Customer Reviews

Standard Operating Procedure (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Representatives for film director Errol Morris told me during pre-production that "Standard Operating Procedure" would be the very best documentary on the abuses of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib - the one that would tell the whole truth.

I had pinned great hope on that. It didn't turn out that way.

My perspective on the Abu Ghraib scandal came from spending from September 2003 to February 2004 at the Iraq prison as a sergeant in Army Intelligence. Working the 8 p.m.-to- 8 a.m. night shift, it was impossible not to notice who was directing the operation. And I shared all this with Morris.

But now I've seen the film and I'm disappointed. Morris does little to get to the bottom of what happened. He muddies already opaque waters regarding who was actually responsible for the abuse of prisoners.

The film focuses on the awful photos, the people in them and those who took them. This perspective plays right into the hands of the cover-up artists. It perpetuates the myth that the abuses are rightfully laid at the feet of those impressionable, but very human, young soldiers.

Morris should have been looking up the chain of command; at the civilian and military officials actually responsible for ordering these Military Police Reservists to rough up prisoners.

A no-holds-barred documentary? Give me a break.

Finally, the Whole Truth!

I was first put into contact with the makers of "SOP" while I was still in the Army. From the beginning, I was told this was going to be a huge project with the production support of Sony Pictures Entertainment; and that Morris, who had won an Oscar with his documentary, "The Fog of War," would be at the helm.

This was to be the breakthrough investigation into what really happened at Abu Ghraib, who was responsible for the abuse and why it was ordered - the project that really got people's attention, going where previous investigators and media had feared to tread.

Call me gullible but, believing this was to be a groundbreaking work, I fully cooperated with Morris. I assisted him in his quest for documents, videos, photos, notes and helped him contact fellow soldiers who were at Abu Ghraib and knew what happened.

When I was discharged from the Army in October 2006, I went to Boston for a two-day interview.

Morris asked me to sign several contracts before and after the interviews, and I did as he asked without paying much attention to them. I do remember however, that in one contract Morris agreed to pay me one dollar.

In any event, I never got the dollar, but was reminded of this last week when I read in the New York Times that others got paychecks for their participation.

I have never asked for or taken money for media interviews. To me, that undermines the process and trivializes the importance of the issues of torture and prisoner mistreatment and their meaning for the moral atmosphere in our country as a whole.

When the film was finished, Morris told me he had intended to use some of the footage from my two days of interviews and the materials I provided, but decided in the end to "narrowly focus" on the Military Police. This, of course, is what so many others have done and is in the worst tradition of a Nixon-style "modified, limited hangout."

Chain of Command?

Here's the oddest thing: Even though Morris's lens is trained on the Military Police, he does find room for a civilian interrogator, Tim Dugan, who worked at Abu Ghraib for CACI, a contractor factory for civilian interrogators.

I witnessed for myself how civilian personnel, like Dugan, corrupted the military. Indeed, they were the genesis of the break from conventional interrogation techniques into what Vice President Dick Cheney hinted at when he spoke of the "dark side" of intelligence.

It was they who ordered the Military Police and some of my own unit's Military Intelligence soldiers to "soften" the detainees for interrogation, and encouraged the behavior depicted in the photographs. I know; I was there. And, of course, I told Errol Morris.

So I was surprised, to say the least, to see Morris giving Dugan a place to contend that, essentially, the abuses were all the military's fault.

Odd indeed. Even Maj. Gen. George Fay, whose investigation of Abu Ghraib left much to be desired, reported the pernicious effect civilian interrogators had on the impressionable and inexperienced soldiers.

Fay reported, for example that Daniel Johnson, one of Dugan's CACI interrogator colleagues, whom I knew at Abu Ghraib, was using Spc. Charles Graner as "muscle" for his interrogations.

And yet, Morris describes Dugan as "remarkable." Remarkable, indeed, Errol.

Did no one tell you that CACI, Dugan and several of his fellow interrogators were sued by their victims in Abu Ghraib, seeking to hold them accountable for their behavior?

In the civil case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Abu Ghraib prisoners, the lawsuit implicates Dugan in the abuse.

