Monday, May 03, 2004

"Overcrowded cell blocks, sadistic guards abusing and humiliating prisoners, inmates shot dead trying to escape down dark alleys, and detainees being spirited around the prison compound to avoid Red Cross workers. All this happened as guards made up their own rules and superiors condoned their actions. This was not Saddam Hussein's gulag but a devastating portrait of the U.S-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad described by a U.S. Army investigator. The abuses occurred last year, after the U.S. military took over Saddam's old prison and filled it with more than 5,000 people — some insurgents, many common criminals, others innocent of any crimes."