Exposure of the Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal

Joseph Darby, a member of the 372nd Brigade, asked his fellow soldier Lt. Graner for copies of any pictures he had taken while they were touring Iraq. Graner gave Darby 2 CDs with photos on them, and just asked that they be returned after Darby had used them. What Darby found shocked and disgusted him. He gave the photographic evidence of the abuse of the prisoners to CID (military investigators), and was soon questioned about the pictures he had discovered. An internal investigation soon followed, and MPs were told if they had any photos, CDs, DVDs or contraband, they could place it in amnesty boxes and the evidence would be forgotten. In other words, they would face no consequences or punishment for anything they willingly turned over to CID.

Soon, the television show 60 Minutes II and the magazine The New Yorker made the story and pictures national news. Although Darby was promised anonymity, Secretary Rumsfeld thanked him on national television for alerting the CID to the abuse. There was worldwide outrage and anger that American soldiers had inflicted this abuse onto Iraqi prisoners. Military officials, and the presidential administration insisted that this was the work of a "few bad soldiers," and that as a nation, we ought not let the actions of these 7 soldiers define us as a whole. They also repeated that these soldiers were never given orders to inflict this abuse, and there were no direct links between commanding military officers and the torture performed.

However, critics argue that these soldiers could not have done this, or come up with these sadist ideas of torture on their own account. In fact, for presidential administration and military officials to entertain this idea is direct denial and naivete of the lack of management at Abu Ghraib. The techniques that they used were very specific interrogation techniques, and had previously been used by American military at Guantanamo and developed by Brazilian interrogators. These soldiers could not have just conjured up these torture positions with their own imaginations.

The mismanagement, and lack of checks and balances by the multiple agencies of the United States led to the Abu Ghraib scandal. The photographs that emerged embarassed the U.S. military system, and discredited the nation as a whole. The country that was once viewed as one of the most humanitarian and just countries of the world, was now viewed as torturous and capable of inflicting severe pain upon other human beings. Essentially, we become the terrorists we are fighting against.