Saddam's Abu Ghraib was a jail of convicted criminals - at least there was an appearance that they were convicted in Saddam's courts. The American Abu Gulag was a place where people were detained with no judicial orders and detainees were tortured to speedily extract information from them.
Three factors contributed to the atrocities at the American Abu Gulag. Firstly, America shielded its people of any legal responsibility under Iraqi law. This blanket immunity encouraged American forces and American civilian contractors to violate the law without being prosecuted in Iraq or answering to their atrocities. Secondly, U.S. officially "migrated," meaning approved, authorized, these inhuman interrogation techniques. Thirdly, the U.S. intimidated Arab media from even talking about such things. I provided information and photos to Arab media outlets and they would not touch it because of U.S. pressure. In August/September 2003 I approached Al-Arabia satellite station in Baghdad about a torture story. I was told by the station director in Baghdad that they have instructions from the American forces not to cover such subjects. I went to Al-Jazeera office and they agreed to send a reporter with me. I documented the torture story in the presence of an American lawyer, Al-Jazeera was reluctant to broadcast the story. Eventually Dahr Jamail broke the story along with pictures and information I provided.
Torture and human rights abuses apparently were common even before the official "migration" of the interrogation rules. Now we know that the U.S. Navy seals had pictures of human rights violations in May 2003. I know that Amnesty International was handed different pictures of torture also in May 2003 when they were visiting Baghdad.
President Bush told the Iraqi people and the world that Iraqis will not be tortured again since he has deposed the dictator, Saddam who tortured his people. For one year we the Iraqi people tried hard to believe him. Then when the Abu Gulag pictures were made public we were told over and over that those responsible for what happened to our countrymen would be held accountable. But now, one year later, those who signed the decrees authorizing torture, and those like President Bush himself, who were told by human rights groups about the torture, have not been held accountable. We are now told that what was done was by few people taking the "law" into their own hands and were actually just "seven bad apples." But, we are not fools - we know an Abu Lie when we hear one.
Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar is an engineer living in what America calls "liberated' Iraq" but what he calls "occupied Baghdad."Democracy Rising
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