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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The evidence of the torture and humiliation of Iraqis swelled the ranks of militant groups and fueled the insurgency in the country. (Getty Images)
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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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Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem

Updated 14 sec ago
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Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem

  • Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities

LONDON: Israeli forces demolished the office of the Palestinian Al-Bustan Association in occupied East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Silwan, whose residents are under threat of Israeli eviction orders. 

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Culture condemned on Thursday the demolition of Al-Bustan by Israeli bulldozers and a military police force. 

The ministry said that “(Israeli) occupation’s arrogant practices against cultural and community institutions in Palestine, and specifically in Jerusalem, are targeting the Palestinian identity, in an attempt to obliterate it.” 

Founded in 2004, the Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities alongside hosting meetings for diplomatic delegations and Western journalists who came to learn about controversial Israeli policies in the area. 

Al-Bustan said in a statement that it served 1,500 people in Silwan, most of them children, who enrolled in educational, cultural and artistic workshops. In addition to the Al-Bustan office, Israeli forces also demolished a home in the neighborhood belonging to the Al-Qadi family. 

Located less than a mile from Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s southern ancient wall, Silwan has a population of 65,000 Palestinians, some of them under threat of Israeli eviction orders.  

In past years, Israeli authorities have been carrying out archaeological digging under Palestinian homes in Silwan, resulting in damage to these buildings, in search of the three-millennial “City of David.” 


Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek, governor tells Reuters

Updated 13 min 44 sec ago
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Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek, governor tells Reuters

  • Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack

CAIRO: An Israeli strike killed 12 people after it hit a civil defense center in Lebanon’s city of Baalbek on Thursday, the regional governor told Reuters adding that rescue operations were ongoing.
Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack on the Lebanese city, health ministry reported on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Lebanese civil defense official Samir Chakia said: “The Civil Defense Center in Baalbek has been targeted, five Civil Defense rescuers were killed.”
Bachir Khodr the regional governor said more than 20 rescuers had been at the facility at the time of the strike.


‘A symbol of resilience’ — workers in Iraq complete reconstruction of famous Mosul minaret

Updated 14 November 2024
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‘A symbol of resilience’ — workers in Iraq complete reconstruction of famous Mosul minaret

  • Workers complete reconstruction of 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque
  • Tower and mosque were blown by Daesh extremists in 2017

High above the narrow streets and low-rise buildings of Mosul’s old city, beaming workers hoist an Iraqi flag into the sky atop one of the nation’s most famous symbols of resilience.

Perched precariously on scaffolding in high-vis jackets and hard hats, the workers celebrate a milestone in Iraq’s recovery from the traumatic destruction and bloodshed that once engulfed the city.

On Wednesday, the workers placed the last brick that marked the completed reconstruction of the 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque. The landmark was destroyed by Daesh in June 2017 shortly before Iraqi forces drove the extremist group from the city.

Known as Al-Hadba, or “the hunchback,” the 45-meter-tall minaret, which famously leant to one side, dominated the Mosul skyline for centuries. The tower has been painstakingly rebuilt as part of a UNESCO project, matching the traditional stone and brick masonry and incorporating the famous lean.

“Today UNESCO celebrates a landmark achievement,” the UN cultural agency’s Iraq office said. “The completion of the shaft of the Al-Hadba Minaret marks a new milestone in the revival of the city, with and for the people of Mosul. 

“UNESCO is grateful for the incredible teamwork that made this vision a reality. Together, we’ve created a powerful symbol of resilience, a true testament to international cooperation. Thank you to everyone involved in this journey.”

The restoration of the mosque is part of UNESCO’s Revive the Spirit of Mosul project, which includes the rebuilding of two churches and other historic sites. The UAE donated $50 million to the project and UNESCO said that the overall Al-Nuri Mosque complex restoration will be finished by the end of the year.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay celebrated the completion of the minaret by posting “We did it!” on social media site X.

She thanked donors, national and local authorities in Iraq and the experts and professionals, “many of whom are Moslawis,” who worked to rebuild the minaret.

“Can’t wait to return to Mosul to celebrate the full completion of our work,” she said.

