Abstract

The Horror of Abu Ghraib

The author argues that the administration of President George W. Bush should be held responsible for the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers in the Abu Ghraib prison, and calls for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq. But the abuses are an indictment of more than just a "handful of people" who strayed from protocol, as Air Force Gen. Richard Myers tried to suggest on "Face the Nation." As Seymour Hersh observes in the May 10 "New Yorker," the sadistic behavior detailed in Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's fifty-three-page classified report offers "an unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of Army leadership at the highest levels." Those implicated, among them employees of a private military contractor who apparently had no training in the handling of prisoners, claim they were following orders from their superiors, who urged that prisoners be "softened up" in order to extract information. Ultimate responsibility lies in Washington. Despite George W. Bush's expression of "disgust"--"that's not the way we do things," he insisted--there is reason to believe abusive interrogation methods have become an integral part of the Administration's "war on terrorism." Amnesty International has received scores of reports over the past year of detainees in Iraq "being routinely subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Given that the war in Iraq is, in part, a war of images, the Abu Ghraib scandal represents a profound and perhaps irreversible defeat for the United States. Can any Iraqi now be expected to believe US intentions are good?