Islamist militant group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
, whom they claim is also the speaker in the video. The executioners in the video claim the beheading was in response to the abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison.
—most receiving relatively minor sentences. Three other soldiers have either been cleared of charges or were not charged. No one has been convicted for murders of detainees.
, commanding officer at the prison, was demoted to colonel on May 5, 2005, which also effectively ends her chances for future career advancement. In a BBC
interview, Janis Karpinski said she is being made a scapegoat, and that the top U.S. commander for Iraq, Gen Ricardo Sanchez
, should be asked what he knew about the abuse, as according to her, he said that prisoners are "like dogs". However, a spokesman for Geoffrey Miller
, who commanded the Guantanamo prison and later commanded all detention operations, including Abu Ghraib, called Karpinski's allegations "categorically false", and said no directive to treat detainees "like dogs" was made at either Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.
Donald Rumsfeld
stated in February 2005 that he had, as a result of the Abu Ghraib scandal, twice made an offer to President George W. Bush
to resign the office of Secretary of Defense, and that both offers were declined.
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, was nominated by President Bush to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he began service in 2003.
Michael Chertoff
, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division advised the Central Intelligence Agency
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
.
Captain Carolyn Wood
was head of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion from Fort Bragg. In August 2002, nine interrogation techniques not approved by military doctrine or included in Army field manuals were added after Chris Mackey and his team turned over the detention unit in Bagram to the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. Chris Mackey had trained with Wood before she got her command at Bagram. He says that while he was "gravely disappointed" when he found out about her changes to the interrogation rules, he understands what might have been going on. "After she took over, the stakes got very high," he says. "We went from losing three or four soldiers a month to scores of them. She must have been under a tremendous amount of pressure.""But there was horrible incompetence at the leadership and oversight level. People were aware of what we were doing because we were open. [The prison] was practically a Disney ride, with lots of higher-ups and officials coming through. But the common response we got was, Aren’t you kind of babying them?"
Two inmates in December 2002 were tortured and beaten to death in cells down the hall from her office. "Hung by their arms from the ceiling and beaten so severely that, according to a report by Army investigators later leaked to the Baltimore Sun, their legs would have needed to be amputated had they lived. The Army’s Criminal Investigation command launched an inquiry, but few people outside Afghanistan took notice." "In August, a former Bagram interrogator told a Knight Ridder
journalist that at the time of the two deaths screams and moans could easily be heard from interrogation rooms at Bagram, and that Wood must have been aware of the abuse, as the interrogation rooms were near her office. In any case, by virtue of her position, CPT. Wood should have been aware that abuse was taking place. We are concerned that, as at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. government appears more interested in blaming abuses on low-level personnel than in investigating the role of commanding officers and civilian officials." When she transferred to Abu Ghraib in August 2003, Wood is reported to have "posted her own list of 'interrogation rules of engagement,' which were inconsistent with those later issued for Iraq by the top American commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, according to Congressional officials. The Geneva Convention didn't apply to Woods methods of interrogation. The Fay-Jones report states "The JIDC October 2003 SOP (Standard operational procedure), likewise created by CPT. Wood, was remarkably similar to the Bagram (Afghanistan) Collection Point SOP. Prior to deployment to Iraq, CPT. Wood's unit (A/519 MI BN) allegedly conducted the abusive interrogation practices in Bagram resulting in a Criminal Investigation Command (CID) homicide investigation ... from December 2002, interrogators in Afghanistan were removing clothing, isolating people for long periods of time, using stress positions, exploiting fear of dogs
and implementing sleep and light deprivation. Interrogators in Iraq, already familiar with the practice of some of these new ideas, implemented them even prior to any policy guidance from CJTF-7. (Combined Joint Task Force Seven headed by LTG Ricardo S. Sanchez) These practices were accepted as SOP by newly arrived interrogators. Some of the CJTF-7 ICRPs neither effectively addressed these practices, nor curtailed their use." "At Abu Ghraib, interrogation operations were also plagued by a lack of an organizational chain of command presence and by a lack of proper actions to establish standards and training by the senior leaders present" In both prison facilities the officers who carried out the abuses were under the command of CPT. Wood and she has never been held accountable.
The Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations did specifically absolve senior U.S. military and political leadership from direct culpability:
Reaction from the Bush administration characterized the Abu Ghraib torture scandal as an isolated incident uncharacteristic of US actions in Iraq; this view is widely disputed, notably in Arab countries, but also by organizations such as the International Red Cross, which had been making representations about abuse of prisoners for more than a year. A former military intelligence
officer with experience at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib alleges (see external link – "Cooks and drivers ...") a systematic failure caused by a combination of inexperienced troops arresting innocent Iraqis, who are then interrogated by inexperienced interrogators determined to break these apparent hard cases. The US military's interrogation techniques and treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib are consistent with its treatment of noncombatants in past conflicts, including the Phoenix Program
during the Vietnam War
and its training of military personnel of US allies at the School of the Americas.
has ratified the UN
's Convention Against Torture
and the Third
and Fourth Geneva Convention
s. The Bush Administration
took the position that, in the words of Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the President: "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'". According to Human Rights Watch
:
The Convention Against Torture defines torture
in the following terms:
The International Committee of the Red Cross
concluded in its confidential February 2004 report to the Coalition Forces that its investigations 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." The main violations which were described in the ICRC report included:
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.
Also, legal analysts point to the fact that Alberto Gonzales
and others argued that detainees should be considered "unlawful combatant
s" and as such not protected by the Geneva Conventions
in multiple memoranda, known today as the "torture memos," regarding these perceived legal gray areas. Gonzales' observed at the time that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act
" suggesting, at the least, an awareness by those involved in crafting policies in this area that US officials are involved in acts that could be seen to be war crimes. The US Supreme Court challenged the practice of ignoring the Geneva Conventions in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
, in which it ruled that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to all detainees in the War on Terror
and that the Military Tribunals
used to try these suspects were in violation of US and international law.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006
is seen as an amnesty law for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act and by abolishing habeas corpus
, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them. Because of this on November 14, 2006, legal proceedings invoking universal jurisdiction
were started in Germany against Donald Rumsfeld
, Alberto Gonzales
, John Yoo
, George Tenet
and others for their alleged involvement of prisoner abuse
under the command responsibility
. However, on 27 April 2007, the German federal prosecutor announced the government would not pursue charges against Rumsfeld and the 11 other U.S. officials, stating the accusations did not apply to German law, in part because there was insufficient evidence that the alleged acts occurred on German soil, nor did the accused live in Germany.
Some of the accused soldiers' families or attorneys have already made clear an intention to argue that the practices at Abu Ghraib were directed by higher-ranking military officers or by the Central Intelligence Agency
. Under the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal
, this "defense of superior orders" is not a defense for war crimes, although it might influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty. Under U.S. law, the War Crimes Act of 1996
makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any American, military or civilian, who commits a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions
, includes the deliberate "killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in death carry the death penalty.
released copies of FBI
internal memos they had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act concerning alleged torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay, in Afghanistan
and in Iraq
. One memo dated May 22, 2004 was from someone whose name was blanked out but was described in the memo as "On Scene Commander – Baghdad". He referred explicitly to an Executive Order that sanctioned the use of extraordinary interrogation tactics by U.S. military personnel. The methods explicitly mentioned as being sanctioned are 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 claimed 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
.
On May 7, 2004, International Committee of the Red Cross
Operations Director Pierre Krähenbühl stated that the ICRC's inspection visits to Coalition detention centers in Iraq did "not allow us to conclude that what we were dealing with ... were isolated acts of individual members of coalition forces. What we have described is a pattern and a broad system." He went on to say that some of the incidents they had observed were "tantamount to torture".
U.S. and UK armed forces are jointly trained in so-called resistance to interrogation (R2I) techniques. These R2I techniques are taught ostensibly to help soldiers cope with or resist torture by the enemy. 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 resemble the techniques used in R2I training. Also related are pride-and-ego down
techniques to make captives more willing to cooperate.
The same report states that:
Most accept the particular acts committed at the prison leading to the initial broadcast report were unauthorized, but as has been shown, they were not isolated incidents. These or similar incidents of torture and humiliation were routine, systemic and widespread, had been occurring for over a year, and some of them were official policy.
Alfred W. McCoy
history professor and author of a book on torture in the Philippine armed forces, has noted similarities in the abusive treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the techniques described in the CIA's 1963 "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual and asserts that what he calls "the CIA's no-touch torture methods" have been in continuous use by the CIA and U.S. military intelligence since that time.
