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New Abu Ghraib Book: 'Torture and Truth'

In the October 7 issue of the New York Review of Books, Mark Danner reviews the final official Abu Ghraib report , also known as the Schlesinger Report, and notes:

Out of the interlocking scandals and controversies symbolized by Hooded Man and Leashed Man, the pyramids of naked bodies, the snarling dogs, and all the rest, and known to the world by the collective name of Abu Ghraib, one can extract two "master narratives," both dependent on the power and mutability of the images themselves.

The first is that of President Bush, who presented the photographs as depicting "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops, who dishonored our country and disregarded our values"—behavior that, the President insisted, "does not represent America." And the aberrant, outlandish character of what the photographs show—the nudity, the sadism, the pornographic imagery—seemed to support this "few bad apples" argument, long the classic defense of states accused of torture.

The facts, however, almost from day one, did not: the Red Cross report, the Army's own Taguba report, even the photographs themselves, some of which depicted military intelligence soldiers assisting in abuses they supposedly knew nothing about—all strongly suggested that the images were the brutal public face of behavior that involved many more people than the seven military police who were quickly charged.

The new reports not only decisively prove what was long known, widening the circle of direct blame for what happened at Abu Ghraib to nearly fifty people, including military intelligence soldiers and officers—although subsequent disclosures suggest the number is at least twice that. More important, the reports suggest how procedures that "violated established interrogation procedures and applicable laws" in fact had their genesis not in Iraq but in interrogation rooms in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba—and ultimately in decisions made by high officials in Washington.

Danner's book, Torture and Truth : America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror, will be released October 10.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, officials of the United States ... from Bagram in Afghanistan to Guantanamo in Cuba to Abu Ghraib in Iraq, have been torturing prisoners," writes Mark Danner. "This is a simple truth, well known but not yet publicly admitted in Washington."

The torture was essentially given institutional approval by the U.S. government, through memoranda from the President's White House counsel, among others, opining that the Geneva Conventions need not apply to prisoners. In Iraq, at least three different interrogation policies were used. Many soldiers and outside organizations were aware of these torture sessions.

Torture and Truth includes documents outlining acceptable interrogation techniques and reports revealing prisoner abuse and torture — including a memo signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld concerning "Interrogation Techniques," the reports by Major General Antonio M. Taguba, and the report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

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