"The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" - Doc Traces Path to Torture of Prisoners at Infamous Iraqi Prison

Support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is eroding on Capitol Hill as more lawmakers from both sides of the aisle join the chorus of voices calling for him to step down over the US attorneys controversy. If Gonzales resigns, his legacy will forever be tainted by the Justice Department scandal, but his most infamous act was not the US attorney firings, it may well be his role in paving the way for the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guanatanmo Bay.

As White House counsel, Gonzales advised President Bush in a 2002 memo that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the treatment of enemy prisoners in the so-called 'war on terror.' Many say that helped lay the legal groundwork for the torture of prisoners. Another memo sought by Gonzales provided a narrow definition of torture so as to allow very severe interrogation techniques.

* John Yoo, a former Justice Department official at the Office of Legal Counsel: "Our office eventually issued a memo in August of 2002 to the White House. 'Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.'

That was an excerpt from the HBO documentary "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." The film traces the political and legal precedents that led to the torture of prisoners at the infamous Iraqi prison. It includes numerous interviews with American soldiers directly involved with torture at Abu Ghraib.

* Army Specialist Sabrina Harman: "They were stripped one by one and then stuck into a pyramid. If I saw something I took a photo of it. The first thing I think of is to take photos, that probably sounds really sick, but I am always taking photos, I mean that's just me, I've always taken photos."

Those photos she is talking about and many others depicting the torture of Iraqi prisoners were eventually leaked to the press and revealed to the world. Horrific images showed Iraqis with bags over their heads, beaten, set upon by dogs and forced into sexually humiliating acts.

* Javal Davis, US guard at Abu Ghraib:, "What's going on with the nakedness, it's like why are all these people naked? You know, I've never seen any- anything like that before in my life, you know, naked prisoners with panties on their heads in compromising positions, you know, locked up and so it was, what's going on with that? I didn't understand that."

In addition to interviews with former prison guards, HBO's "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" also features the voices of Iraqi torture survivors. In the film, one former Abu Ghraib prisoner describes his treatment at the hands of US forces.

* Mohammad Faraj Mohammad, former Abu Ghraib prisoner: "They would make us listen to weird sounds...either through a loud speaker or a headphone. Every day, they wouldn't let us sleep. At times, they would get a few inmates, torture them, and keep them screaming until morning. That was on a regular basis. Fifty nights with no sleep at all. Just hunger, abuse, and harassment."

The film includes interviews with numerous legal scholars, experts and former government officials. Alfred McCoy - author of the book "A Question of Torture" is among those featured.

* Alfred McCoy, professor of history and author of "A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror": "The part of this that we don't understand is the powerful appeal and enormous destructiveness of- of torture. Why when you give an order, you know, and you give a signal for a little bit of torture, why it spreads like wildfire. There is no such thing as a little bit of torture."

Rory Kennedy is the producer and director of the "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." She is one of the nation's most prolific independent documentary filmmakers, focusing on issues such as poverty, human rights and AIDS. She is the co-founder of Moxie Firecracker Films.

* Rory Kennedy, producer and director of "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib." She is co-founder and co-president of Moxie Firecracker Films.

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/21/1340204