A May 25, 2004 article by Hersh in The New Yorker suggests a connection between the Abu Ghraib incidents and a chain of decisions and events set into play by high administration officials following the 9/11 attacks, specifically to a "special access" or "black ops" program known as Copper Green
. According to Hersh, officials concerned with extracting intelligence information 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".
and the ACLU show that the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez
authorized the use of military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and sensory deprivation as interrogation methods in Abu Ghraib. Also a November 2004 report by Brig Gen Richard Formica found that many troops at the Abu Ghraib prison were only following orders based on a memo from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez
, and that "[she] didn't find cruel and malicious criminals that are out there looking for detainees to abuse."
"Gen Sanchez authorised interrogation techniques that were in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and the army's own standards", ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said in the union's statement.
In an interview for her hometown newspaper The Signal, Gen. Karpinski claimed to have seen unreleased documents from Rumsfeld that authorized these tactics for Iraqi prisoners. Both Sanchez and Rumsfeld have denied authorization.
ordered the release of new Abu Ghraib torture photos.
In December 2005, John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), criticized the US military's practice of holding prisoners in Iraq in its own facilities such as Abu Ghraib prison. In an interview with Reuters
, Pace claimed that Abu Ghraib was not mandated by UN Resolution 1546, according to which the US government has claimed a legal mandate permitting its ongoing occupation of Iraq, including holding prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Pace said,
On March 29, 2006, the government agreed to drop all appeals and release the new set of photographs.
, in-charge of Abu Ghraib
prison until early 2004, told Spain's El País newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Donald 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." He said that this was contrary to the Geneva Convention and quoted the same "Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind". According to Karpinski, the handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished". There have been no comments from either the Pentagon
or US Army spokespeople in Iraq on Karpinski's accusations.
, an Australian television network, on its Dateline programme. According to initial reports, the Bush administration is attempting to prevent release of the images in the US, arguing that their publication could provoke antagonism towards them. According to BBC World News, the photographs were probably taken around the same time as the previously released photographs, and include some of the same prisoners and convicted soldiers from the earlier images. These newly released photographs depict prisoners crawling on the floor naked, being forced to perform sexual acts, and being covered in feces. Some images also show homicide and corpses, 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.
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."
Five of the newly released pictures can be seen on the ElMundo webpage. SBS claims not to have published the most shocking pictures due to the degree of their depravity, an example being the sodomy photo.
On March 15, 2006, Salon.com
published the most extensive documentation of the abuse.
The source who gave the CID material to Salon magazine is familiar with the CID investigation.
The DVD containing the material includes a June 6, 2004, CID investigation report written by Special Agent Seigmund. That report includes 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."
On May 28, 2009, more alleged pictures were available to the public.
Some pictures have surfaced by Australian SBS tv.
announced it was opening a grand jury investigation into CIA torture which killed a prisoner.
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.
The American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) said, "[T]he government had long argued that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was isolated and was an aberration. The new photos would show that the abuse was more widespread." President Barack Obama
initially indicated he would not fight the release of the photographs, but "reversed course in May and authorized an appeal to the high court." "The Obama administration believe[d] giving the imminent grant of authority over the release of such pictures to the defense secretary
would short-circuit a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union
under the Freedom of Information Act." On Oct 10, 2009 the US "Congress [was] set to allow the Pentagon
to keep new pictures ... from the public"
On February 3, 2010, David A. Larson, an elected official in California who has a relationship with government contract personnel, made disclosures to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), Office of the Inspector General (OIG) alleging that under the Bush Administration, prisoners detained at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and undisclosed "black sites" were being used as involuntary research subjects for human biomedical experimentation, behavior modification research, and drug-testosterone delivery in a manner similar to past CIA Project MKULTRA
activities investigated in 1977 by Senators Kennedy and Inuoye. The allegation supports information contained in a International Red Cross report relative to the expanded role of CIA medical personnel in torture and interrogation.
In 2010, the last of the prisons were turned over to the Iraqi government to run. An Associated Press
article said
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 US 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 security forces. Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director, Malcolm Smart went on to say that "Iraq's security forces have been responsible for systematically violating detainees' rights and they have been permitted. US authorities, whose own record on detainees' rights has been so poor, have now handed over thousands of people detained by US forces to face this catalogue of illegality, violence and abuse, abdicating any responsibility for their human rights."
On October 22, 2010 nearly 400,000 secret US 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 others, the logs detail how US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture
, rape
and even murder
by Iraqi
police and soldiers, whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished and that US troops abused prisoners for years even after the Abu Ghraib scandal.
On June 27, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of lawsuits from a group of 250 Iraqis who wanted to sue the two contractors CACI International Inc. and Titan Corp.
(now a subsidiary of L-3 Communications
) 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.
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
, psychological
Psychological abuse
Psychological abuse, also referred to as emotional abuse or mental abuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder...
, and sexual abuse
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
, including torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
, and homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
of prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
ers held in the Abu Ghraib prison
Abu Ghraib prison
The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad. It was built by British contractors in the 1950s....
in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
(also known as Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
Correctional Facility) came to public attention. These acts were committed by military police personnel of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
together with additional US governmental agencies
OGA
OGA is an abbreviation used in the United States to signify Other Government Agency.In government and military parlance it is often used to speak euphemistically of the Central Intelligence Agency, particularly when its operations in a particular area are an open secret.A CIA operative may have a...
.
Taguba Report
The Taguba Report is the common name of an official Army Regulation 15-6 military inquiry conducted in 2004 into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse.-Initiation:...
, an initial criminal investigation by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway, where soldiers of the 320th Military Police Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice
Uniform Code of Military Justice
The Uniform Code of Military Justice , is the foundation of military law in the United States. It is was established by the United States Congress in accordance with the authority given by the United States Constitution in Article I, Section 8, which provides that "The Congress shall have Power . ....
with prisoner abuse
Prisoner abuse
Prisoner abuse is the mistreatment of persons while they are under arrest or incarcerated.Abuse falling into this category includes:* Physical abuse: Needless beating, hitting, or other corporal punishment....
. In 2004, articles describing the abuse, including pictures showing military personnel appearing to abuse prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II
60 Minutes II
60 Minutes II was a weekly primetime news magazine television program that was intended to replicate the "signature style, journalistic quality and integrity" of the original 60 Minutes series.It aired on CBS on Wednesdays, then later moved to Fridays at 8 p.m...
news report (April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine (posted online on April 30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story.
The United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty
Dereliction of duty
Dereliction of duty is a specific offense under United States Code Title 10,892. Article 92 and applies to all branches of the US military. A service member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties or has incapacitated himself in such a way that he cannot perform his duties...
, maltreatment
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
, aggravated assault and battery
Battery (crime)
Battery is a criminal offense involving unlawful physical contact, distinct from assault which is the fear of such contact.In the United States, criminal battery, or simply battery, is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact...
. Between May 2004 and March 2006, eleven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner
Charles Graner
Charles A. Graner, Jr., is a former U.S. Army reservist who was convicted of prisoner abuse in connection with the 2003–2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal...
, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England
Lynndie England
Lynndie Rana England is a former United States Army reservist who served in the 372nd Military Police Company. She was one of eleven military personnel convicted in 2005 by Army courts-martial in connection with the torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad during the occupation...
, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer of all Iraq detention facilities, Brigadier General
Brigadier General
Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
Janis Karpinski
Janis Karpinski
Janis Leigh Karpinski is a central figure in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal.Karpinski retired as a colonel in the US Army Reserve. She was demoted from Brigadier General in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal for dereliction of duty, making a material misrepresentation to...
, was reprimanded for dereliction of duty and then demoted to the rank of Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
on May 5, 2005. Col. Karpinski has denied knowledge of the abuses, claiming that the interrogations were authorized by her superiors and performed by subcontractors, and that she was not even allowed entry into the interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
rooms.
The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was in part the reason that on April 12, 2006, the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
activated the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, the first of four joint interrogation battalions.
Death of Manadel al-Jamadi
The prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi died in Abu Ghraib prison after being interrogated and tortured by a CIA officer and a private contractor. The torture included physical violence and strappadoStrappado
Strappado is a form of torture in which the victim's hands are first tied behind their back and suspended in the air by means of a rope attached to wrists, which most likely dislocates both arms...
hanging, whereby the victim is hung from the wrists with the hands tied behind the back. His death has been labeled a homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
by the US military, but neither of the two men who caused his death have been charged. The private contractor was granted qualified immunity
Qualified immunity
Qualified immunity is a doctrine in U.S. federal law that arises in cases brought against state officials under 42 U.S.C Section 1983 and against federal officials under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 . Qualified immunity shields government officials from liability for the...
.
