Torture and Truth
By Mark Danner Interviewed By Dave Gilson
Dec 11, 2004, 21:37



Tracing the origins -- and the aftermath -- of what happened at Abu Ghraib.  It's a lesson for every American to see how a democracy can arrive at the point where it commits these kinds of crimes.


When the Abu Ghraib scandal boiled over last spring, it looked, briefly, as if it would cause a major shakeup -- if not in how the Bush administration was fighting the war in Iraq, then at least within the administration itself. But soon enough, election season arrived, and the issue all but faded into the background. That doesn't mean we've heard the last of Abu Ghraib. Far from it, says journalist Mark Danner. "I don't think this thing is over by any means."


In his new book, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War On Terror, Danner explores the origins and aftermath of the administration's post-9/11 decision to "take the gloves off." The book collects several articles written for the New York Review of Books over the past year, offering a mix of reportage -- Danner was one of the first reporters to arrive on the scene of the bombing of the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad in October 2003 -- and a close reading of the nearly 500 pages of official documents related to the Abu Ghraib scandal that make up its bulk. The documents, some of which are published for the first time in Torture and Truth, make for gripping, if disturbing, reading. Danner admits that most Americans are unlikely to delve into these papers with the seriousness they did another official account of terror-fighting gone wrong, the best-selling 9/11 Commission report. "These are difficult issues," says Danner. "They make people uncomfortable."


The documents illustrate how the Bush administration constructed its rationale for ignoring prisoners' rights, and how that decision played out, with appalling consequences, in Iraq. "I think it's a lesson for every American to see how a democracy can arrive at the point where it commits these kinds of crimes," Danner says. "It's there in the documentary history." Exhibit A is the "torture memo" issued by the Justice Department in early 2002 at the request of President Bush's legal adviser (and nominee for attorney general) Alberto Gonzales, which concluded that "under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate" U.S. laws prohibiting torture. A few pages later, Iraqi prisoners give hair-raising depositions of their time in American captivity. Such first-hand accounts, says Danner, reveal how the "euphemistic world" of the Bush bureaucracy translated into "real pain and real suffering on the ground." As some of the Abu Ghraib guards go on trial, and fresh stories of abuses in Guantanamo and Iraq come out, it remains to be seen whether any of this will trickle up the chain of command.