"CACI interrogator Timothy Dugan also tortured plaintiffs and other prisoners," the lawsuit alleges. "For example, he physically dragged handcuffed plaintiffs and other prisoners along the ground to inflict pain on them. He struck and beat plaintiffs and other prisoners. He bragged to a non-conspirator about scaring a prisoner with threats to such a degree that the prisoner vomited.

"When a young non-conspirator directed him to cease the torture and comply [with] Army Field Manual 34-52, Dugan scoffed at his youth and refused to follow the direction."

The lawsuit further alleges that Dugan took part in a CACI cover-up of when a detainee died by going through "the charade of interrogating a prisoner who was already dead as part of the conspiracy's efforts to conceal a murder." Dugan is accused, too, of threatening a fellow CACI employee who talked to investigators.

CACI has denounced the lawsuit as baseless, and the individual defendants were dismissed out on a technicality. However, on Nov. 6, 2007, U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson in Washington denied CACI's motion for summary judgment and ordered a jury trial against CACI.

A criminal investigation also is pending in the Eastern District of Virginia concerning some of the CACI employees.

In "SOP," Dugan presents himself as a whistleblower who tried to stop the abuses. He claims that he reported to his "section sergeant" that two Army female interrogators were stripping detainees naked as an interrogation technique, and how shocked he was to see this.

Dugan claims he got the brush-off; was told not to get involved. So who was this "section sergeant?" And is he/she above the law?

Why did Dugan not offer himself as a witness in any of the various investigations? Where has he been if he felt then the way he now says he did? Again, why sport the good-guy badge now?

I came away with the impression that Morris was unprepared for the interview and was being taken for a ride.

CACI's Defense

For obvious reasons, CACI has gone to extraordinary lengths to separate itself from the horrors of Abu Ghraib, arguing that the military alone was at fault.

CACI recently announced the release of a book, Our Good Name: A Company's Fight To Defend Its Honor And Get The Truth About Abu Ghraib.

CACI contends strongly that its interrogators adhered to the military chain of command, something it has been feverishly trying to establish in the lawsuits against it.

And so, the behavior captured in the photos? That was the military's responsibility, not CACI's.

That is not what I observed from my ringside seat.

I told Morris that the reality was that the civilian contractors paid little heed to the military chain of command, and that they were the ones actually running the show. That didn't make it into the final version of "SOP."

Even though it is now an established fact that between 70 to 90 percent of detainees at Abu Ghraib were completely innocent, something I learned directly on site, Dugan implies that the harsh interrogation practices applied there were legitimate - except of course for the failings of the military.

This myth-making is intended to hold CACI harmless and help it maintain its very lucrative government contracts. CACI International had $1.6 billion in revenues in 2005. Folks have always told me it all has to do with money; I suppose they're right.

But Congress should be asking some simple questions. It should start by asking why civilian contractors are being employed in connection with the interrogation of persons under detention in wartime, a function which previously has been entirely in the hands of the uniformed military?

This could yield some interesting answers. Indeed, evasion of military rules and discipline as well as avoidance of congressional oversight might be at the heart of the answers.

Morris takes pride in calling "SOP" a horror movie and - with the mood music and the needless slow-motion reenactments - he makes sure of that.

However, "SOP" does little more than humanize some of the "bad apples" (a good thing, I suppose), while gratuitously absolving the civilian interrogators actually responsible for fouling those apples.

But, wait. Abu Ghraib is not primarily about Military Police - or civilian interrogators. It is about the many thousands of wrongfully detained Iraqis - many of them abused, tortured and even killed. It is also about their families. What about their story?

Morris has called "SOP" just "the tip of the iceberg," citing the unused volumes of material he's collected since production began. But Morris owed his viewers a glimpse of the whole iceberg, not just the small misleading piece that bobbed above the surface.

He has announced his next film project: a comedy. Go figure.

