Where are Lynndie England and Charles Garner Now?

The two most prominent faces in the photos of torture and abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have served out their punishments in American prisons and are now attempting to regain some kind of normalcy in their lives. Lynndie England was released from prison in 2009 after serving half of a three year sentence and returned to her parent's home in Fort Ashby West Virginia, while Sergeant Charles Graner was released from Ft. Leavenworth Kansas after serving more than six and a half years of his ten year sentence. These two will forever be linked together not only because of the child which they share but because they are the face Abu Ghraib. The release of the photos in 2004 showing England and Graner enjoying the torture inflicted on the detainees at Abu Ghraib sealed their fate. If these photos were never released, they would have returned to America as proud heroes who had served their country and represented what was great about their homeland but instead they are a disgrace and are hated by a majority of the world because of what those photos represent. Graner had exercised a great amount of influence over the young England who was only 21 years old when she found herself in the hells of war. Graner was the ringleader encouraging England and the others seen in photographs to participate in his debauchery. Both Graner and England claim that the practices of stress positions, nudity, and humiliation were already being utilized by Military Intelligence at Abu Ghraib before their arrival in the fall of 2003.

As of 2009 England was desperate to find a job and every interview had ended the same way, she was virtually non-hirable because of the discomfort other potential co-workers expressed concerning her. She struggles daily with the reality of what she has done and the effects of war and her time in Iraq have taken their toll. Anti-depressants were prescribed to her and she takes the medications daily so that she can function with some small sense of normalcy. It is questionable whether or not she is remorseful for any of her actions because of her belief that things like that happen in war and that she was only performing what she was commanded to do from her presiding officers. The reception she receives in her hometown varies from those who despise what she did and the others who tell her that she should have done worse to those enemies that hated America.

During Garner's trial it was revealed that he was involved not only with England but also had a sexual relationship with Megan Ambuhl, who herself was a defendant in the Abu Ghraib cases. Garner and Ambuhl are married and England cares for the child that Garner fathered to her because of their relationship and wishes for him to have no contact with the child. Graner has been described as a manipulative bully who had a bad boy charm about him that drew the attention of younger, more impressionable soldiers in his company. Anonymity seems to be the desire of Graner who has declined interview requests and his location after his release from prison was withheld from the press. Funny how a man who never shied away from the cameras in the prison at Abu Ghraib is now seeking privacy at home. Who can blame him, many believe that Graner was cast as the scapegoat to take the fall for the higher ups of the Bush administration that were complicit in the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. This was an ugly and most unfortunate time in the prolific and honored history of the U.S. military and has forever changed that image forever in the minds of the world. England and Graner's images are eternally etched into our minds and those photos will haunt them for the rest of their lives.



 

The Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Treating of Detainees in December 2008

ABC News Report on Senate Report on Abu Ghraib

The Senate Armed Services Committee released their report on December 11, 2008, detailing the treatment of prisoners and detainees held within U.S. custody as well as revealing the findings of their investigation as to who was responsible for the lack of control and the abuse that had taken place. The report identifies top officials within the Bush administration, primarily Donald Rumsfeld as the key figures in creating the horrifying environments of Abu Ghraib Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. This report was released by Senator Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the committee and Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona. The report also disagreed with the contention of the Bush administration that enhanced interrogation techniques had protected the U.S. and were required to protect American lives at home and in Iraq. This report seemed to reiterate the findings of Antonio Taguba's report which also shared that the abuse was not simply the results of bad decisions by a few "bad apples" but was a direct result of the failure of the U.S. leadership specifically the authority of Donald Rumsfeld. It concludes that officers in Iraq were following the orders under the instruction for these enhanced interrogation techniques which had been signed into place by Rumsfeld himself.

One of the most damning results of the abuses at Abu Ghraib was the loss of moral high ground for any American on foreign soil. The world believed that the U.S. and its leaders condoned the torture of detainees in military prisons the world over. Senator McCain said that it was inexcusable for the U.S. to implement and subject foreign detainees to the measures under the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training that was used to train U.S. military personnel to endure what they may face if captured by foreign forces. McCain himself had suffered torture in a prison in North Vietnam himself and was a leading voice condemning the actions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. The report also revealed the admission by C.I.A. agents that water boarding had been used in secret prisons housing known member of Al-Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks. It was irresponsible of the Bush administration and it was a direct effect of this administrations behavior that created the horror and culture of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. These standards and behaviors would have to be cleaned up if America was ever to regain the respect of the world. Basic human rights had been trampled on by those attempting to spread democracy and freedom. The chain of responsibility linked from Abu Ghraib in Iraq back to our nation's capital and the leaders of our nation were complicit and needed to be held accountable.

