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.
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. 
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