#Committed personnel series#

military was using the Abu Ghraib prison as a detention facility, it housed approximately 7,490 prisoners. In March 2004, during the time that the U.S. It was the largest of several detention centers in Iraq used by the U.S. army refurbished it and turned it into a military prison. After the collapse of Saddam Hussein's government, the prison was looted and everything that was removable was carried away. The prison was located on about 110 hectares of land 32 kilometers west of Baghdad. The prison was used to hold approximately 50,000 men and women in poor conditions, and torture and execution were frequent.

The Abu Ghraib prison in the town of Abu Ghraib was one of the most notorious prisons in Iraq during the government of Saddam Hussein. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apologized for the Abu Ghraib abuses.īackground War on terror

Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. England was convicted of conspiracy, maltreating detainees and committing an indecent act and sentenced to three years in prison. Graner was convicted of assault, battery, conspiracy, maltreatment of detainees, committing indecent acts and dereliction of duty he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and loss of rank, pay and benefits. Two soldiers, found to have perpetrated many of the worst offenses at the prison, Specialist Charles Graner and PFC Lynndie England, were subject to more severe charges and received harsher sentences. Between May 2004 and April 2006, these soldiers were court-martialed, convicted, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. In response to the events at Abu Ghraib, the United States Department of Defense removed 17 soldiers and officers from duty. Rumsfeld (2006), have overturned Bush administration policy, ruling that the Geneva Conventions do apply. Supreme Court decisions, including Hamdan v. The memoranda also argued that international humanitarian laws, such as the Geneva Conventions, did not apply to American interrogators overseas. These documents, prepared in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States Department of Justice, authorized certain ' enhanced interrogation techniques' (generally held to involve torture) of foreign detainees. : 328ĭocuments popularly known as the Torture Memos came to light a few years later. : 328 This was disputed by humanitarian organizations including the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch these organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay. Bush administration said that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were isolated incidents and not indicative of U.S.

The incidents caused shock and outrage, receiving widespread condemnation within the United States and internationally. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004.

#Committed personnel series#

This image of a prisoner (Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh) being tortured has become internationally infamous, eventually making it onto the cover of The Economist (see ' Media coverage' below) ĭuring the early stages of the Iraq War, members of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including physical abuse, sexual humiliation, both physical and psychological torture, rape, as well the killing of Manadel al-Jamadi and the desecration of his body. 2004 American military scandal during the Iraq War