Reports of prisoner rape
Major General Antonio TagubaAntonio Taguba
Antonio Mario Taguba , is a retired major general in the United States Army. He was the second American citizen of Philippine birth to be promoted to general officer rank in the Army....
has stated that there is photographic evidence of rape being carried out at Abu Ghraib. An Abu Ghraib detainee told investigators he heard an Iraqi teenage boy screaming and saw an Army translator having sex with him while a female soldier took pictures. The alleged rapist was identified by a witness as an American-Egyptian who worked as a translator, and who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US. Another photo shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner. Other photos show sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, and a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts. Taguba has supported President Obama's decision not to release the photos, stating, "These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency."
In other alleged cases, female inmates were said to be raped by soldiers. In one reported case, senior US officials admitted rape had taken place at Abu Ghraib.
Media coverage
US media initially showed little interest when the US military first reported abuse. On January 16, 2004, United States Central CommandUnited States Central Command
The United States Central Command is a theater-level Unified Combatant Command unit of the U.S. armed forces, established in 1983 under the operational control of the U.S. Secretary of Defense...
informed the media that an official investigation had begun involving abuse and humiliation
Humiliation
Humiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It can be brought about through bullying, intimidation, physical or mental mistreatment or trickery, or by embarrassment if a person is revealed to have...
of Iraqi detainees by a group of US soldiers. On February 24, it was reported that 17 soldiers had been suspended. The military announced again, on March 21, 2004, that the first charges had been filed against six soldiers.
60 Minutes II broadcast and aftermath
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television news-magazine 60 Minutes II
60 Minutes II
60 Minutes II was a weekly primetime news magazine television program that was intended to replicate the "signature style, journalistic quality and integrity" of the original 60 Minutes series.It aired on CBS on Wednesdays, then later moved to Fridays at 8 p.m...
broadcast a story on the abuse. The story included photographs depicting the abuse of prisoners.
The news segment had been delayed by two weeks at the request of the Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is by law the highest ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, and is the principal military adviser to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council and the Secretary of Defense...
Gen. Richard Myers
Richard Myers
Richard Bowman Myers is a retired four-star general in the United States Air Force and served as the 15th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Chairman, Myers was the United States military's highest ranking uniformed officer....
. In the CBS report, Dan Rather
Dan Rather
Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9,...
interviewed then-deputy director of Coalition operations in Iraq Brig. Gen Mark Kimmitt
Mark Kimmitt
Mark Traecey Patrick Kimmitt was the 16th Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, serving under George W. Bush from August 2008 to January 2009. Prior to joining the State Department, he was a Brigadier General in the United States Army, and served as the Deputy Assistant...
who said:
At the same time, Kimmitt said: "I'd like to sit here and say that these are the only prisoner abuse cases that we're aware of, but we know that there have been some other ones since we've been here in Iraq."
Former Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan was also interviewed, stating: "We went into Iraq to stop things like this from happening, and indeed, here they are happening under our tutelage."
Rather interviewed Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick, a participant in the abuse, whose civilian job was as a corrections officer at a Virginia prison. Frederick stated, "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations", says Frederick. "And it just wasn't happening." Frederick's video diary, sent home from Iraq, provided some of the images used in the story.
and, "MI (Military Intelligence) 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." The CBS report did not explain who had taken the photographs showed to viewers, nor was it explained how CBS had come by them. They were not released to CBS by the specialists interviewed, nor was any member of the US armed forces charged with supplying these photographs to the media.
Hersh New Yorker article
A May 2004 article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine explored the abuses in detail, and used as its source a copy of the Taguba report.
The New Yorker, under the direction of editor David Remnick
David Remnick
David Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and magazine editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age in 2000...
, posted a report on its website by Hersh, along with a number of graphic and disturbing images of the torture taken by U.S. military prison guards with digital cameras. The article, entitled "Torture at Abu Ghraib", was followed in the next two weeks by two more articles on the same subject, "Chain of Command" and "The Gray Zone", also by Mr. Hersh.
It was only after CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
learned that The New Yorker planned to publish the pictures in its next issue that they went ahead with their report on April 28.
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters...
's undercover sources claimed that an interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
program called "Copper Green
Copper Green
Copper Green is reported by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to be one of several code names for a U.S. black ops program, according to an article in the May 24, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. According to Hersh, the task force was formed with the direct approval of Secretary of...
" was an official and systemic misuse of coercive methods which, although deemed "successful" during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
, would be heavily criticized in intelligence circles as an improper application to the context of fighting citizen-"insurgents
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
" in Iraq. This theory, and the existence of "Copper Green" itself, has been denied by The Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
.
Hersh has a history of exposing war crimes. His investigative journalism is largely credited with bringing the American public's attention to the 1968 My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.
More evidence of torture
According to Donald RumsfeldDonald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
, many more pictures and videotapes of the abuse at Abu Ghraib exist. Photos and videos were revealed by the Pentagon to lawmakers in a private viewing on 12 May 2004. Lawmakers disagreed over whether the additional photos were worse than those already released, with Senator Ron Wyden
Ron Wyden
Ronald Lee "Ron" Wyden is the senior U.S. Senator for Oregon, serving since 1996, and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1996....
saying the new pictures were "significantly worse than anything that I had anticipated [...] Take the worst case and multiply it several times over." while Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher
Ellen Tauscher
Ellen O'Kane Tauscher is an American politician and Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs...
said the pictures were "not dramatically different". It was speculated that they depict dogs snarling at cowering prisoners, women forced to expose their breasts, hooded prisoners being forced to masturbate, and violent sexual acts.
A Department of Defense official said that most of the additional photos were pornography involving only US soldiers, and that most did not show abuse of prisoners.
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, in a report on January 12, 2005, reported testimony suggesting that the following events had taken place at Abu Ghraib:
- Urinating on detainees
- Jumping on detainee's leg (a limb already wounded by gunfire) with such force that it could not thereafter heal properly
- Continuing by pounding detainee's wounded leg with collapsible metal baton
- Pouring phosphoric acid on detainees
- Sodomization of detainees with a baton
- Tying ropes to the detainees' legs or penises and dragging them across the floor.
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...
s bite prisoners, sometimes resulting in their deaths. By her own admission, that guard was "in trouble" for having thrown rocks at the detainees. Hashem Muhsen, one of the naked men in the human pyramid photo, said they were also made to crawl around the floor naked and that U.S. soldiers rode them like donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
s. After being released in January 2004, Muhsen became an Iraqi police officer.
It was discovered that one prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi
Manadel al-Jamadi
Manadel al-Jamadi was an Iraqi prisoner who died in United States custody during interrogation at Abu Ghraib Prison on November 4, 2003. His name became known in 2004 when the Abu Ghraib scandal made news; his corpse packed in ice was the background for widely-reprinted photographs of grinning...
, died as a result of abuse, a death that was ruled a homicide by the military.
One detainee claimed he was sodomized. The Taguba Report
Taguba Report
The Taguba Report is the common name of an official Army Regulation 15-6 military inquiry conducted in 2004 into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse.-Initiation:...
found the claim ("Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick") to be credible.
Quotations from a prisoner
In an appearance on May 2 during a Face the NationFace the Nation
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer is an American Sunday-morning political interview show which premiered on the CBS television network on November 7, 1954. It is one of the longest-running news programs in the history of television...
interview, Chairman Myers said that he had not yet seen the Taguba
Antonio Taguba
Antonio Mario Taguba , is a retired major general in the United States Army. He was the second American citizen of Philippine birth to be promoted to general officer rank in the Army....
report, although the report was then nearly a month old.
In the documentary film Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib is a 2007 documentary film directed by Rory Kennedy. It is an examination of the events of the 2004 Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. The film premiered January 19, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival....
(2007), former US Justice Department counsel John Yoo
John Yoo
John Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
said that although he does not think the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
covered the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, he believes the soldiers and their commanding officers felt the interrogation techniques used fell within the Geneva Conventions.
A 2008 report by the Wild River Review
Wild River Review
Wild River Review is an online magazine that publishes in-depth reporting, works of literature, art, visual art, reviews, interviews, and columns by and about contemporary artists, photographers, and writers. Founded in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the magazine has been operating since 2006 under...
followed the detainees' search for justice.
Iraqi response
AsiaNews.itAsiaNews
AsiaNews is an official press agency of the Roman Catholic Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions . The editor-in-chief of AsiaNews is Father Bernardo Cervellera, a PIME missionary who also heads Agenzia Fides, the official news agency of the Vatican. News from AsiaNews is republished by the...
reported that Yahia Said, an Iraqi fellow at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
, said:
CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
reporter Ben Wedeman
Ben Wedeman
Ben Wedeman is an American journalist. He is CNN senior correspondent in Cairo, Egypt who was based in Jerusalem. Before Jerusalem he lived in Egypt where he was CNN's Bureau Chief. Prior to that, he was CNN's Amman Bureau chief. He was originally hired by CNN as a local Jordanian employee...
reported that Iraqi reaction to President Bush's apology for the Abu Ghraib abuses was "mixed". Specifically, he said:
Response of US government officials
US PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
claimed the acts were in no way indicative of normal or acceptable practices in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
.
