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.