Antonio Taguba and his report, May 2004

A blatant disregard for the rules of the Geneva Conventions and the lack of any effective leadership and control had created a veritable world of torture that was purposely manufactured directly by those within the Bush administration. There was no institutional control imposed at Abu Ghraib and all involved with the torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees needed to be held accountable. These were the findings of Antonio Taguba who was the deputy commanding general for support in Iraq. Taguba presented his findings to the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 11, 2004. Taguba recognized the impossible position he was in but he vowed to tell and reveal the truth of what had happened a t Abu Ghraib. Every company of soldiers from the 800th MP Brigade to the 320th MP Battalion were at fault and the "rampant lack of leadership" led to the unspeakable acts at Abu Ghraib. His report filed in March stated that there had been "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" committed against many detainees at Abu Ghraib. The ugly truth was revealed to the world with the release and publishing of the more than 100 images captured on the cameras of MPs within Abu Ghraib. The photos were astonishing and self-incriminating. Though all recognized that Abu Ghraib was a pressure cooker unlike any other in the world, this kind of behavior and abuse by American's would not be tolerated. Taguba's report showed that the MPs were severely under qualified and lacked any formal training as corrections officers or guards. This report also cited that the methods used at Abu Ghraib were not approved and the MIs and MPs who had collaborated and used these techniques had done so without the required authorizations of the proper authorities. Taguba also uncovered that Janis Karpinski had lied to him about her presence at Abu Ghraib as the commander of the 800th brigade, had not visited Abu Ghraib as often as she had claimed.

 

Taguba had noticed that Donald Rumsfeld was in denial. Rumsfeld was desperate to control the information that would be found in the many ongoing investigations into the abuse scandal but the proverbial cat was out of the bag. So the Bush administration was in total spin control mode. The hard truth was that Rumsfeld and everyone involved at Abu Ghraib knew exactly what they were getting at Abu Ghraib when Geoffrey Miller was brought in from Guantanamo Bay. Rumsfeld was so bold to claim that the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib had in no way violated the Geneva Conventions. His defense for this statement was the company line of the Bush administration in the war on terror, these enemy combatants had no protected status to claim under the guidelines of the Geneva Conventions. The world seemed to disagree with Rumsfeld as they believed the evil experiment at Abu Ghraib was filled with clear violations of humanitarian law. It was evidently clear to everyone that this was not the failure of a few "bad apples" within the U.S. military but was a designed effort by the U.S. military to purposefully and knowingly torture these detainees. Their orders had been given to them from someone higher up than them but when Senator John McCain questioned Rumsfeld with the simple question of "Who was in charge?" Rumsfeld would not give a straight answer. General Miller would claim to have cleaned up the interrogations at Abu Ghraib but it was too little too late. The damage had been done and those guilty of these atrocities would face criminal prosecutions for their crimes.

 

Taguba reported that he spoke with officer after officer asking them why they never did or said anything about the known abuse. The typical response was that they were only following orders and the blame would ultimately fall on the young MPs that had been exploited by the Military Intelligence officers and ultimately the Bush administration. As Taguba saw it, the U.S. military had plainly violated the Geneva Conventions and the laws pertaining to land warfare at Abu Ghraib. This would make Taguba unpopular, but finally someone had to do the right thing and it would be General Taguba. Taguba would define honor by the honesty and integrity of his report that further exposed the truth and disgusting behavior of U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib.  Warfare and conditions of war are no excuse for the torture that took place at Abu Ghraib. Consider this question, who are the REAL terrorists?

 

How did the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal become known and what was the immediate result?

