Captors and interrogators used to call him Al Jazeera, an insult used against a journalist who worked in Iraq at the height of the US-led invasion in 2003. The nickname refers to the knowledge about Al-Ejaili’s media accreditation received from US forces, in a bid to eradicate the remaining glimpse of hope in the captive’s freedom. Al-Ejaili went through long months of physical and psychological torture by leaving him naked in dark rooms for multiple weeks and using dogs and other panic instruments while covering his head with a black hood. Al-Ejaili, facing no serious judicial charge, was given an immediate release upon a first hearing in a court.
The International Red Cross asserts that over %70 of the captives in Abu Ghraib prison during the early years of war in Iraq were totally innocent nonparticipants who went through long months of sexual and mental abuse by American interrogators and soldiers in prisons and detention centers. Contrary to the popular belief, the abuses were not immitted to a sole prison, namely the Abu Ghraib, or a defined group of American soldiers and agents. The notoriety of the photos leaked from Abu Ghraib haunted the world as the methods and instruments used to torture the captives were exquisitely dreadful and annoying.
About two decades after the case of American tortures in Iraq was opened by 60 Minutes II in CBS, the United States administration and Pentagon still face the reverberations of a dark page in their record in Iraq. Far from the futility of the war in Iraq, which costed billions in dollars and thousands in lives, the humanitarian scar that the occupation of the country left on the faces of citizens is lingering on. Washington fell short of providing adequate compensation for the victims, further alienating the once-supporters in the Middle East and elsewhere.
A Hood on Reality
The CBS revelation on the American agents’ acts in Abu Ghraib that amounted for physical and psychological torture was followed by the release of a report by US army in which multiple “incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” were documented. A separate report by the Red Cross further documented the abuses giving detailed examples of physical abuse and psychological humiliation. The Red Cross verified the insults, threats and humiliations employed against numerous figures under American custody in Iraq.
A leaked photo depicted a man forced to stand on a box with a hood over the head and electrical wires on both extended hands. Another one showed a fully naked prisoner lying on the floor with a guard who held a leash in his hand. Records of humiliations, solitary confinements for long months, sexual violence and naked prisoners piled on one another with captors taunting and poking fun at them traumatized even the viewers and readers of the reports. The United States response to the scandal was neither proportionate to the gravity of the crime committed nor sufficing enough to mitigate the suffering of the victims and their families. Totally, nine low-rank soldiers were given short-term prison sentences, the longest one was ten years, and all of them have been set free before the end of their term.
Victims and observers have recurrently called for the conviction of the perpetrators, organizers and high-rank executives of the US army who were, directly or indirectly, involved in the criminal acts. The Federal Tort Claims Act, immunizing the administrative agents in times of war and conflicts, has been an impeding force en route. Any form of compensation or redress for the victims has also proved near-impossible due to the curious clauses included in US Foreign Claims Act which is expected to recompense the foreign nations impacted by Washington’s “non-combat” activities. Considering the soldiers in Iraq involved in an active armed conflict, two decades of judicial pursuit proved futile. The US army has acted elusive in being answerable to the public and the victims and compensating the sufferings of the latter.
Contractors
The United States has utilized over 15,000 private contractors in 2004, when the months-long tortures were revealed. The contractors served the military forces on different fronts, providing them with military personnel, commandos, equipment, interrogators, and secured the critical supply chains. In 2007, the number of contractors outnumbered the number of official combat troops in Iraq. Iraq war, along with the war in Afghanistan, were the most contracted-out wars in the history of American wars across the world
Outsourcing the war in Iraq has had various benefits for the United States, ranging from financial issues to recruitment and supply chain challenges. Besides, or maybe above all, contractors endowed the US army a further level of immunity as they have evaded responsivity and responsibility on a vast range of issues and disputes. Contractors, in effect, acted as a shield for Pentagon and its troops in Iraq where they might have faced, as they have, various legal and humanitarian issues.
The US Army alleges that a huge part of the abuses inflicted in Abu Ghraib prison were perpetrated by private interrogators and battalions. The disputes over the contractor-perpetrated crimes escalated three years after the Abu Ghraib scandal where the troops hired by Blackwater, a private company contracted by the US Army, killed 17 civilians at Nisour Square in Baghdad. Lack of accountability by administrative agents along with a legal and judicial void on the functioning, reasonability, and responsibility of contractors resulted in an amalgam state from which the US army has been best able to serve its interests.
The credibility of the United States military interventions has inflicted major detriments since the start of war in Iraq. The disservice that the torture scandal has done, however, was so unique in form and gravity that Washington has hardly been able to curb during the years. The ongoing court hearings and the photos that are still circulating the social media has conserved the American legacy in Iraq two decades after a war that has paved the way for more extremism, terrorism and hatred towards Washington’s policies in the Middle East and elsewhere.
| The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Al-Sarira. |