The Al-Nuri mosque was built in the second half of the 12th century by the Seljuk ruler Nur Al-Din. 

After Daesh seized control of large parts of Iraq in 2014, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of its so-called caliphate from inside the mosque.

Three years later, the extremists detonated explosives to destroy the mosque and minaret as Iraqi forces battled to expel them from the city. Thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting and much of Mosul was left in ruins.


US hands Lebanon draft truce proposal -two political sources

Updated 14 November 2024
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US hands Lebanon draft truce proposal -two political sources

  • The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Hezbollah

BEIRUT: The US ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri on Thursday to halt fighting between armed group Hezbollah and Israel, two political sources told Reuters, without revealing details.
The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but efforts have yet to yield a result. Israel launched a stepped-up air and ground campaign in late September after cross-border clashes in parallel with the Gaza war.


UN inquiry member warns Gaza conflict becoming ‘factory for terrorism’

Updated 14 November 2024
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UN inquiry member warns Gaza conflict becoming ‘factory for terrorism’

  • Chris Sidoti warned conflict was likely to worsen further
  • Despite diminishing hope, he remained committed to the work of investigation and advocating for accountability

NEW YORK: Former Australian human rights commissioner, Chris Sidoti, expressed deep concerns on Thursday over the escalating conflict in Gaza, describing it as an “Israeli terrorism creation factory.”

Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, Sidoti said ongoing violence was planting seeds for future hostilities and emphasized the disproportionate impact on children.

“Kids aren’t terrorists,” Sidoti said, repeating the statement to journalists.

“On Oct. 7, 38 Israeli children were killed, one of them under the age of two years. Since then, at least … 13,319 children have been killed in Gaza, of whom 786 were under the age of one. In addition, 165 children have been killed in the West Bank.”

Sidoti, one of three members of the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, warned that without intervention, the conflict was likely to worsen further.

“When the current Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu talks about finishing off Hamas, I wonder about what the 1 million children in Gaza will be doing in 20 years’ time. The conflict in Gaza is an Israeli terrorism creation factory and there is no sign of it finishing,” he told The Guardian Australia.

“People are still being killed, in particular, kids are still being killed in very large numbers, and the likelihood is it will get worse before it gets better.

“There is no end in sight. To help these kids, to help Israel, it’s got to stop. Then, there is a possibility, but until it stops, there is no chance,” he added.

He expressed concern over the long-term trauma faced by children affected by the conflict.

“The kids who are traumatised by the loss of parents, siblings, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins, can’t go through what they have had to experience without this having a severe impact on them and their lives forever.”

The commission’s latest report, delivered on Oct. 30, painted a dire picture of the situation on the ground, citing systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, attacks on medical personnel, and the targeting of children.

“Israeli security forces have deliberately killed, wounded, arrested, detained, mistreated, and tortured medical personnel and targeted medical vehicles, constituting the war crimes of willful killing and mistreatment,” the report stated.

The inquiry also documented abuses of Israeli and Palestinian hostages, with Sidoti adding: “The commission finds that the majority of hostages were subjected to mistreatment, and that some were subjected to physical violence.

“The commission received credible information about some hostages being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence while in captivity, including sexualised torture and abuse against men and women when they were held in tunnels. One released female hostage reported that she had been raped in an apartment,” he said.

“We found there was strong evidence of torture, of significant mistreatment, and a wide variety of human rights abuses that, in both cases, constituted war crimes. The practices were clear and systematic on both sides,” Sidoti added.

Reflecting on the broader conflict, Sidoti said the violence “started long before Oct. 7, 2023, it’s been going on for 85 years ... The parties are not willing to find a way to resolve it.”

Despite diminishing hope, he remained committed to the work of investigation and advocating for accountability.

“We just have to keep at our work — investigating, reporting, encouraging and enabling accountability — and know that at some point in the future, there will be accountability, that those who have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity will be brought to justice,” he said.

“A resolution requires a willingness from parties to sit down and solve this. But one thing this fighting has done over the last 13 months has been to cement the position of extremists on all sides, and even the outside.”