Vice-president Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
's office played a central role in eliminating limits on coercion in US custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration later portrayed as the initiatives of lower-ranking officials. The Geneva Convention, which has been ratified by the US and is therefore the law of the land, is explicit and categorical in banning torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, the use of "violence," "cruel treatment" or "humiliating and degrading treatment" against a detainee "at any time and in any place whatsoever." The War Crimes Act of 1996
War Crimes Act of 1996
The War Crimes Act of 1996 was passed with overwhelming majorities by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton....
made any grave breach of those restrictions a U.S. felony.
On May 7, 2004, United States Secretary of Defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
made the following statements before the Senate Armed Services Committee:
He also was quoted:
Following Rumsfeld's testimony, several Senators
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
responded:
Senator Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Olin Graham is the senior U.S. Senator from South Carolina and a member of the Republican Party. Previously he served as the U.S. Representative for .-Early life, education and career:...
: "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here." "It was pretty disgusting, not what you'd expect from Americans", said Senator Norm Coleman
Norm Coleman
Norman Bertram Coleman, Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He was a United States senator from Minnesota from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, from 1994 to 2002...
. "I don't know how the hell these people got into our army", said Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Ben Nighthorse Campbell
Benjamin Nighthorse Campbell is an American politician. He was a U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1993 until 2005 and was during his tenure the only American Indian serving in the U.S. Congress. Campbell was a three term U.S. Representative from 1987 to 1993, when he was sworn into office as a...
.
Senator James Inhofe, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, felt that the events did not deserve moral outrage: "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. [...] If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, 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."
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld stated, "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."
On May 26, 2004, Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
gave a sharply critical speech on the Iraq crisis and the George W. Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
. In the speech, Gore called for the resignations of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
, National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
, Director of Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Dundes Wolfowitz is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, President of the World Bank, and former dean of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University...
, 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 called George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
the most dishonest president since Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
. 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."
Criticism of Rumsfeld grew during the ensuing scandal. Democratic senators John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
, Joe Biden
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...
and Jon Corzine
Jon Corzine
Jon Stevens Corzine is the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and of MF Global, and a one time American politician, who served as the 54th Governor of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010. A Democrat, Corzine served five years of a six-year U.S. Senate term representing New Jersey before being elected Governor...
called for Rumsfeld to resign. Their call for Rumsfeld's resignation was joined by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...
, George Miller
George Miller (politician)
George Miller III is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1975. He is a member of the Democratic Party. From 2007 through 2010, Miller served as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, formerly known as the Education and the Workforce Committee.-Early life, education, and early...
, Tom Harkin
Tom Harkin
Thomas Richard "Tom" Harkin is the junior United States Senator from Iowa and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives ....
, and the Congressional Black Caucus
Congressional Black Caucus
The Congressional Black Caucus is an organization representing the black members of the United States Congress. Membership is exclusive to blacks, and its chair in the 112th Congress is Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.-Aims:...
. John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
said that he had "no confidence" in the Secretary of Defense, his fellow Republican senator Trent Lott
Trent Lott
Chester Trent Lott, Sr. , is a former United States Senator from Mississippi and has served in numerous leadership positions in the House of Representatives and the Senate....
said that he was "not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld."
Media
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
also called for Rumsfeld's resignation. The cover of The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, which had backed President Bush in the 2000 election, carried a photo of the abuse with the words "Resign, Rumsfeld." Perhaps most notably, The Army Times claimed that Rumsfeld's role in the scandal "amount(ed) to professional negligence", wrote "shame... on the chairman (of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
) and secretary (of defense
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
)", and insinuated that Rumsfeld was a "moron."
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
, on the other hand, contended that: "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is a traditional peer society to Scroll and Key and Wolf's Head, as the three senior class 'landed societies' at Yale....
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?"
Politically conservative talk show host, Michael Savage
Michael Savage (commentator)
Michael Savage is a conservative American radio host, author, and political commentator. He is the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that airs throughout the United States on Talk Radio Network...
, said concerning Abu Ghraib: "Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
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.
World
From a legal declaration by Ronald Schlicher of the US State Department:"The Bahraini English-language Daily Tribune wrote on May 5, 2004, '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 because of the images, 'The Iraqis now feel very angry and that will cause revenge to restore the humiliated dignity.'"
On May 10, 2004, swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
-covered posters of Abu Ghraib abuse photographs were attached to British and Indian graves at the Commonwealth military cemetery in Gaza City
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
. Thirty-two graves of soldiers killed in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
were desecrated or destroyed.
In November 2008 Lord Bingham
Thomas Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill
Thomas Henry Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, KG PC QC FBA , was a British judge and jurist. He served in the highest judicial offices of the United Kingdom as Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and as Senior Law Lord before his retirement, when he focused his work as a teacher and lecturer...
, the former UK Law Lord
Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the House of Lords of the United Kingdom in order to exercise its judicial functions, which included acting as the highest court of appeal for most domestic matters...
, 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."
In August 2010, the release of Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
photos with Palestinian prisoners
Palestinian prisoners
Palestinian prisoners in Israel mainly refers to Palestinians imprisoned in Israel following apprehension resulting from the Israeli–Palestinian conflict...
, some dead, has brought the treatment and abuse at Abu Ghraib back into the media discussion. The entrance of new media into such investigations has grown, as pictures are increasingly posted on Facebook and YouTube.
Purported retaliation
On May 11, 2004, a video was released of the beheading of Nick BergNick Berg
Nicholas Evan "Nick" Berg was an American businessman who went to Iraq after the US invasion of Iraq. He was abducted and later beheaded according to a video released in May 2004 by Islamist militants...
, a US civilian who went to Iraq seeking work repairing antennas. The CIA claims the video was the work of an Islamist militant group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh was a Jordanian militant Islamist who ran a paramilitary training camp in Afghanistan...
, whom they claim is also the speaker in the video. The executioners in the video claim the beheading was in response to the abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison.
Courts-martial, non-judicial punishment, and administrative reprimands
Eleven soldiers have been convicted of various charges relating to the incidents, all including dereliction of dutyDereliction of duty
Dereliction of duty is a specific offense under United States Code Title 10,892. Article 92 and applies to all branches of the US military. A service member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties or has incapacitated himself in such a way that he cannot perform his duties...
—most receiving relatively minor sentences. Three other soldiers have either been cleared of charges or were not charged. No one has been convicted for murders of detainees.
- Colonel Thomas PappasThomas PappasThomas M. Pappas is a former United States Army colonel and is currently a high level, civilian intelligence officer with the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Virginia. He was the Brigade Commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prisoner...
was relieved of his command on May 13, 2005, after receiving non-judicial punishmentNonjudicial punishmentNon-judicial punishment in the United States military, is a form of military justice authorized by Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Non-judicial punishment or "NJP" permits commanders to administratively discipline troops without a court-martial...
on May 9, 2005, for two instances of dereliction, 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 (GOMOR) which effectively ended his military career. - Lieutenant ColonelLieutenant Colonel (United States)In the United States Army, United States Air Force, and United States Marine Corps, a lieutenant colonel is a field grade military officer rank just above the rank of major and just below the rank of colonel. It is equivalent to the naval rank of commander in the other uniformed services.The pay...
Steven L. JordanSteven L. JordanLieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan is a Civil Affairs officer with the United States Army Reserve. He volunteered to return to active duty to support the war in Iraq, and with a background in military intelligence, was made the director of the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center at Abu Ghraib...
became the highest ranking officer to have charges brought against him in connection with the Abu Ghraib abuse on April 29, 2006. Prior to his trial, eight of twelve charges against him were dismissed, two of the most serious after Major General George FayGeorge FayGeorge Fay, while an officer in the United States Army, was the lead author of an investigation into the scandal at Abu Ghraib, more commonly known as the Fay Report....
admitted that he did not read Jordan his rights before interviewing him in reference to the abuses that had taken place. 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. - Specialist Charles GranerCharles GranerCharles A. Graner, Jr., is a former U.S. Army reservist who was convicted of prisoner abuse in connection with the 2003–2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal...
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. Graner was paroled from the US military's Fort Leavenworth prison on 6 August 2011 after serving six-and-a-half years. - Staff Sergeant Ivan FrederickIvan FrederickIvan Frederick II , called Chip Frederick, of Buckingham County, Virginia, is a former Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. He was the highest in rank of the seven U.S. military police personnel who have been charged with torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, all of whom were...
pled 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 masturbateMasturbationMasturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
. 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 rankReduction in rankReduction in rank may refer to two separate concepts:*In military law, a reduction in rank is a demotion in military rank as punishment for a crime or wrongdoing, imposed by a court-martial or other authority...
to private. - Sergeant Javal Davis pled guilty 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.