The plight of Joe Darby

Lies, deception, and cover-up! This would be the response by those responsible for the inhumane treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The photos were innocently discovered on a CD belonging to Sergeant Garner. The man who discovered the photos of torture was an MP named Joseph Darby. Darby was astounded and disgusted by what he saw in the photographs. He knew these were prisoners being not only mistreated but tortured and he turned over the CD to the CID and from there, despite efforts to destroy and allow amnesty for any other photos that soldiers had taken, the press got their hands on these unbelievable images. In the spring of 2004, the news broke with the New Yorker and 60 Minutes II publicly releasing the photos and videos that had been confiscated from Abu Ghraib. Investigation after investigation after investigation was performed and the great number of investigations led to the inability to clearly establish legally, who was at fault for the horrible scenes at Abu Ghraib. Darby was to remain anonymous but that quickly changed when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld thanked Darby publicly for coming forward and informing the proper authorities of the torture that was taking place at Abu Ghraib. This was the first exposure of the man who had turned in the disk containing photos of the abuse at Abu Ghraib.

The official line of the Bush administration was that these tactics were disgusting and were contrived by a few MPs who had gotten out of control and had created themselves the sadistic environment present at Abu Ghraib. Bush and Rumsfeld condemned the torture of the Iraqi detainees but never acknowledged their roles and their authority in promoting the enhanced interrogation techniques. According to Rumsfeld, authorization for these behaviors was never given to anyone at Abu Ghraib. The MPs themselves would take the fall for what went on within the prison walls. They had taken authority on their own and developed these techniques and irresponsibly tortured the detainees. This would be the official stance of the Bush administration. But with just a little research, we can see that the tactics implemented by the MPs within Abu Ghraib were well executed and well known torture and interrogation techniques. Stress positions combined with the threat of electrocution along with sensory deprivation are well known interrogation techniques that were developed in Brazil by skilled military personnel. So it was severe misinformation to say and expect the world to believe that these MPs who had never been trained to guard prisoners or interrogate prisoners discovered these techniques by accident. This is what the Animal House on the night shift theory would require. Rumsfeld never answered the question of the chain of command and who was the authority at Abu Ghraib. And he couldn't because the chain of command would have come directly to him and then to the White House. The photos were damning and defined Americans all around the world. Instead of viewing America as a world power desiring democracy and peace, America had confirmed the accusation of the terrorist, that we were soldiers of terror. There was no goodwill for America within any element of Islam. America had been disgraced by these soldiers but also by the authorities that had commanded these tactics to take place because the intelligence was needed to continue to fight the War on Terror.

It is quite disturbing to see what human beings are capable of when they believe they are commanded to do something by someone who is placed in a legitimate seat of authority. This is exactly what happened at Abu Ghraib. In October 2006, President Bush would sign into law the Military Commissions Act which would serve to further destroy the rights of prisoners previously protected under the Geneva Conventions. Dehumanizing these detainees will cause great distress not only to the prisoners but also to those who had carried out the torture and these will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

 

What happened at Abu Ghraib?

Torture had become the normal and accepted behavior by MPs and MI officers inside of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  So much so that dehumanizing acts were recorded and photographed by those performing the unbelievably sadistic techniques.  There seemed to be no shame or guilt on the faces of those of the 372nd Military Police Company such as Sergeant Graner as they smile arrogantly at the camera as male prisoners are laying nude piled one on top of another.  The power that Graner had been given had become uncontrollable.  Nudity, explicit sexual abuse, and physical abuse were taking place on a daily basis and no one seemed to be concerned with the violation of human rights of these Iraqi detainees.  These acts would have been humiliating for any human being but were especially horrifying for those of the Islamic religion.  The pictures only tell part of the story; MPs who had become numb to living in the midst of war detached themselves from their own personal human instincts and were doing anything that was ordered for them to do.  Photo after photo of detainees nude, bound, with hoods over their heads, as they are placed in sexually explicit positions have emerged which serve as evidence of the atrocities that took place at Abu Ghraib.  Prisoners were locked in their cells with little to no clothing, no toilet, no mattress, no blankets for up to three days at a time.  This was considered normal wartime behavior by the MPs of the 372nd because that is what these young soldiers were told by their commanding officers.  Detainees would never be the same after the torture and embarrassment that they endured at Abu Ghraib. 

