What happened at Abu Ghraib?

During the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in 2003, the guards started turning up the pain as far as which acts of violence was to be condoned. One guard stated that they were “becoming numb” to what was going on, while another guard stated that you just start to forget what happened the day before and keep going on with your days. One prisoner was forced to watch his brother run back and forth with an injured arm carrying a bucket of water until the information that was wanted was said.

 

When the prison riot happened, all that did was set in motion more abusive techniques that were sparked by infuriation, because of what just happened. The guards would throw the detainees on the floor, step on them, and yell at them. Also many of the detainees were to strip naked, and walk for long periods of time completely nude. While nude some of these detainees were put in different positions such as the pyramid position, and had photographs taken of them that later would be put on the internet.

During the interrogations at Abu Ghraib, the abuse was getting worse at an all-time high. One of the prisoners described how his father was beaten with many bruises, and many scares. He said his dad had a fever, and begged the military to have him checked out, but they refused. Out of nowhere his father started to have foam come out his mouth, and would pass away instantly. Other prisoners described the interrogation techniques as “soul cracking.” To this day the U.S. Military hasn’t released the total number of deaths at Abu Ghraib. However there was a murder of a detainee named al-Jamadi, and he was the only death ruled a homicide.

 

Military Police Moved from Incarceration Staff and Placed Under Military Intelligence (MI)

After General Miller’s visit to Iraq, the Military Police were removed from the control of Janet Karpinski, and now placed under control of military intelligence. So now the Military Police weren’t part of the incarceration unit, they were part of the interrogation unit. Their job was to create the conditions for the interrogations that would follow. The Military Police who were instructed by civilian contractors who didn’t answer to anyone wanted results. They’d tell the MP’s that some of these guys “need to have a bad night” which included anything, and for the MP’s to “use their imaginations.” This led to more torture, sleep deprivation, barking dogs, yelling, and loud music.

 

 

 

Major General Geoffrey Miller, Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez and Interrogation Techniques

General Geoffrey Miller was the general at Guantanamo Bay who would go to the extremes to get results. He didn’t care about past tradition, or newly implemented laws. All General Miller wanted was answers that would be worth good results. General Miller would go on to turn Guantanamo Bay from a conventional prison, to somewhat of an “ad hoc” system that would develop some of the harshest interrogation techniques to date. Some of the techniques used were to have detainees chained in the fetal position, no food or water, and left alone for 18 to 24 hours after having urinated on themselves. In 2002 Donald Rumsfeld approved of the techniques being used by General Miller which were “solitary confinement, noise, light, and darkness. Also stress positions such as standing for long periods of time were used, as well as exploitation of phobias, and removal of clothes.

In August of 2003, General Miller was sent to Iraq to help gather more intelligence. Upon his arrival in Iraq, the General came to the conclusion that the detainees were treated to well, and that they needed to be treated like dogs to know who’s in charge. His assessment was that if the detainees didn’t know who was in charge that control of interrogations would be lost. After the assessment this prompted General Ricardo Sanchez to come up with a memorandum that would implement the harsh interrogation techniques such as dietary manipulation, isolation, sleep management, presence of military working dogs, and stress positions. However due to some confusion, a month later General Sanchez would then issue another memorandum rescinding his previous one, and now the techniques for interrogation were to be done another way. This lead to confusion and no one knew what to do. Every time a question would be asked, the answers were to the effect of “I don’t know, figure it out.”