Abu Ghraib photos
=================

Photo: Lynddie England holding a leash attached to a prisoner, known to the guards as "Gus", 
who is collapsed on the floor.


Beginning in 2004, accounts of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, 
rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (also known as 
Baghdad Correctional Facility) came to public attention. These acts were committed by personnel 
of the 372nd Military Police Company of the United States Army together with additional US governmental agencies.

As revealed by the 2004 Taguba Report, a criminal investigation by the United States Army 
Criminal Investigation Command had already been underway since 2003 where many soldiers of 
the 320th Military Police Battalion had been charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice 
with prisoner abuse. In 2004 articles describing the abuse, including pictures showing military 
personnel abusing prisoners, came to public attention, when a 60 Minutes II news report 
(April 28) and an article by Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker magazine (posted online on April 
30 and published days later in the May 10 issue) reported the story. Janis Karpinski, the commander 
of Abu Ghraib, demoted for her lack of oversight regarding the abuse, estimated later that 90% 
of detainees in the prison were innocent.

The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and 
seven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. 
Between May 2004 and September 2005, seven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced 
to federal prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles 
Graner, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three 
years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The 
commanding officer at the prison, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was demoted to the rank of 
Colonel on May 5, 2005. Col. Karpinski has denied knowledge of the abuses, claiming that the 
interrogations were authorized by her superiors and performed by subcontractors, and that she 
was not even allowed entry into the interrogation rooms.

The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib was in part the reason that on April 12, 2006, the United 
States Army activated the 201st Military Intelligence Battalion, the first of four joint 
interrogation battalions.