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

The hard site was a specific area at Abu Ghraib where the most violent prisoners would be held. In one section were the criminally insane and high security prisoners, and in another area were women and children. The women and children were used to lure in a relative suspected of being a terrorist. The army would tell the alleged terrorist 'we have your wife or son or daughter and if you turn yourself in, they will be set free'. There were about 1,000 detainees in this part of the prison that were all suspected to be in some terrorist group, whether it is al-Queda or the Taliban or any other terrorist who killed Americans. Only 6 or 7 guards were in the hard site to watch over the world's most violent prisoners.

The problem with getting intelligence in the hard site was that most prisoners were there out of speculation. About 75-80% of the detainees had no information on terrorism, so the intelligence officers were getting nothing of value. The idea was to get enough prisoners that they would get at least a little bit of intelligence out of some of them, but they were unsuccessful.

Abu Ghraib: The Location, Atmosphere, and Situation

Abu Ghraib was a horrible site of the destruction of the Iraqi people during Saddam's regime. There were pictures of Saddam Hussein everywhere, and wild dogs running around digging up bodies. In one room, there were ropes hanging where Saddam's regime would hang 80-100 people a day, and in another room there were two ovens, where the bodies would be incinerated. According to one guard, the prison smelled of urine and feces, and it was "a combination of Apocalypse Now and the Shining, except this is real."

The 372nd Military Police Company came to Iraq with intentions of being on the front lines of a war, but instead were sent to Abu Ghraib to work as prison guards. With no training of being a prison guard, they were told to put their weapons away. However, Abu Ghraib was the most attacked position in Iraq, where there were frequent mortars. This is to include the road that leads up to Abu Ghraib, where a person driving on the street would not know if they were going to make it to their destination. In Abu Ghraib by the end of September, 2003, there were over 6,000 prisoners and a little less than 300 guards.

American Techniques of War and Iraqi Civilians

Americans did not know who was a terrorist and who was not, and there was really no way of telling in Iraq. The techniques of war were repulsive in the way that the U.S. soldiers were told that "if it looks like the enemy, shoot it". Techniques of war really did not exist because they were not techniques. Soldiers just killed anyone they thought may have been a terrorist and arrested anyone they thought may know something or someone. These soldiers did not need a reason for anything they did. Iraqi civilians were degraded by any means and sometimes arrested for nothing at all. American soldiers would burst into a house and at times would steal money and arrest the civilians. Many times there is no reason for any of the abuse the citizens take, but the American soldiers are on orders and that is their order.

The Justice Department and the UN Convention Against Torture

According to the Justice Department, the Geneva Conventions do not clearly state the definition of 'torture' and other words such as 'severe'. The Justice Department wants to redefine these terms so that it cannot be interpreted differently. What John Yoo and the Justice Department came up with was that physical pain amounted to "organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, and death". One critic claims that this analysis of torture is to narrow and should be more broad. Another critic shows his disgust with the definition by saying that this allows for many of the things Saddam Hussein does and the document should be burned but it is instead now US policy.

Geneva Conventions on the War on Terror

The Geneva Conventions are an agreement between the United Stated and multiple other countries that describes the rules of war and the way POWs and all others should be treated. It was signed in 1949. It ensures that all people will be treated with respect and not tortured, humiliated, or degraded in any way. The Geneva Conventions represent the human standard of war. Americans like it because, like other soldiers, it ensures American captives will be treated properly. Before the signing of the Geneva Conventions, Americans actually held standards higher than those of the Geneva Conventions.

The Geneva Conventions first became an issue in Afghanistan in the war on terror. According to John Yoo and the Justice Department, al-Queda operatives do not apply to the Geneva Conventions because they did not sign it and they do not abide by it. Al-Queda constantly undermines the laws of the Geneva Conventions, therefore, they do not count as part of it. For the first time in American history, in early 2002, President Bush decided the Geneva Conventions would not be a factor in the war on terror, because unlawful combatants do not have rights under the Geneva Conventions.

The Context of the Abu Ghraib Prison Abuse Scandal

Iraq in the summer of 2003 had been chaos. There was really no set plan of what the United States Army would be doing there and there was very little intelligence. American soldiers arrested any Iraqi citizens for basically anything they could think of. Those arrested would be sent to prison to be interrogated but there was little intelligence coming out of it. The soldiers were not trained to interrogate people, and there were only a few hundred soldiers for the thousands of detainees held. Iraqis, however, were rewarded for any crime against the U.S. troops. This began the spur of many car bombings, grenades thrown, and even snipers. The Americans had been in denial of an insurgency in Iraq until on August 7, when the Jordanian embassy was bombed then just a few days later, the UN was bombed. This was proof that there was in fact an insurgency in Iraq.

In September 2003, the secretary of defense went to Iraq to observe the situation and found that American soldiers had little intelligence on the situation in Iraq. Soldiers began arresting more citizens for absolutely nothing. Donald Rumsfeld decided to allow harsh interrogation techniques to get more intelligence out of the Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib, which was a prison outside of Baghdad. Rumsfeld signed a document that stated that Abu Ghraib could now conduct interrogations in a way that Guantanamo had conducted interrogations. This included allowing isolation, deprivation of light, twenty hour interrogations, and exploitation of phobias.

Many instances of abuse were reported among the army from this doctrine. In one case, some soldiers put an Iraqi general into a sleeping bag and sat on him then proceeded to roll him on the floor. Another incident was when a man who's son was recently killed by American soldiers and buried was forced to dig up the body. On September 11, 2003, one Iraqi detainee had been handcuffed in an isolation cell, and a soldier came in and shot him for no apparent reason. Many of the attacks on the Iraqi citizens were not for a reason. One soldier admitted that, "everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration, you show up and the PUC tent," where they would beat detained Iraqis, nearly to death.

In late April 2004, photos of the harsh conditions of Abu Ghraib went public. The army risked losing support of the American public when these pictures were shown. The response of one commander about the photos was that "guards were trained to guard people, not to interrogate".