In the Fall of 2003, a prison riot broke out at Abu Ghraib.  The rioters were bound and severely beaten by MPs because they were told that these detainees would be interrogated so the torture and abuse would be ok.  This riot would motivate the MPs to perform the most severe and embarrassing of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib.  These prisoners were in some cases handcuffed together, naked and made to crawl on their stomachs as they were interrogated and questioned by MI.  Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick recounts that the MPs were praised for their excellent work at Abu Ghraib by MI.  Intelligence was now flowing from prisoners at Abu Ghraib and when questions arose about the concerns of some of the MPs at the methods being used, Frederick claims that they were told, "Don't worry about it, we are getting exactly what we need."  Frederick shared his knowledge of at least one detainee who was killed during an interrogation as well.  Graner had been commended for the success as well.  It was communicated that the intelligence gathered because of Graner's abuses would be of great help in achieving the U.S. military's overall goals in Iraq and the Middle East.  With this confirmation, the tactics and abuse would get worse. 

Determining who was running Abu Ghraib became an impossible task.  The MPs who committed the horrible acts claimed that they were simply following the orders by their commanding officers, MI and the private intelligence contractors who had been brought in to Abu Ghraib to collect intelligence.  Though they individually may have questioned their own actions internally, they felt compelled to follow the orders that they had been given.  Later it was revealed that Janis Karpinski had requested higher security measures at the prison but failed to follow up on these reports and the dangerous environment at Abu Ghraib for MPs contributed to the resulting abuse of the detainees as well.  The integrity of the U.S. military was severely tarnished and many innocent civilians in Iraq housed at Abu Ghraib would suffer life altering consequences.  Abu Ghraib had become exactly what U.S. officials had desired it to be, another Guantanamo Bay. 

Military Police moved from Incarceration Staff and Placed under Military Intelligence (MI)

Janis Karpinski had been the head of Abu Ghraib prison in a very difficult time.  Intelligence was not being extracted from prisoners and their interrogations were conceived as totally ineffective.  With the arrival of General Miller from Gitmo, changes were swift.  The Military Police (MPs) were removed from incarceration duties, under the lead of Karpinski, and placed under the authority of the Military Intelligence (MI) division, their job description and responsibilities drastically changed.  Instead of guarding prisoners, they began to be used as the tools of torture under the authority of the MI.  In specific instances guards were instructed to "soften up" prisoners through the night that would be interrogated the next morning by the MI specialists.  This "softening up" process included using the enhanced interrogation techniques such as stress positioning, humiliation, nudity, and sleep depravation that had been brought to Abu Ghraib by General Miller and sanctioned by Rumsfeld.  Private security and intelligence contractors who answered to no one began directing MPs to torture the prisoners of Abu Ghraib with no conern of accountability. 

Psychological torture was now being used on the prisoners in the continued effort to extract detailed intelligence to be used to fight the insurgency in Iraq.  The devastating results from psychological torture are much more difficult to heal than the results of physical torture.  Sergeant Graner was chosen to lead the MPs guarding the prisoners held on Tier 1 because of his experience in civilian prisons.  Graner raised questions of the techniques being required by MI and OGA.  Graner felt that the specific things he was being asked to do were unethical and immoral, but he claimed that he had no choice but to follow the orders that were given to him.  The MPs were now the tools of torture in the hands of desperate MI division and the results of this move would be devastating and definitely inhumane.  Torture was now the accepted method of interrogation within Abu Ghraib. 

Major General Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez and Interrogation Techniques

Donald Rumsfeld believed that the terrorist prison camp at Guantanamo Bay Cuba was one of the "finest prisons in the world" and the success that had been found in the specific area of intelligence extraction needed to be replicated at the prison at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.  Because of the frustration of the intelligence agents at Abu Ghraib, Donald Rumsfeld, in the "Action Memo" of November 27, 2002, would approve of enhanced interrogation techniques.  In this memo Rumsfeld approved the most severe interrogation techniques that had ever been approved in the history of the U.S.  As chilling as it is to read these techniques on paper and know that U.S. officials were sanctioning such action couldn't compare to the impact of applying these techniques to actual human beings.  Techniques such as solitary confinement, use of intense sound and light, darkness, stress positions, and playing upon the phobias of the prisoners were implemented and signed off on by Rumsfeld himself.  Prisoners were subjected to nudity and placed in sexually compromising positions as a form of humiliation as well.  The desperate need for intelligence and the pressure from a mounting insurgency within Iraq brought swift change to the status quo in regards to the treatment of prisoners and the methods of interrogations at Abu Ghraib. 