- Specialist Jeremy SivitsJeremy SivitsJeremy C. Sivits is a former U.S. Army reservist, one of several soldiers charged and convicted by the U.S. Army in connection with the 2003-2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Baghdad, Iraq during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq...
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 pleaPleaIn legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a civil or criminal case under common law using the adversary system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a criminal defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response to a criminal charge, whether that...
of guiltGuiltGuilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is also a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes—accurately or not—that he or she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that...
y. - Specialist Armin CruzArmin CruzArmin Cruz is a former United States Army reservist, one of several soldiers charged and convicted by the U.S. Army in connection with the 2003-2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Baghdad, Iraq during and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq....
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. - 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. She had faced a maximum sentence of five years. Harman served her sentence at Naval Consolidated Brig, MiramarNaval Consolidated Brig, MiramarNaval Consolidated Brig, Miramar is a military prison operated by the U.S. Navy at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in Miramar, San Diego, California, located just under north of Downtown San Diego. Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar is one of two Navy consolidated brigs and also serves as the...
. - Specialist Megan AmbuhlMegan AmbuhlMegan M. Ambuhl is a former United States Army reservist and member of the 372nd Military Police Company who was convicted in court-martial in connection with the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.-Life and career:Ambuhl was born in Centreville, Virginia...
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. - Private First Class Lynndie EnglandLynndie EnglandLynndie Rana England is a former United States Army reservist who served in the 372nd Military Police Company. She was one of eleven military personnel convicted in 2005 by Army courts-martial in connection with the torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad during the occupation...
was convicted on September 26, 2005, of one count of conspiracyConspiracy (crime)In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
, 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. England had served her sentence at Naval Consolidated Brig, MiramarNaval Consolidated Brig, MiramarNaval Consolidated Brig, Miramar is a military prison operated by the U.S. Navy at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in Miramar, San Diego, California, located just under north of Downtown San Diego. Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar is one of two Navy consolidated brigs and also serves as the...
. - Sergeant Santos CardonaSantos CardonaSantos A. Cardona was a sergeant in the United States Army. He was one of the members of the U.S. military police personnel who were charged with torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.-Military Career:...
was convicted of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the US civilian justice system. He served 90 days of hard labor at Fort BraggFort Bragg (North Carolina)Fort Bragg is a major United States Army installation, in Cumberland and Hoke counties, North Carolina, U.S., mostly in Fayetteville but also partly in the town of Spring Lake. It was also a census-designated place in the 2010 census and had a population of 39,457. The fort is named for Confederate...
, North CarolinaNorth CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. He was then transferred to a new unit where he trained Iraqi policeIraqi PoliceThe Iraqi Police Service are the uniformed Territorial police force responsible for the enforcement of civil law within Iraq.The current organisation, structure and recruitment practice was guided by the Coalition Provisional Authority following the 2003 invasion of Iraq...
. Cardona was unable to re-enlist due to the conviction, and left the army in 2007. In 2009, he was killed in action while working as a government contractor in Afghanistan. - Specialist Roman Krol pled 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.
- Specialist Israel Rivera, who was present during abuse on October 25, was under investigation but was never charged and testified against other soldiers.
- 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.
Related personnel
Brig. General Janis KarpinskiJanis Karpinski
Janis Leigh Karpinski is a central figure in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal.Karpinski retired as a colonel in the US Army Reserve. She was demoted from Brigadier General in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal for dereliction of duty, making a material misrepresentation to...
, commanding officer at the prison, was demoted to colonel on May 5, 2005, which also effectively ends her chances for future career advancement. In a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
interview, Janis Karpinski said she is being made a scapegoat, and that the top U.S. commander for Iraq, Gen Ricardo Sanchez
Ricardo Sanchez
Ricardo Sanchez is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General and a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for the Senate election in 2012 for the seat of retiring Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.-Early life and education:...
, should be asked what he knew about the abuse, as according to her, he said that prisoners are "like dogs". However, a spokesman for Geoffrey Miller
Geoffrey Miller (general)
Geoffrey D. Miller is a retired United States Army Major General who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison, Camp Cropper and Camp Bucca. He is also famous for training soldiers in "improved...
, who commanded the Guantanamo prison and later commanded all detention operations, including Abu Ghraib, called Karpinski's allegations "categorically false", and said no directive to treat detainees "like dogs" was made at either Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
stated in February 2005 that he had, as a result of the Abu Ghraib scandal, twice made an offer to President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
to resign the office of Secretary of Defense, and that both offers were declined.
Jay Bybee
Jay Bybee
Jay Scott Bybee is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He has published numerous articles in law journals and taught law school; his primary interests are in constitutional and administrative law....
, the author of the Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
memo defining torture as activity producing pain equivalent to the pain experienced during death and organ failure, was nominated by President Bush to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where he began service in 2003.
Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoff was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush and co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. He previously served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a federal prosecutor, and as assistant U.S. Attorney...
, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division advised the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
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
Tom Ridge
Thomas Joseph "Tom" Ridge is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives , the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania , Assistant to the President for Homeland Security , and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security...
.
Captain Carolyn Wood
Carolyn Wood
Carolyn Wood, United States Army captain, is a military intelligence officer who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. She was implicated by the Fay Report to have "failed" in several aspects of her command regarding her oversight of interrogators at Abu Ghraib...
was head of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion from Fort Bragg. In August 2002, nine interrogation techniques not approved by military doctrine or included in Army field manuals were added after Chris Mackey and his team turned over the detention unit in Bagram to the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. Chris Mackey had trained with Wood before she got her command at Bagram. He says that while he was "gravely disappointed" when he found out about her changes to the interrogation rules, he understands what might have been going on. "After she took over, the stakes got very high," he says. "We went from losing three or four soldiers a month to scores of them. She must have been under a tremendous amount of pressure.""But there was horrible incompetence at the leadership and oversight level. People were aware of what we were doing because we were open. [The prison] was practically a Disney ride, with lots of higher-ups and officials coming through. But the common response we got was, Aren’t you kind of babying them?"
Two inmates in December 2002 were tortured and beaten to death in cells down the hall from her office. "Hung by their arms from the ceiling and beaten so severely that, according to a report by Army investigators later leaked to the Baltimore Sun, their legs would have needed to be amputated had they lived. The Army’s Criminal Investigation command launched an inquiry, but few people outside Afghanistan took notice." "In August, a former Bagram interrogator told a Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers sold.- History :The corporate ancestors of...
journalist that at the time of the two deaths screams and moans could easily be heard from interrogation rooms at Bagram, and that Wood must have been aware of the abuse, as the interrogation rooms were near her office. In any case, by virtue of her position, CPT. Wood should have been aware that abuse was taking place. We are concerned that, as at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. government appears more interested in blaming abuses on low-level personnel than in investigating the role of commanding officers and civilian officials." When she transferred to Abu Ghraib in August 2003, Wood is reported to have "posted her own list of 'interrogation rules of engagement,' which were inconsistent with those later issued for Iraq by the top American commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, according to Congressional officials. The Geneva Convention didn't apply to Woods methods of interrogation. The Fay-Jones report states "The JIDC October 2003 SOP (Standard operational procedure), likewise created by CPT. Wood, was remarkably similar to the Bagram (Afghanistan) Collection Point SOP. Prior to deployment to Iraq, CPT. Wood's unit (A/519 MI BN) allegedly conducted the abusive interrogation practices in Bagram resulting in a Criminal Investigation Command (CID) homicide investigation ... from December 2002, interrogators in Afghanistan were removing clothing, isolating people for long periods of time, using stress positions, exploiting fear of dogs
Fear of dogs
Cynophobia is the abnormal fear of dogs. Cynophobia is classified as a specific phobia, under the subtype "animal phobias". According to Dr. Timothy O. Rentz of the Laboratory for the Study of Anxiety Disorders at the University of Texas, animal phobias are among the most common of the specific...
and implementing sleep and light deprivation. Interrogators in Iraq, already familiar with the practice of some of these new ideas, implemented them even prior to any policy guidance from CJTF-7. (Combined Joint Task Force Seven headed by LTG Ricardo S. Sanchez) These practices were accepted as SOP by newly arrived interrogators. Some of the CJTF-7 ICRPs neither effectively addressed these practices, nor curtailed their use." "At Abu Ghraib, interrogation operations were also plagued by a lack of an organizational chain of command presence and by a lack of proper actions to establish standards and training by the senior leaders present" In both prison facilities the officers who carried out the abuses were under the command of CPT. Wood and she has never been held accountable.
The Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations did specifically absolve senior U.S. military and political leadership from direct 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." In fact, BG Karpinski's immediate operational supervisor and LTG Sanchez' deputy, Major General Walter Wojdakowski was subsequently appointed as Chief of the US Army Infantry School and Fort Benning. COL Pappas's boss, MG Barbara Fast was subsequently appointed as Chief of the US Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca. Pappas and Karpinski were relieved of command but Wojdakowski and Fast became the Chiefs of their respective branches. The senior lawyer for LTG Sanchez and his legal representative on the Detainee Release Boards along with BN Karpinski and MG Fast, COL Marc Warren has since been selected for promotion to Brigadier General.
US government policy on interrogations and torture
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....
officer with experience at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib alleges (see external link – "Cooks and drivers ...") a systematic failure caused by a combination of inexperienced troops arresting innocent Iraqis, who are then interrogated by inexperienced interrogators determined to break these apparent hard cases. The US military's interrogation techniques and treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib are consistent with its treatment of noncombatants in past conflicts, including the Phoenix Program
Phoenix Program
The Phoenix Program |phoenix]]) was a controversial counterinsurgency program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus during the Vietnam War that operated...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and its training of military personnel of US allies at the School of the Americas.
International law
The United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
has ratified the UN
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
's Convention Against Torture
United Nations Convention Against Torture
The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is an international human rights instrument, under the review of the United Nations, that aims to prevent torture around the world....
and the Third
Third Geneva Convention
The Third Geneva Convention, relative to the treatment of prisoners of war, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was first adopted in 1929, but was significantly updated in 1949...
and Fourth Geneva Convention
Fourth Geneva Convention
The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, commonly referred to as the Fourth Geneva Convention and abbreviated as GCIV, is one of the four treaties of the Geneva Conventions. It was adopted in August 1949, and defines humanitarian protections for civilians...
s. The Bush Administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
took the position that, in the words of Alberto R. Gonzales, counsel to the President: "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'". According to Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
:
Al-Qaeda detainees would likely not be accorded 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.
The Convention Against Torture defines torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
in the following terms:
The International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
concluded in its confidential February 2004 report to the Coalition Forces that its investigations 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." The main violations which were described in the ICRC report 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.
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.
Also, legal analysts point to the fact that Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
and others argued that detainees should be considered "unlawful combatant
Unlawful combatant
An unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war. An unlawful combatant may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action.The Geneva Conventions apply in wars...
s" and as such not protected by the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
in multiple memoranda, known today as the "torture memos," regarding these perceived legal gray areas. Gonzales' observed at the time that denying coverage under the Geneva Conventions "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act
War Crimes Act of 1996
The War Crimes Act of 1996 was passed with overwhelming majorities by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton....
" suggesting, at the least, an awareness by those involved in crafting policies in this area that US officials are involved in acts that could be seen to be war crimes. The US Supreme Court challenged the practice of ignoring the Geneva Conventions in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 , is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay lack "the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military...
, in which it ruled that Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions applies to all detainees in the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
and that the Military Tribunals
Guantanamo military commission
The Guantanamo military commissions are military tribunals created by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 for prosecuting detainees held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps.- History :...
used to try these suspects were in violation of US and international law.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006
Military Commissions Act of 2006
The United States Military Commissions Act of 2006, also known as HR-6166, was an Act of Congress signed by President George W. Bush on October 17, 2006. Drafted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision on Hamdan v...
is seen as an amnesty law for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act and by abolishing habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them. Because of this on November 14, 2006, legal proceedings invoking universal jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction
Universal jurisdiction or universality principle is a principle in public international law whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over persons whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence, or any other...
were started in Germany against Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
, Alberto Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales
Alberto R. Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales was appointed to the post in February 2005 by President George W. Bush. Gonzales was the first Hispanic Attorney General in U.S. history and the highest-ranking Hispanic government official ever...
, John Yoo
John Yoo
John Choon Yoo is an American attorney, law professor, and author. As a former official in the United States Department of Justice during the George W...
, George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
and others for their alleged involvement of prisoner abuse
Prisoner abuse
Prisoner abuse is the mistreatment of persons while they are under arrest or incarcerated.Abuse falling into this category includes:* Physical abuse: Needless beating, hitting, or other corporal punishment....
under the command responsibility
Command responsibility
Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....
. However, on 27 April 2007, the German federal prosecutor announced the government would not pursue charges against Rumsfeld and the 11 other U.S. officials, stating the accusations did not apply to German law, in part because there was insufficient evidence that the alleged acts occurred on German soil, nor did the accused live in Germany.
Some of the accused soldiers' families or attorneys have already made clear an intention to argue that the practices at Abu Ghraib were directed by higher-ranking military officers or by the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
. Under the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal
Nuremberg Principles
The Nuremberg principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.- Principle...
, this "defense of superior orders" is not a defense for war crimes, although it might influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty. Under U.S. law, the War Crimes Act of 1996
War Crimes Act of 1996
The War Crimes Act of 1996 was passed with overwhelming majorities by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton....
makes it a federal crime to violate certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions. The Act punishes any American, military or civilian, who commits a "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. A grave breach, as defined by the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
, includes the deliberate "killing, torture or inhuman treatment" of detainees. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in death carry the death penalty.
Executive Order
On December 21, 2004, the American Civil Liberties UnionAmerican Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
released copies of FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
internal memos they had obtained under the Freedom of Information Act concerning alleged torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay, in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
and in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. One memo dated May 22, 2004 was from someone whose name was blanked out but was described in the memo as "On Scene Commander – Baghdad". He referred explicitly to an Executive Order that sanctioned the use of extraordinary interrogation tactics by U.S. military personnel. The methods explicitly mentioned as being sanctioned are sleep deprivation, hooding
Hooding
Hooding is the placing of a hood over the entire head of a prisoner. One legal scholar considers the hooding of prisoners to be a violation of international law, specifically the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, which demand that persons in the power of occupying forces be treated humanely....
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 claimed that the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
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
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
.
Details
Death certificates repeatedly stated that prisoners had died "during sleep", and of "natural reasons". Iraqi doctors were not allowed to investigate even when death certificates were obviously forged. No reports of investigations against U.S. military doctors who forged death certificates have been reported.On May 7, 2004, International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
Operations Director Pierre Krähenbühl stated that the ICRC's inspection visits to Coalition detention centers in Iraq did "not allow us to conclude that what we were dealing with ... were isolated acts of individual members of coalition forces. What we have described is a pattern and a broad system." He went on to say that some of the incidents they had observed were "tantamount to torture".
U.S. and UK armed forces are jointly trained in so-called resistance to interrogation (R2I) techniques. These R2I techniques are taught ostensibly to help soldiers cope with or resist torture by the enemy. On May 8, 2004, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
reported that, according to a former British special forces officer, the acts committed by the Abu Ghraib Prison
Abu Ghraib prison
The Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib prison is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad. It was built by British contractors in the 1950s....
military personnel resemble the techniques used in R2I training. Also related are pride-and-ego down
Pride-and-ego down
Pride-and-ego down is a US Army term that refers to techniques used by captors in interrogating prisoners to encourage cooperation, usually consisting of "attacking the source's sense of personal worth" and in an "attempt to redeem his pride, the source will usually involuntarily provide pertinent...
techniques to make captives more willing to cooperate.
The same report states that:
Most accept the particular acts committed at the prison leading to the initial broadcast report were unauthorized, but as has been shown, they were not isolated incidents. These or similar incidents of torture and humiliation were routine, systemic and widespread, had been occurring for over a year, and some of them were official policy.
Alfred W. McCoy
Alfred W. McCoy
Alfred William McCoy is a historian of Southeast Asia. He is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. McCoy graduated from the Kent School in 1964. He earned his B.A...
history professor and author of a book on torture in the Philippine armed forces, has noted similarities in the abusive treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the techniques described in the CIA's 1963 "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual and asserts that what he calls "the CIA's no-touch torture methods" have been in continuous use by the CIA and U.S. military intelligence since that time.
A May 25, 2004 article by Hersh in The New Yorker suggests a connection between the Abu Ghraib incidents and a chain of decisions and events set into play by high administration officials following the 9/11 attacks, specifically to a "special access" or "black ops" program known as Copper Green
Copper Green
Copper Green is reported by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to be one of several code names for a U.S. black ops program, according to an article in the May 24, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. According to Hersh, the task force was formed with the direct approval of Secretary of...
. According to Hersh, officials concerned with extracting intelligence information 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".
Ricardo Sanchez
Documents obtained by The Washington PostThe Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
and the ACLU show that the senior U.S. military officer in Iraq Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez
Ricardo Sanchez
Ricardo Sanchez is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General and a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for the Senate election in 2012 for the seat of retiring Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.-Early life and education:...
authorized the use of military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns and sensory deprivation as interrogation methods in Abu Ghraib. Also a November 2004 report by Brig Gen Richard Formica found that many troops at the Abu Ghraib prison were only following orders based on a memo from Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez
Ricardo Sanchez
Ricardo Sanchez is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General and a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for the Senate election in 2012 for the seat of retiring Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.-Early life and education:...
