The Stain of Abu Ghraib

Reed Brody
April 28, 2005

Reed Brody is special counsel at Human Rights Watch and the author of three reports on detainee abuse.

It has now been one year since the appearance of the first pictures of U.S. soldiers humiliating and torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In the intervening months, it has become clear that Abu Ghraib was only the tip of the iceberg. Around the world, in a long archipelago of recognized detention centers from Iraq and Aghanistan to Guantánamo and in “secret locations” where CIA prisoners are kept, the United States is brutalizing Muslim detainees in the name of the war on terror.