Major General Geoffrey Miller who had implemented unconventional interrogation techniques at Gitmo was reassigned to bring these changes to Abu Ghraib in August of 2003.  Miller had been successful at obtaining critical intelligence at Guantanamo Bay with the philosophy of extracting information by "any means necessary".  The ends certainly justified the means in the eyes of Miller and Rumsfeld.  Miller believed the prisoners at Abu Ghraib had been treated too well and there was no way to get the intelligence needed without devolving the treatment to the level that he had been using at Guantanamo Bay.  Just weeks after Miller's arrival in Iraq, Ricardo Sanchez, the military commander on the ground in Iraq, in an official memo, signed off on the use of more aggressive interrogation techniques on the enemy combatants detained at Abu Ghraib.  Abu Ghraib would quickly resemble the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.  Policies at the prison were rapidly changing and the military personnel struggled to keep up with what was ok and what was not.  It was very unclear on what techniques were allowed and what was not and these questions were never answered.  U.S. soldiers were seeing things that they had never seen before in regards to interrogation techniques, nudity, sexual abuse, and the shackling of prisoners became accepted and common place at Abu Ghraib.  Detainees were often placed in their cells with no bed, no blankets, no shoes, and no clothing.  Prisoners were treated more like animals than human beings but U.S. officials believed these techniques did not violate the Geneva Conventions or any other International Law that was in place. 

The "Hard Site" and the "Failure" of Intelligence at Abu Ghraib

Medical Report from the "Hard Site" of Abu Ghraib

Of the 6,000 plus detainees at Abu Ghraib in the summer of 2003 approximately 1,000 of these prisoners were considered to be the worst of the worst.  Actual members of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, those directly responsible for attacking U.S. soldiers and other coalition support groups made up this group that was held at the "hard site" within Abu Ghraib.  This section of the prison was the area where interviews and interrogations were held in an attempt to gather credible intelligence that would be used to counter the insurgency in Iraq.  Only six or seven soldiers were guarding the one thousand inmates housed in the hard site.  This was a dangerous task especially considering, not only the sheer volume of inmates, but what these inmates had supposedly done to justify their place in the hard site of Abu Ghraib. 

Interrogations and interviews were conducted within the hard site but the intelligence was not flowing quickly enough and hardly any credible intelligence was gained in over a year of these interrogations.  The belief was that between 75%-80% of those housed in the hard site, legitimately had nothing to offer the intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib.  Many of these prisoners had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time or had been turned in by neighbors who were seeking to secure and protect their own freedom.  You can imagine the frustration of the intelligence agents at Abu Ghraib who believed they had imprisoned hard core terrorists at their disposal but were striking out time and time again in extracting any information that would have protected the security of the troops on the ground in Iraq.  The lack of intelligence along with the increased attacks of the insurgency in the summer of 2003, with the bombing of the UN headquarters and the Jordanian embassy in August, the attack on the Turkish embassy in October, and then the attack on the Rasheed hotel which housed American soldiers and workers in the "green zone" created the pressure that weighed upon the shoulders of the American intelligence agents within Abu Ghraib.  Without credible Intel, this war would never end and a great deal of panic set in.  The belief of the intelligence agents at Abu Ghraib was that the intelligence they attempted to gather would be impactful not just in Iraq but would serve to cripple the Al-Qaeda network all around the world.  Unfortunately the intelligence was simply not there.  This lack of intelligence production would motivate Donald Rumsfeld to express his displeasure and bring in Major General Geoffrey Miller to Abu Ghraib from Guantanamo Bay Cuba, where he was successfully extracting a great deal of intelligence used in the War on Terror.  Rumsfeld desired Abu Ghraib to produce at the same level as that of Guantanamo Bay and Miller would be given this task.  Abu Ghraib would be "Guantanamo-ized". 