, and that "[she] didn't find cruel and malicious criminals that are out there looking for detainees to abuse."
"Gen Sanchez authorised interrogation techniques that were in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and the army's own standards", ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said in the union's statement.
In an interview for her hometown newspaper The Signal, Gen. Karpinski claimed to have seen unreleased documents from Rumsfeld that authorized these tactics for Iraqi prisoners. Both Sanchez and Rumsfeld have denied authorization.
Ongoing news
In September 2005, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. HellersteinAlvin Hellerstein
Alvin K. Hellerstein is a senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and has been involved in several high-profile cases....
ordered the release of new Abu Ghraib torture photos.
In December 2005, John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), criticized the US military's practice of holding prisoners in Iraq in its own facilities such as Abu Ghraib prison. In an interview with Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
, Pace claimed that Abu Ghraib was not mandated by UN Resolution 1546, according to which the US government has claimed a legal mandate permitting its ongoing occupation of Iraq, including holding prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Pace said,
On March 29, 2006, the government agreed to drop all appeals and release the new set of photographs.
Allegedly Rumsfeld-approved abuses
In November 2006, the former US Army Brigadier General Janis KarpinskiJanis Karpinski
Janis Leigh Karpinski is a central figure in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal.Karpinski retired as a colonel in the US Army Reserve. She was demoted from Brigadier General in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal for dereliction of duty, making a material misrepresentation to...
, in-charge of Abu Ghraib
Abu Ghraib
The city of Abu Ghraib in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq is located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000. The old road to Jordan passes through Abu Ghraib...
prison until early 2004, told Spain's El País newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush. He is both the youngest and the oldest person to...
which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation is the condition of not having enough sleep; it can be either chronic or acute. A chronic sleep-restricted state can cause fatigue, daytime sleepiness, clumsiness and weight loss or weight gain. It adversely affects the brain and cognitive function. Few studies have compared the...
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." He said that this was contrary to the Geneva Convention and quoted the same "Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind". According to Karpinski, the handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished". There have been no comments from either the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
or US Army spokespeople in Iraq on Karpinski's accusations.
Previously unreleased photographs
In February 2006, previously unreleased photos and videos were broadcast by SBSSpecial Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of SBS is "to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect...
, an Australian television network, on its Dateline programme. According to initial reports, the Bush administration is attempting to prevent release of the images in the US, arguing that their publication could provoke antagonism towards them. According to BBC World News, the photographs were probably taken around the same time as the previously released photographs, and include some of the same prisoners and convicted soldiers from the earlier images. These newly released photographs depict prisoners crawling on the floor naked, being forced to perform sexual acts, and being covered in feces. Some images also show homicide and corpses, 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.
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."
Five of the newly released pictures can be seen on the ElMundo webpage. SBS claims not to have published the most shocking pictures due to the degree of their depravity, an example being the sodomy photo.
On March 15, 2006, Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
published the most extensive documentation of the abuse.
The source who gave the CID material to Salon magazine is familiar with the CID investigation.
The DVD containing the material includes a June 6, 2004, CID investigation report written by Special Agent Seigmund. That report includes 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."
On May 28, 2009, more alleged pictures were available to the public.
Some pictures have surfaced by Australian SBS tv.
2011 grand jury investigation
In June 2011, the Justice DepartmentUnited States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
announced it was opening a grand jury investigation into CIA torture which killed a prisoner.
Torture Central: E-mails from Abu Ghraib
On October 29, 2007, the memoir of a soldier stationed in Abu Ghraib, Iraq during 2005/2006 was published. Torture CentralTorture Central
Torture Central: E-mails From Abu Ghraib is the title of the memoir of Michael Keller, a soldier stationed in Abu Ghraib, Iraq during 2005/2006...
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.
Recent developments
In 2009, an additional 21 color photographs surfaced, showing prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq being abused by their U.S. captors.The American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
(ACLU) said, "[T]he government had long argued that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was isolated and was an aberration. The new photos would show that the abuse was more widespread." President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
initially indicated he would not fight the release of the photographs, but "reversed course in May and authorized an appeal to the high court." "The Obama administration believe[d] giving the imminent grant of authority over the release of such pictures to the defense secretary
United States Secretary of Defense
The Secretary of Defense is the head and chief executive officer of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This position corresponds to what is generally known as a Defense Minister in other countries...
would short-circuit a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
under the Freedom of Information Act." On Oct 10, 2009 the US "Congress [was] set to allow the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
to keep new pictures ... from the public"
On February 3, 2010, David A. Larson, an elected official in California who has a relationship with government contract personnel, made disclosures to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), Office of the Inspector General (OIG) alleging that under the Bush Administration, prisoners detained at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and undisclosed "black sites" were being used as involuntary research subjects for human biomedical experimentation, behavior modification research, and drug-testosterone delivery in a manner similar to past CIA Project MKULTRA
Project MKULTRA
Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human experimentation program, run by the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government program began in the early 1950s, continued at least through the late 1960s, and used U.S...
activities investigated in 1977 by Senators Kennedy and Inuoye. The allegation supports information contained in a International Red Cross report relative to the expanded role of CIA medical personnel in torture and interrogation.
In 2010, the last of the prisons were turned over to the Iraqi government to run. An Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
article said
In September 2010 Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
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 US 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
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's regime, in which human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
abuses were endemic with arbitrary arrests and secret detention common and a lack of accountability throughout the security forces. Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director, Malcolm Smart went on to say that "Iraq's security forces have been responsible for systematically violating detainees' rights and they have been permitted. US authorities, whose own record on detainees' rights has been so poor, have now handed over thousands of people detained by US forces to face this catalogue of illegality, violence and abuse, abdicating any responsibility for their human rights."
On October 22, 2010 nearly 400,000 secret US army field reports and war logs, detailing torture, summary executions and war crimes, were passed on to the British paper, the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and several other international
International
----International mostly means something that involves more than one country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries...
media organisations through the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
. Among others, the logs detail how US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
and even murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
by Iraqi
Iraqi people
The Iraqi people or Mesopotamian people are natives or inhabitants of the country of Iraq, known since antiquity as Mesopotamia , with a large diaspora throughout the Arab World, Europe, the Americas, and...
police and soldiers, whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished and that US troops abused prisoners for years even after the Abu Ghraib scandal.
On June 27, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of lawsuits from a group of 250 Iraqis who wanted to sue the two contractors CACI International Inc. and Titan Corp.
Titan Corp.
Titan Corporation was a United States based company founded in 1981, with its headquartered in San Diego, California. It was acquired by L-3 Communications on June 3, 2005 and is currently operating as the "Titan Group" of L-3 Communications...
(now a subsidiary of L-3 Communications
L-3 Communications
L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc. is a company that supplies command and control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and products, avionics, ocean products, training devices and services, instrumentation, space, and navigation products. Its customers include...
) 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.
Popular culture
- The documentary Ghosts of Abu GhraibGhosts of Abu GhraibGhosts of Abu Ghraib is a 2007 documentary film directed by Rory Kennedy. It is an examination of the events of the 2004 Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal. The film premiered January 19, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival....
(2007), directed by Rory KennedyRory KennedyRory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy is an American documentary filmmaker and producer. She is the youngest of the eleven children of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel .-Early life and education:...
, investigated the abuses.
- Inspired by Abu Ghraib, Canadian painter James Miller'sJames Miller (painter)-External links:* *...
work entitled Judith Beheading Holofernes depicts a tethered George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
as the tyrant HolofernesHolofernesIn the deuterocanonical Book of Judith Holofernes was an invading general of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar dispatched Holofernes to take vengeance on the nations of the west that had withheld their assistance to his reign...
.
- Standard Operating ProcedureStandard Operating Procedure (film)Standard Operating Procedure is a 2008 documentary film which explores the meaning of the photographs taken by U.S. military police at the Abu Ghraib prison in late 2003, the content of which revealed the torture and abuse of its prisoners by U.S. soldiers and subsequently resulted in a public...
(2008) is a documentary that which explores the events surrounding the Abu Ghraib events. It was directed by Errol MorrisErrol MorrisErrol Mark Morris is an American director. In 2003, The Guardian put him seventh in its list of the world's 40 best directors. Also in 2003, his film The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.-Early life and...
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See also
General information
- AbuseAbuseAbuse is the improper usage or treatment for a bad purpose, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, sexual assault, violation, rape, unjust practices; wrongful practice or custom; offense; crime, or otherwise...
- Military abuse
- Prisoner abusePrisoner abusePrisoner abuse is the mistreatment of persons while they are under arrest or incarcerated.Abuse falling into this category includes:* Physical abuse: Needless beating, hitting, or other corporal punishment....
