How Abu Ghraib became a byword for the disastrous occupation of Iraq

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The evidence of the torture and humiliation of Iraqis swelled the ranks of militant groups and fueled the insurgency in the country. (Alamy Stock Photos)
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Updated 15 March 2021
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How Abu Ghraib became a byword for the disastrous occupation of Iraq

  • Some 30 years after the launch of Desert Storm, the world is still assessing the manifold consequences of the Gulf War
  • Torture at Abu Ghraib came to symbolize everything the US did wrong after the overthrow of Saddam in 2003

MISSOURI, USA: On Aug. 2, 1990, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered his army to invade and capture Kuwait. This ill-fated decision forever changed Iraq and the lives of all Iraqis and the first coalition war against Iraqi began on Jan. 16, 1991.

Some 30 years later, we are still assessing the consequences of the invasion of Kuwait. As part of its special coverage of the Gulf War, Arab News has done a deep dive into the topic to produce a multimedia feature titled Desert Storm: 30 years on.

Iraq between 1991 and 2003 suffered tremendously under international sanctions. Although the “Oil for food” UN program was designed to make sure no Iraqis went hungry under the sanctions, Saddam’s regime prevented food and medicine from reaching dissident populations still under his control (particularly Shiites).

As a result, some 500,000 Iraqi children are estimated to have died preventable deaths during this period. The brutal dictatorship that terrorized all Iraqis finally fell in the 2003 installment of the Gulf War. For a brief moment it seemed life would get better for the citizens of a country with one of the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

The successful coalition military campaign quickly degenerated, however, into a disastrous occupation. One event in particular came to symbolize everything the Americans did wrong in their occupation of Iraq: the scandal surrounding American treatment of Iraqi prisoners in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

First came the very fact that the Americans chose the Abu Ghraib prison to house close to 4,000 prisoners (mostly Sunni Arabs suspected of participating in the post-2003 insurgency against the coalition occupation regime). Abu Ghraib had been infamous during Saddam’s reign, akin to Iran’s Evin prison in Tehran. Long before 2003, “getting sent to Abu Ghraib” stood out as one of the worst fates someone could face in Iraq.

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Instead of assuaging already suspicious Iraqis and reassuring them that post-Saddam Iraq would be different, the Americans simply took over Abu Ghraib and began using it much as Saddam had. Coalition forces likewise installed themselves in Saddam’s palaces (including the “Green Zone” in Baghdad), turning them into their new administrative headquarters for the occupation.

For many Iraqis, the message seemed clear: The Americans were the new Saddam, except this time Sunnis would take the place of Shiites and Kurds as Iraq’s oppressed groups. Just in case anyone remained unsure about Iraq’s new dictators, the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April of 2004.




The evidence of the torture and humiliation of Iraqis swelled the ranks of militant groups and fueled the insurgency in the country. (Alamy Stock Photos)

It began with the death of an Iraqi detainee being interrogated at the prison. Soon after, a US soldier discovered a CD-ROM disc in the prison with photos of prisoner abuse. He reported this to his superiors, who began an investigation (as is standard operating procedure for such reports).

The news program “60 Minutes” soon obtained the graphic photos of detainees being tortured by their American guards and broadcast a story on the matter.

The photos of the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib shocked the world. CNN summarized the types of abuse as follows:

  • Punching, slapping and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet.
  • Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees.
  • Forcibly arranging detainees in various explicit positions for photographing.
  • Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time.
  • Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear.
  • Photographing and videotaping groups of male detainees in humiliating acts.
  • Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them.
  • Positioning a naked detainee on a box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes and other extremities to simulate electric torture.
  • Writing “I am a Rapest (sic)” on the leg of a detainee accused of rape, and then photographing him naked.
  • Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture.
  • A male military police guard violating a female detainee.
  • Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee.
  • Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees.

Although most people think of Iraq as a very hot country, much of this torture occurred in December 2003 — when temperatures in an unheated prison get quite cold and damp. Keeping the prisoners naked under such conditions, in addition to various forms of humiliation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, cold-water, high-pressure hoses, physical abuse and psychological abuse, certainly amounted to torture.

By early May of 2004, George W. Bush, then US president, appeared before news cameras around the world disavowing the abuse of prisoners and his regret “for the humiliation suffered.” The damage had already been done, however, as the evidence of torture and humiliation of Iraqis swelled the ranks of militant groups and fueled the insurgency in the country.




Former US President George W. Bush
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If the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib was intended to save coalition lives by forcing prisoners to divulge information about the Iraqi insurgents, it had very much the opposite effect. Responsibility for the whole sorry episode never ended up reaching very high up the American chain of command.