Abu Ghraib- The Location, Atmosphere, & Situation at Abu Ghraib by September 2003

What the environment at Abu Ghraib created.


The stench of death wafted through the winding halls of the prison at Abu Ghraib. Paintings of Sadaam Hussein filled the prison, and the horrific details of the atrocities that had taken place in this prison had been communicated to the U.S. soldiers who were residing inside this terrifying place. This dark, hot, and oppressive setting was difficult for the military personnel who had been given the assignment to guard the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Specifically the 372nd Military Police who were trained to support military operations would receive this task. Trained in military support, these soldiers would now become no more than corrections officers and prison guards. They were never trained to fulfill this role. Abu Ghraib was the most attacked prison in Iraq, and faced mortar attacks and shootings on a daily basis. And those soldiers within the walls of the prison had been commanded to lay their guns, weapons, and ammunition aside and guard prisoners day after day in a virtual hell. Many of these MPs describe the environment as impossible to handle and say they will never forget the sights and smells of Abu Ghraib.

The signs of torture from the Hussein regime were ever present and served as a constant reminder of the evil that had taken place in the barracks where American soldiers now laid their heads to rest every night. Bodies of prisoners who had been executed were buried on the grounds of Abu Ghraib in shallow graves. Knowing that the road in front of Abu Ghraib was the most dangerous stretch of road in the entire world, presented the American soldiers with a sense of hopelessness and the reality of their own death was constantly reinforced into their minds. Mental anguish, fear, uncertainty, and prison walls became a deadly combination upon the psyche of the guards within Abu Ghraib. Accompanying these horrible conditions was the surge in the prison population by the end of September 2003. The steady population of approximately one thousand prisoners had swelled to a number topping six thousand by September 2003. 300 MPs were charged with the responsibility of guarding and protecting all of these inmates. Untrained personnel, a hellish setting, devastating attacks daily, and unchecked power of thousands of prisoners contributed to the unfathomable actions of the U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib.  These impossible circumstances created the environment where evil ruled. 

American Techniques of War & Iraqi Citizens

How many civilians have died in the U.S. War on Terror?

The challenges presented by fighting a guerilla style war were daunting and very dangerous. This new kind of war with the terrorist being the enemy, caused the U.S. military to redefine their rules of engagement. Since American soldiers struggled to distinguish enemy combatants from the everyday citizens of Iraq, many mistakes were made. Soldiers arriving found themselves thrust into a warzone the likes of which many had never encountered. How were they to identify the enemy? They were told, "If it looks like an enemy, shoot it." This strategy was difficult to follow because who would decide what an enemy looked like.  And in reality the enemy looked identical to the innocent citizens of Iraq.  The problem continued to be the lack of credible specific intelligence which caused the military personnel to operate with broad sweeping descriptions of insurgents and lead to the harassment and interrogation of many innocent Iraqi citizens. The U.S. military believed this to be a necessary consequence of the War on Terror. Iraqi citizens claim that U.S. forces detained many innocent Iraqis, ripped them from their families, and placed them in custody at the prison in Abu Ghraib, outside of Baghdad.

It is hard for me to criticize American soldiers who were on the ground fighting in very difficult circumstances. The design of the insurgent's warfare was the primary reason that the U.S. military implemented the strategy that it did. Insurgents hid themselves among innocent citizens purposely for this very reason. The enemy never made itself known until the blast of an IED killed American service men and women. What else could they have done? I do believe that U.S. intelligence agencies should have done a better job at collecting and conveying information to the troops on the ground in Baghdad. This proved once again that you cannot successfully fight a political war. War is definitely unpleasant and elements of war are downright disturbing but what would take place at Abu Ghraib was inhumane and would soil the reputation of the U.S. military as a whole. Innocent citizens were caught in the crossfire of an ugly and devastating conflict.  It is one thing when fighting on the streets of Baghdad to be extra cautious about trying to identify the enemy and for mistakes to be made on that front.  But it is entirely different to abuse, humiliate, and torture those innocent human beings that were in custody and being held in the cells within the Abu Ghraib prison.  The U.S. response that this was War and someone had to pay was quite irresponsible.  Those responsible for the attacks should have been held accountable and brought to justice but innocent citizens in no way should have suffered as many of them did at the hands of the U.S. military. 

