Five years ago today, the CBS program 60 Minutes published shocking photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Suddenly, the new face of the Iraq war was not that plucky heroine Jessica Lynch but the sadistic Lynndie England, who held a naked prisoner by a leash around his neck and had the photos to prove it.
For many people, those photos were a moral turning point. The United States was not supposed to do that kind of thing.
A visibly shaken Donald Rumsfeld vowed to get to the bottom of the matter. In time, a few scapegoats were ritually sacrificed. Lynndie England and six of her buddies were packed off to military prison. Janis Karpinski, the brigadier-general who led their unit, was relieved of her command and busted down to colonel.
Mr. Rumsfeld later described the day the Abu Ghraib scandal broke as his toughest moment as defence secretary. Now we know why. He himself had authorized the “enhanced interrogation techniques” that Lynndie and her pals were enjoying - stress positions, nakedness, hooding, sensory deprivation, electric shocks and, elsewhere, the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. The outrage at Abu Ghraib occurred after the arrival of a military intelligence officer from Guantanamo whose job was to introduce the harsh interrogation techniques that had been perfected there. Senior Pentagon officials had pushed for them over the objections of top military lawyers.
“Those photos must have struck fear into [Mr. Rumsfeld's] heart,” says Ms. Karpinski, now retired. “They knew those photos were a colourful example of policies they were busy trying to deny existed.”
Even as the scandal hit the headlines, some people suspected the abuse of detainees had become official policy. Dick Cheney himself had hinted as much. A few days after 9/11, the vice-president had said: “It's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.” In those dark times, many Americans tacitly agreed.
At first, the interrogations were used to gain information about future terrorist attacks. Then they were widened to dig up information on the links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, a key justification for the imminent war. When aggressive interrogations failed to reveal such links, the pressure came down from on high to try harder.
Last week, after a torrent of official documents was released in Washington, some players decided to go public. Among them is Ali Soufran, a Lebanese-American FBI agent. In the spring of 2002, he extracted a treasure trove of information from Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda planner. His methods were old-fashioned - gain the trust of the detainee until he talks. But interrogators who'd been contracted by the CIA insisted on using more aggressive methods, which, they said, had been approved by the “highest levels” in Washington.
According to Newsweek, Mr. Soufran recalls shouting at them: “We're the United States of America, and we don't do that kind of thing.” After that, he was recalled home. Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded more than a hundred times until he told his interrogators what they wanted to hear about al-Qaeda and Iraq.
The CIA inspector-general's report found no evidence that torture can yield any information that can't be obtained using legal, moral means. But as Mr. Soufran points out, the real trouble with torture is that it backfires. It persuades people to say things you want to hear, even if they aren't true.
Maybe there would be a case for torture if it worked. But all the evidence points the other way. And even though many people (including Barack Obama) are understandably desperate to move on, I'm afraid the ghosts of Abu Ghraib won't be stilled until there is a thorough reckoning.
“You trust your government to adhere to the law,” Janis Karpinski says. “But be careful where to place your trust.”
