New Yorker: Abu Ghraib abuses were 'de facto US policy'

Photographer wanted to expose 'what the military was allowing to happen' Some of the most iconic images of the Iraq war came not from photojournalists on the front lines, but US soldiers carrying point-and-shoot digital cameras. In its latest issue, the New Yorker profiles the woman who snapped many of the photos depicting abuse at Abu Ghraib prison that the same magazine revealed nearly four years ago. Like many of the soldiers in charge of the detained Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, Sabrina Harman had little experience running a prison. As Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris report, she and others in her Army Reserve unit didn't stick out at the prison, "where almost nothing was run according to military doctrine." The low-ranking reservist soldiers who took and appeared in the infamous images were singled out for opprobrium and punishment; they were represented, in government reports, in the press, and before courts-martial, as rogues who acted out of depravity. Yet the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining legacies of the current Administration; and the rules of interrogation that produced the abuses documented on the M.I. [Military Intelligence] block in the fall of 2003 were the direct expression of the hostility toward international law and military doctrine that was found in the White House, the Vice-President's office, and at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense Departments. The article, which appears in the March 24 issue of the New Yorker, has not been posted online, but the magazine has posted additional photos and videos to augment the report. http://rawstory.com/news/2008/New_Yorker_Abu_Ghraib_abuses_were_0317.html Abu Ghraib This week in the magazine, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris write about Sabrina Harman, a U.S. Army specialist who took photographs at Abu Ghraib and was convicted by court-martial for her conduct there. Harman sat for nine hours of interviews with Morris for his movie “Standard Operating Procedure.” Here are excerpts from those interviews and a clip from the film, as well as video of Morris and Gourevitch from the 2007 New Yorker Festival, and photographs of Harman and of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Sabrina Harman’s First Letter A clip from “Standard Operating Procedure.” Watch the Video | Download Look I Have Proof Harman picks up a camera. Watch the Video | Download Letters and Photos Writing home. Watch the Video | Download Children The minors detained at Abu Ghraib. Watch the Video | Download Errol Morris Morris talks with Philip Gourevitch, from the 2007 New Yorker Festival. Watch the Video | Download Images of Sabrina Harman. Watch the Slide Show The Abu Ghraib Pictures Photographs of the prisoner abuse. Watch the Slide Show Hideous Bush - Iraq Genocide, Catastrophe 'Worth It