The Justice Department and the UN Convention Against Torture

Washington Monthly article on the "Torture Memos"


Along with the Geneva Conventions of 1949 there were other binding agreements that the U.S. had been a part of which included the U.N. Convention Against Torture. Stating that the language in the U.N. Convention Against Torture was ambiguous, John Yoo and the Justice Department exploited this language and would justify any method of torture as a tool of interrogations to gain intelligence needed to effectively fight the War on Terror. Yoo believed that words such as "severe", "pain", and "suffering" were not clearly defined in the UNCAT, so he and the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales sought to determine definitions for these words. In the first of the "torture memos" sent in August of 2002 the D.O.J. defined physical pain amounting to torture must be accompanied by serious physical injury such as organ failure, loss of bodily function, or death. Accepting this definition allowed the Bush administration to, under President Bush's executive power alone, promote and perform torturous and humiliating acts in interrogations. In short Yoo gave the President the authority to define torture in any terms he chose to define it, to justify whatever it was the President wished to do.  The gloves were off and it was these definitions accompanied with the aggressive interrogations of captured insurgents, which led to the horrible offences that would occur at Abu Ghraib.

These new definitions of torture that were being used to justify the harsh treatment and intense interrogations by the U.S. in Iraq, would have allowed the atrocities that Sadaam Hussein himself had committed in his own country's prisons and would have failed to define those acts as torture as well. The other element articulated in these memos was the unquestionable power of the president in a time of war. Treaties could not bind the power of the President and not even congress could impose any restriction on the executive branch which lied with President George W. Bush. This authority and power could only be removed at the end of the military conflict. This idea encouraged the cowboy mentality of President Bush and key members of his administration. They did whatever it took to get the information they believed was necessary to protect Americans and win this new kind of war. These ideas had now become the stated policy of the U.S. government and Abu Ghraib and the crimes against humanity there were now inevitable.  The seeds of torture had been planted in Washington and would grow to bear their horrible fruit in a prison outside the city of Baghdad. 

The Geneva Conventions and The War on Terror



What rights did the insurgents and members of Al-Qaeda have once they were captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq? This question was complicated and heavily debated within the Bush administration and the Department of Justice during America's War on Terror. Would those captured be protected by the agreements found in the Geneva Conventions as prisoners of war, civilians, or something completely uncovered by the Geneva Conventions? How were these prisoners to be classified? The Geneva Conventions were agreed to and ratified as international humanitarian law in 1949 following the conclusion of World War II. These agreements were implemented to protect specifically those who were not participating in direct combat and also established rules for all nations regarding the treatment of those captured during a conflict. One hundred and ninety-four states have signed the Geneva Conventions making it essentially universally applicable. America's interest in signing the Geneva Conventions was to protect American soldiers who would be captured in times of international conflict. The U.S. had maintained standards and guidelines that were stricter than those of the Geneva Conventions. So the Geneva Conventions were viewed as the minimum protection that all countries would adhere to with respect to the classes covered in their specific guidelines.

With American lives at stake in the War on Terror and the only solution being the effective extraction of intelligence from those of the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Geneva Conventions became a pivotal question when regarding those members of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the insurgency in Iraq. John Yoo and the Justice Department would conclude that the executive branch, specifically the President had the authority to conduct coercive interrogations in two legal opinions that later became known as the "torture memos". These memos were written in August 2002 and the second in March of 2003. Yoo and the Justice Department did not believe that any of the members of the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan had any protection under the terms and conditions of the Geneva Conventions. Their legal argument for this was because Al-Qaeda had never signed the Geneva Conventions and in their terrorist attacks, they targeted civilians, disguised themselves as civilians, and followed no rules of warfare. Yoo specifically sites the Al-Qaeda attacks on 9/11 where civilians and innocent Americans were killed as proof that Al-Qaeda does not adhere to the Geneva Conventions themselves so they have no right to seek protection under those conventions themselves. But should the U.S. hold itself to a higher standard as it had always done in international military conflicts?

