Customer Reviews

The Abu Ghraib Investigations: The Official Independent Panel and Pentagon Reports on the Shocking Prisoner Abuse in Iraq

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THE ABU GHRAIB INVESTIGATIONS may not be a book readers will elect to purchase and read, but this finely edited treatise by Steven Strausser is a document that should be part of the history books and of the information presented to the American public at this particular time.

While Americans were shocked by the incredibly agonizing photographs of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, little information as to the extent of this atrocity has been readily available. After an informative and well-written introduction by Craig Whitney, the actual Department of Defense Detention Operations Abu Ghraib Report is presented in complete form. The now infamous photographs, which devastated the American image throughout the world, are presented here. The Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade include not only the physical and sexual abuses and drug problems in the prison, but also the frightful lack of control over the soldier's in charge of interrogations and prisoners. Frequent references to the situations at Guantanamo Bay prisons and the trail of responsibility for prisoner abuse leading all the way to the White House make for fascinating though very disturbing reading.

Time will deal with these documents and what they represent in our history, but at the present one wonders if the conditions at Abu Ghraib prison were much different during the reign of Hussein. Much food for thought here and a prayer for action to prevent such atrocities of war in the future. Strasser is to be commended as an editor for his refraining to add comment, but to let the horror on these pages speak for itself.