Video: Tracking the Army’s Secret Detainee Abuse Task Force

Video: Tracking the Army’s Secret Detainee Abuse Task Force

Video: Tracking the Army’s Secret Detainee Abuse Task Force

The Army’s on-the-ground investigative team in Iraq has failed to hold torturers and abusers accountable for their crimes.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

After shocking images of detainee abuse at the US Military’s Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were published in April of 2004, political and military leaders condemned the abuse and promised swift action and accountability. As part of its response, the Army created an on-the-ground investigative team in Iraq, the Criminal Investigative Command’s Detainee Abuse Task Force.

But as a joint investigation by The Nation, The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute and PBS’s Need to Know discovered, the DATF has managed to accomplish surprisingly little in the way of holding private contractors and military personnel involved in abuse accountable. In “Inside the Detainee Abuse Task Force,” Joshua E.S. Phillips reveals that the Army’s attempt at accountability after Abu Ghraib has been a whitewash.

Support The Nation’s June Fundraising Campaign

With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we’re raising $20,000 to power The Nation’s independent journalism in the run-up to November’s immensely consequential elections.

It’s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you’ll donate today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x