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".