Although Donald Rumsfeld, who was secretary of defense at the time, testified before the US Congress and Senate, neither he nor President Bush or Vice-President Cheney were ever really blamed.

The narrative that emerged instead was one of a few “bad apples” on the night guard shift at Abu Ghraib. Low-level soldiers and civilian contractors received demotions, reprimands and prison sentences of a few months. The highest official sanctioned for the abuse was Janis Karpinski, the brigadier general in charge of several prisons in Iraq. She was rotated out of Iraq and demoted to colonel.

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For a country that prides itself on its human-rights standards and frequently chides foreign leaders from a moral high ground, this looked like a hypocritical outcome. Many thought it unlikely that higher level officers and government officials did not know what was going on in Abu Ghraib prison.

At the very least, President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld created the kind of standard operating procedures and climate that allowed Abu Ghraib to occur. They insisted on calling captured militants “enemy combatants” rather than “prisoners of war” so that they could send them to Guantanamo Bay without formal charges or Geneva Convention protections.




Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
 

On other occasions they sent the captured fighters on secret flights to Egypt or secret CIA detention centers in Eastern Europe so they could be tortured there, far from the light of the world. They engaged in various forms of sophistry to classify things like water boarding “enhanced interrogation” rather than torture.

In the end, all of this hurt rather than helped the American cause. Such abuses gave the insurgents in Iraq the oxygen they needed to survive several more years than they should have. Some of the insurgents even eventually morphed into the self-proclaimed Islamic State or Daesh.

To be certain, some of the outcomes from Saddam’s 1990 blunder turned out for the better. Iraqi Kurds in particular found an opportunity to emerge from the ashes of Saddam’s genocidal policies against them in the 1980s.

The unacceptable risk that Saddam’s nuclear weapons program would have posed to the world — a program which was just a few years short of completion in 1990 — receded. However, as with almost all watershed moments in a country’s historical trajectory, the positive changes found themselves weighed down by the bad.

 

David Romano is Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University

Desert Storm: 30 years on
The end of the Gulf War on Feb. 28, 1991 saw the eviction of Iraq from Kuwait but paved the way for decades of conflict

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Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

Updated 3 sec ago
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Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month

ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in the Syrian Arab Republic’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.
The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.
The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.
Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.
After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.
Kurds made up 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.

King Abdullah, Bulgarian president co-chair Aqaba Process meetings in Sofia

Updated 31 min 53 sec ago
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King Abdullah, Bulgarian president co-chair Aqaba Process meetings in Sofia

  • Initiative aims to bolster cooperation on security, counterterrorism issues
  • King held separate talks with several regional leaders on sidelines of event

LONDON: King Abdullah II of Jordan and Bulgarian President Rumen Radev co-chaired the third round of the Aqaba Process meetings in Sofia on Friday, bringing together international leaders to address pressing security challenges in the Balkans and beyond, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The Aqaba Process Balkans III forum, jointly organized by Jordan and Bulgaria, tackled issues such as regional security, counterterrorism efforts, online radicalization and illegal migration. The participants also explored opportunities for greater international cooperation, including intelligence sharing and strategic partnerships in combating extremism.

Attending the event were heads of state, government officials and security representatives from Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Spain, Greece, Italy, France, the UK, US and Japan.

Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, King Abdullah’s personal envoy and chief adviser on religious and cultural affairs, was among the attendees, while several international organizations, including the EU, Interpol, Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, were also represented.

On the sidelines of the forum, King Abdullah held meetings with several regional leaders, including Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar, Albanian President Bajram Begaj, Kosovan President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, North Macedonian President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Launched by the king in 2015, the Aqaba Process is designed to enhance coordination between regional and international actors in the fight against terrorism and extremism. It fosters military, security and intelligence cooperation, focusing on counterterrorism strategies and the exchange of expertise.

Previous meetings have been hosted by Jordan, Albania, Brazil, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Rwanda, Singapore, Spain, the US and the UN General Assembly.

Discussions have covered diverse regions such as East Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, West Africa and the Sahel.


