Humiliation In An Iraqi Jail

Abu Ghraib Prison is, even by Iraq's perversely high standards, a place with a barbarous history. During Saddam Hussein's cruel regime, torture, humiliation and random murder were standard fare within its walls. That was all supposed to have changed when coalition forces took over last year and began filling the jail with captives from the motley Iraqi resistance. But it seems that echoes of those unsavory traditions have persisted.

In February the U.S. Army suspended 17 guards at the prison. It became clear why last week, when pictures taken at the jail by the guards themselves were obtained and broadcast by CBS News. Image after image showed that soldiers at the prison had made sport of abusing and humiliating their wards. In one photo, two grinning guards give the thumbs-up as they stand before Iraqis who have been stripped naked and forced into a sexually suggestive dogpile. Another shows a prisoner forced to stand on a box, connected to electric wires and told, according to CBS, that he would be electrocuted if he fell off his perch. In Britain, a separate set of graphic pictures was published in London's Daily Mirror, which appeared to show, among other things, an Iraqi prisoner being beaten and urinated upon by his British army captors. The scenes drew horror and condemnation in a country in which the military usually prides itself on its crisp professionalism. "We went to Iraq to get rid of that type of thing," said Prime Minister Tony Blair, "not to do it."

The scenes of coalition soldiers physically abusing Iraqi prisoners fueled Arab rage and became, fairly or not, symbols of the much-resented U.S. occupation of Iraq. President Bush expressed a "deep disgust" with the crimes and vowed that those responsible would be brought to justice. Six soldiers face courts-martial over the affair, and the officer in charge of the prison, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, has been suspended. Attorneys for the accused say their clients were only following orders to soften up the prisoners for interrogation and that the guards are being made scapegoats. Major General Geoffrey Miller, the former head of operations at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is now running the prison.