Early in 2002, President Bush made the decision, based upon the reports of John Yoo and the Justice Department, that the Geneva Conventions provided no protection to those captured in the War on Terror. This had never happened in American history. Donald Rumsfeld would deem these prisoners, not as prisoners of war, but as unlawful combatants. Rules for interrogating prisoners of war would be critical to the success in America's War on Terror, and because of the need for intelligence, President Bush would use the power of the executive branch alone to approve of the interrogation techniques that would be implemented in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush had been warned that the International Criminal Court could seek indictments of American officials as a result of their actions in the War on Terror, but Bush continued to move forward with a "go in it alone" approach. This had become the hallmark of the Bush administration because of Bush's willingness to exercise the power given to the President as Commander and Chief to protect American lives.  This policy would lead to the atrocities that would take place at Abu Ghraib in the treatment of prisoners there. 

The Context of the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal

By the summer of 2003, the situation in Iraq had deteriorated from a successful military mission and occupation of the country to a dangerous and bloody battle with an unknown enemy. Attempting to fight an unconventional war under conventional rules, guidelines, and strategies was impossible and the U.S. military was quickly learning this lesson. The Bush administration's stated goal for the Iraqi occupation was to spread democracy and bring about U.S. led stability to the Middle East. This goal was becoming more and more difficult because of the random bombings by unidentifiable insurgents in Iraq. Intelligence was lacking at best and U.S. military leaders were becoming more and more frustrated with the lack of credible intelligence that they were having provided to them. All the while U.S. soldiers were paying the price at the hands of a new kind of weapon in this war, the roadside bomb, also known as the I.E.D. (Improvised Explosive Device). On August 7, 2003 a car bomb was detonated outside the Jordanian embassy which killed eleven and wounded more than fifty others. Then on August 19, another car bomb using a cement truck was crashed into the wall of the United Nations headquarters in Iraq which was in Baghdad. This was a devastating attack which would create deadly consequences for the U.S. military. The insurgency had shifted their strategy and it was a very intelligent move. Instead of attacking the U.S. forces directly, they shifted their focus to destroy those elements from other nations who were apart of the coalition in an attempt to break apart the occupation piece by piece. One of those killed in the August 19 attack was a diplomat from Brazil named Sergio Vieira who was the chief of the UN mission with coalition forces. This precipitated a quick withdrawal of UN presence in the region. The UN staff went from over eight hundred international staffers to fifteen. The withdrawal of UN personnel made the U.S. mission of occupation and rebuilding a democracy that much more difficult because the UN served as the intermediary between the U.S. and the leaders of the Shiite community. Many other international organizations would follow quickly behind the UN withdrawal and leave the region as well. The third major blow came just ten days later when another car bomb was used to kill the Shiite political ruler Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim. This revealed clearly that no figure or group that supported the U.S. occupation was safe. America could not protect its allies! The insurgency's plan was a brilliant strategy and rapidly left the U.S. without the necessary support from the world community. By November this strategy was clear and evident but it was too late. The insurgents had attacked Iraqi security forces, politicians, the UN, and anyone else who was aligned with the U.S. led occupation. Any support that could possibly be stripped away was a target for the Iraqi insurgents.

The only way to be safe and combat the insurgents was going to come from the ability to quickly and accurately gather, collect, organize, and communicate intelligence. Getting inside the inner workings of the insurgency would be the only way to combat the growing difficulty in Iraq. Extracting information from individuals and sometimes innocent Iraqi citizens was viewed as a necessity to protect U.S. soldiers and the American interest in Iraq. Counter insurgency was proving once again to be an impossible task for the intelligence structure that was in place at the time. Through the summer and fall of 2003 the U.S. occupation was failing and further alienating the people who they believed they wanted to help find democracy. Tensions continued to rise as U.S. forces were not viewed favorably by Iraqi citizens and the U.S. military seemed to be unorganized and lacked a clearly defined goal and leadership. No one was putting the pieces of the puzzle together to provide a clear picture of what needed to happen and all the while U.S. soldiers were paying the price as they were left hung out to dry in many situations. Soldiers and U.S. intelligence officials had become desperate to find some kind of solution. The frustration of U.S. soldiers who were witnessing their fellow soldiers dying on a regular basis at the hand of an unknown enemy coupled with the pressure to gain Intel that would help them identify and effectively fight the insurgency would definitely create the situation that would unfold at Abu Ghraib.