Abu Ghraib

The controversy surrounding the 2004 prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq, drew worldwide attention to the treatment of prisoners held by U.S. forces occupying that country. The graphic images of torture first released during a 60 Minutes broadcast and later published in the New Yorker magazine prompted worldwide protest against U.S. interrogation policies and raised a number of questions about the complicity of the executive branch and the Department of Defense in the abuse. While several soldiers and junior officers were ultimately tried for their involvement in the scandal, the most senior officers were either given reprimands or reassigned, escaping any criminal charges regarding their supervision of Iraqi prisoners. This entry provides an overview of the events that led up to ...