- Taguba ReportTaguba ReportThe Taguba Report is the common name of an official Army Regulation 15-6 military inquiry conducted in 2004 into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse.-Initiation:...
- Command responsibilityCommand responsibilityCommand responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....
- Enhanced interrogation techniquesEnhanced interrogation techniquesEnhanced interrogation techniques or alternative set of procedures are terms adopted by the George W. Bush administration in the United States to describe certain severe interrogation methods, often described as torture...
- HazingHazingHazing is a term used to describe various ritual and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group....
- HumiliationHumiliationHumiliation is the abasement of pride, which creates mortification or leads to a state of being humbled or reduced to lowliness or submission. It can be brought about through bullying, intimidation, physical or mental mistreatment or trickery, or by embarrassment if a person is revealed to have...
- International Criminal CourtInternational Criminal CourtThe International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
- Camp CropperCamp CropperCamp Cropper is a holding facility for security detainees operated by the United States Army near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq. The facility was initially operated as a high-value detention site , but has since been expanded increasing its capacity from 163 to 2,000 detainees...
- Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo Bay
- TortureTortureTorture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
- Uniform Code of Military JusticeUniform Code of Military JusticeThe Uniform Code of Military Justice , is the foundation of military law in the United States. It is was established by the United States Congress in accordance with the authority given by the United States Constitution in Article I, Section 8, which provides that "The Congress shall have Power . ....
Incidents and coverage
- Emad al-JanabiEmad al-JanabiEmad Khudhayir Shahuth al-Janabi was an Iraqi blacksmith detained in Abu Ghraib prison where he alleges he was abused by American military personnel and defense contractors.- Imprisonment :...
- Joint Forward Intelligence TeamJoint Forward Intelligence TeamA Joint Forward Intelligence Team or Joint Forward Interrogation Team of the British Army, that reported to the UK-based Defence Intelligence and Security Centre, interrogated Iraqi prisoners between 2004 and 2007 at the Shaibah Logistics Base thirteen miles from Basra.Former prisoners interviewed...
of the British Army - Stanford prison experimentStanford prison experimentThe Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted from August 14th-20th, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University...
- Human rights in post-invasion Iraq
- Fernando BoteroFernando BoteroFernando Botero Angulo is a Colombian figurative artist. His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity...
: Abu Ghraib series, drawings and oil paintings - Iraq prison abuse scandalsIraq prison abuse scandalsAbout six months after the invasion of Iraq rumors of Iraq prison abuse scandals started to emerge.The best known abuse incidents occurred at the large Abu Ghraib prison. Graphic pictures of some of those abuse incidents were made public. Less well-known abuse incidents have been documented at...
- Bagram torture and prisoner abuseBagram torture and prisoner abuseIn 2005, The New York Times obtained a 2,000-page United States Army report concerning the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by U.S. armed forces in 2002 at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Bagram, Afghanistan. The prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were chained to the...
- Copper GreenCopper GreenCopper Green is reported by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to be one of several code names for a U.S. black ops program, according to an article in the May 24, 2004 issue of The New Yorker. According to Hersh, the task force was formed with the direct approval of Secretary of...
(May, 2004 Seymour Hersh article connecting abuse to alleged Black Ops program) - FOB Ramrod kill teamFOB Ramrod kill teamThe Maywand District killings refer to the murder of three Afghan civilians perpetrated by a group of United States Army soldiers in 2010, during the War in Afghanistan...
- The Dark Side (book)The Dark Side (book)The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals is a non-fiction book written by Jane Mayer concerning the War on Terrorism, Islamic radicalism, and the "closed-doors domestic struggle over whether" U.S. President George W. Bush should have "limitless...
Misc.
- Ashraf Abdullah AhsyAshraf Abdullah AhsyAshraf Abdullah Ahsy is an Iraqi who was subjected to "extended interrogation techniques" including the use of dogs. Ahsy's story is notable as the Bush administration tried to portray the abuse portrayed in the famous Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal as the unauthorized, after-hours amusement of rogue...
- Criticism of the War on Terror
- Disarmed Enemy ForcesDisarmed Enemy ForcesDisarmed Enemy Forces , and—less commonly—Surrendered Enemy Forces, was a U.S. designation, both for soldiers who surrendered to an adversary after hostilities ended, and for those previously surrendered POWs who were held in camps in occupied German territory at that time. It is mainly referenced...
(Redesignation of POWs after WW2 to avoid having to obey international treaties on POW treatment.) - Human Rights Record of the United StatesHuman Rights Record of the United States.The Human Rights Record of the United States is a publication on the annual human rights record in the United States of America, published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China...
- Joe Ryan
- List of war crimes
- Milgram experimentMilgram experimentThe Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of notable social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that...
- Nuremberg DefenseSuperior OrdersSuperior orders is a plea in a court of law that a soldier not be held guilty for actions which were ordered by a superior office...
- Nuremberg PrinciplesNuremberg PrinciplesThe Nuremberg principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitutes a war crime. The document was created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations to codify the legal principles underlying the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi party members following World War II.- Principle...
- Review Conference of the International Criminal Court StatuteReview Conference of the International Criminal Court StatuteA Review Conference of the Rome Statute took place from 31 May to 11 June 2010, in Kampala, Uganda to consider amendments to the treaty that founded the International Criminal Court....
- International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of Iraq
- United States and the International Criminal CourtUnited States and the International Criminal CourtThe United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court . The ICC is a permanent international criminal court, founded in 2002 by the Rome Statute to "bring to justice the perpetrators of the worst crimes known to humankind - war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide",...
- War crimes committed by the United StatesWar crimes committed by the United StatesThe United States of America has been accused of committing war crimes at various points throughout its history. Most, but not all contemporary war crimes are defined by the International Criminal Court , the Geneva Conventions, and the associated laws of war under international law...
- Legal issues related to the September 11 attacksLegal issues related to the September 11 attacksA number of incidents stemming from the September 11 attacks have raised questions about legality.These include:* Detentions of U.S. residents soon after the attacks....
Further reading
- Abu Ghurayb Prison - Sexual exploitation point-of-view
- The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor by Stjepan MeštrovićStjepan MeštrovicDr. Stjepan Gabriel Meštrović is an American sociologist, professor, author of over fifteen books and a distinguished expert in matters of war crimes...
- 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
- U.S. soldier, Kayla Williams, chronicles abuse of Iraqi prisoners
- "You can't be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel" – interview with Philip ZimbardoPhilip ZimbardoPhilip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
, scientist behind the Stanford prison experimentStanford prison experimentThe Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted from August 14th-20th, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University...
and one of the expert witnesses in the Abu Ghraib trials - Bibliography: Iraq Wars: Prisons and Prisoner Abuse by Edwin Moise
External links
- Salon.com, index of Abu Ghraib documents and reports
- Salon.com, all 279 photos and 19 videos from Abu Ghraib
- Transcript of report
- The Torture Archive at The National Security Archive
- Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, a documentary film by Rory KennedyRory KennedyRory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy is an American documentary filmmaker and producer. She is the youngest of the eleven children of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel .-Early life and education:...
Reports
- Testimony of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees (prepared remarks). May 7, 2004
- Report by Amnesty InternationalAmnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
. March 18, 2004 - The Road to Abu Ghraib by Human Rights WatchHuman Rights WatchHuman Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
. June 9, 2004.
Media
- Abuse of Iraqi POWs by GIs probed. April 29, 2004. (CBS / 60 Minutes)
- US commander 'allowed prison abuse' (Friday 27 August 2004, Aljazeera)
- "In Good Conscience", Alternet, 10 January 2005 – interview with Aidan DelgadoAidan DelgadoAidan Delgado is a lawyer and former soldier in the 320th Military Police Company of the United States Army, best known for having become a conscientious objector in April 2003 during his deployment to Iraq and for disclosing information about Abu Ghraib.-Army career:Delgado states that he joined...
, a soldier who worked at Abu Ghraib prison - Iraqi General tortured and dies, Washington Post
- Full dossier of Abu Ghraib torture files, Salon.comSalon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
- Pentagon Not Pursuing Guantanamo Report; Guardian UnlimitedGuardian Unlimitedguardian.co.uk, formerly known as Guardian Unlimited, is a British website owned by the Guardian Media Group. Georgina Henry is the editor...
, UK - Abu Ghraib: The Dark Side of Human Nature; free videoFree videoFree video refers to video content that is free to use for any purpose, or licensed under a free and open license to such an effect, at least for distribution, and at most for modification and commercial usage...
- Annals of War Exposure: The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib. The New Yorker March 24, 2008.
- Iraqi Prisons: The Curse of Abu Ghraib 2009-08-12