In Tunisia, snails inch toward replacing red meat as people turn to cheaper protein

Updated 04 April 2025
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In Tunisia, snails inch toward replacing red meat as people turn to cheaper protein

  • Snails have been consumed in Tunisia for more than seven millenia
  • Low in fat and high in iron, calcium and magnesium, snails offer both nutritional value and economic relief

AKOUDA, Tunisia: In fields outside their hometown in central Tunisia, an increasing number of unemployed young men are seeking a new way to make a living, picking snails off of rocks and leaves and collecting them in large plastic bags to take to the local market to be sold.
More and more people, they say, are buying the shelled wanderers as the price of market staples remains high and out of reach for many families.
“They’re profitable, beneficial and quite in demand,” said Karim, a 29-year-old snail seller from the village of Akouda said.
Snails have been consumed in Tunisia for more than seven millenia, according to research published last year in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. In today’s world considered mostly a bistro delicacy, they’re again gaining traction in Tunisia as a practical alternative to red meat — a protein-rich substitute that pairs perfectly with salt, spices, and bold seasonings.
The snails are a lifeline for some in Tunisia, where youth unemployment now hovers above 40 percent and inflation remains high, three years after spiking to its highest levels in decades. A lack of opportunity has fueled social discontent throughout the country and, increasingly, migration to Europe.
Low in fat and high in iron, calcium and magnesium, snails offer both nutritional value and economic relief. In a country where unemployment runs high and median wages remain low, they cost about half as much as beef per kilogram and often less when sold by the bowl.
“Snails are better for cooking than lamb. If lamb meat costs 60 dinars ($19.30), a bowl of snails is five dinars ($1.60),” a man named Mohammed said at the Akouda market.
As the price of meat and poultry continues to rise, more Tunisians are turning to affordable, alternative sources of protein. Beyond their economic appeal, these substitutes are also drawing interest for their environmental benefits. Scientists say they offer a more sustainable solution, producing far fewer carbon emissions and avoiding the deforestation linked to traditional livestock farming.
Wahiba Dridi, who serves snails at her restaurant in Tunis, cooks them in a traditional fashion with peppers and spices. She said they were popular throughout this year’s Ramadan, which ended last week. Though Tunisian Muslims traditionally eat red meat at the meals during which they break their daily fasts, a kilogram of snails costs less than 28 Tunisian dinars ($9) compared to beef, which costs 55 dinars per kilogram ($18).
“If people knew the value of snails they would eat them all year long,” Dridi said.


US sending Israel 20,000 assault rifles that Biden had delayed, say sources

Updated 04 April 2025
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US sending Israel 20,000 assault rifles that Biden had delayed, say sources

  • The rifle sale is a small transaction next to the billions of dollars worth of weapons that Washington supplies to Israel
  • The March 6 congressional notification said the US government had taken into account “political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations“

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration moved forward with the sale of more than 20,000 US-made assault rifles to Israel last month, according to a document seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter, pushing ahead with a sale that the administration of former president Joe Biden had delayed over concerns they could be used by extremist Israeli settlers.
The State Department sent a notification to Congress on March 6 for the $24 million sale, saying the end user would be the Israeli National Police, according to the document.
The rifle sale is a small transaction next to the billions of dollars worth of weapons that Washington supplies to Israel. But it drew attention when the Biden administration delayed the sale over concerns that the weapons could end up in the hands of Israeli settlers, some of whom have carried out attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on individuals and entities accused of committing violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has seen a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians.
On his first day in office on January 20, Trump issued an executive order rescinding US sanctions on Israeli settlers in a reversal of US policy. Since then, his administration has approved the sale of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel.
The March 6 congressional notification said the US government had taken into account “political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations.”
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment when asked if the administration sought assurances from Israel on the use of the weapons.

CLOSE TIES
Since a 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state, and has built settlements that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.
Settler violence had been on the rise prior to the eruption of the Gaza war, and has worsened since the conflict began over a year ago.
Trump has forged close ties to Netanyahu, pledging to back Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. His administration has in some cases pushed ahead with Israel arms sales despite requests from Democratic lawmakers that the sales be paused until they received more information.
The US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a bid to block $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel over human rights concerns, voting 82-15 and 83-15 to reject two resolutions of disapproval over sales of massive bombs and other offensive military equipment.
The resolutions were offered by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
The rifle sale had been put on hold after Democratic lawmakers objected and sought information on how Israel was going to use them. The congressional committees eventually cleared the sale but the Biden administration kept the hold in place.
The latest episode in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began with a Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 with gunmen killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, oversees the Israeli police force. The Times of Israel newspaper in November 2023 reported that his ministry has put “a heavy emphasis on arming civilian security squads” in the aftermath of October 7 attacks.


Medecins Sans Frontieres ‘appalled’ by second staff member killed in Gaza within weeks

Updated 04 April 2025
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Medecins Sans Frontieres ‘appalled’ by second staff member killed in Gaza within weeks

  • Hussam Al Loulou died in the strike on Apr. 1 in central Gaza

GENEVA: Global medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Friday it was appalled and saddened by the killing of one of its staff by an air strike in Gaza, the second within two weeks.


Hussam Al Loulou died in the strike on Apr. 1 in central Gaza, alongside his wife and 28-year-old daughter, the organization said.