When Obedience Goes Awry

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occupation, the cells at Abu Ghraib soon flooded with thousands of suspects. The roundup of potential suspects was inexact and often resulted in jailing innocent men (and their families) without legal due course. “Any kind of hunch that these units [Military Intelligence] had, they would act on it and arrest people.” Tony Lagournis, who served in Military Intelligence in Abu Ghraib, adds, “They- they just arrested everyone.” By September of 2003, there were just 300 military personnel to guard 6,000 prisoners. Soldiers were charged with the task of extracting information from high-value detainees. Under the Bush administration, the tactics used to interrogate prisoners expanded to allow thinly-veiled torture. The potential information gained from suspects was deemed crucial to national security. Consequently, prisoners’ rights granted under the Geneva Convention and similar treaties were ignored.
After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, it was readily apparent to military ...

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In spring of 2004, pictures documenting abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib were made public. These pictures were taken by the night shift Military Police in the 372nd MP Company. This reserve unit was trained to support combat operations. With their deployment into interrogation settings at the prison complex at Abu Ghraib, they found themselves conducting interrogations and softening up detainees for further questioning from Military Intelligence. Soldiers were told their work would directly save American lives.
The New Yorker and 60 Minutes II publicized photos depicting awful treatment of detainees within Abu Ghraib. In nearly all of the photos, prisoners are completely ...

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