As is obvious in the complex responses to both the book and the film by Errol Morris and Philip Gourevitch, STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE places in our faces some facts we would rather shield than discuss. The story of the period of between September 2003 and February 2004 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is so well known not only from the news media but also from the Internet blogging sites that it need not be outlined in a review of this film. The facts documented by photographs taken by those who participated and observed the inhuman treatment of prisoners are indisputable: seeing them on the screen in full frame and in close-up shots is almost more than the compassionate eye can tolerate. But there it is and yes, we do need to witness the abuse and humiliation that describes the US prisoner treatment in Iraq, no matter who is to blame - enlisted personnel, MI, high ranking military officials, the White House. The fact that it occurred as such a gross abuse of human rights should awaken in all of us a more complete awareness that war makes humans do such things. It is ugly to watch, difficult to digest, and extremely trying on our set of beliefs that man's inhumanity to man has and does exist despite our need to believe otherwise.

Given the atrocities documented by this film, the style of the film as a work of cinema deserves to be addressed also. The flow of the documentary with the interplay of interview pieces by those infamous young people upon whose shoulders the blame was placed in what appears to be a diversionary technique to avoid deeper probing of the true guilt, along with the images of the prison itself - stark lines of cellblocks and living conditions so foul they seem to actually smell on the screen - is well conceived and beautifully/creatively captured by cinematographers Robert Chappell and Robert Richardson and enhanced by a strangely appropriate musical scoring by Danny Elfman. The film may be about things ugly, but the technique used to tell the story is high quality art.

Abu Ghraib, along with Guantanamo, will always be a scar on the conscience of America, even beyond the time that this ugly Iraq war is over. We should all look at this film with the hope that with seeing actual footage of a nightmare may help prevent recurrences in the future. Grady Harp, November 08

Having just watched this film on the DVD both with the normal soundtrack and with Errol Morris's Commentary track, I have to say that "From Hades" seems to be significantly misrepresenting (or failing to appreciate) the filmmaker's intentions and practices here.

The customer review section of an Amazon product page is a poor venue for a discussion of the historical truth underlying this disgraceful episode in our history, but anyone who watches this film dispassionately should, I think, conclude that Morris is making a much more complex suite of points, both historical and philosophical, than the other reviewer suggests. This is a beautifully executed work and I found it more morally grounded and serious than Morris's previous work--which I generally like, but which at times has been a bit hyper-stylized and marred by an addiction to tilted camera angles and the exhibitionistically vertiginous musical jackhammerings of Philip Glass (Danny Elfman provides a great and original score here).

It's clear that Morris has more disdain for the Bush administration than for the participants at Abu Ghraib, and many who view the film may be skeptical of the moral veracity of all interviewees here, but this is well worthy of attention as a contribution to current history and to the art of the documentary film. And its moral earnestness points a way toward our collective expiation of a dismal period in our history (and that of the world).

I was intrigued by the tagline: "The Scandal Was A Coverup." This was promising, because we know that the reversal from denial to an enthusiastic "investigation" only occured when the press blew the story to the public. So how do you respond, when the world is horrified and demanding explanations?

You pick a sacrificial lamb. Then you kill it.

So, here you have the documentary that tries to explain what actually happened. And yet it fails, on several accounts:

1) It gave the people directly interviewed-- in particular, Lynndie England, Sabrina Harmon, and Janis Karpinski-- a unchecked forum to cast the story their way. Let them have their say, yes-- but their claims should also be validated or challenged through other evidence, if your purpose is to get at the truth. Instead, the filmmaker chose to let them talk unchallenged for hours, interspersed with sympathetic visuals showing closeups of handwritten letters and violin music. What are we to make of this? Where are the interviews with the Iraqi prisoners, for instance? With interrogation experts? Psychologists? Military trainers?

2) Very rarely does Morris explore where these people came from: their family background, how they grew up, why they chose the military, what they learned in training, how they ended up doing this job, how they think about their country and the rest of the world. You would think that might be important, but you only get accidental hints. Instead, the message seems to be that they are "Anyone USA"-- that they were just helpless pawns, like anyone else would be in the same situation. I don't believe it.

3) It never really gets to the heart of why it happened. Everybody in the film is to some degree an "accidental bystander" to the main event, if you believe their account-- and yet no one is ultimately blamed, either. There are the vague references to anonymous people who told them what to do, and top-level administration officials. But what about the culture that made it possible to go through with it? What about the messaging from the Bush administration? What about the system of desensitizing Americans to the pain and suffering of other human beings that goes on BOTH through formal military training and the "culture" in a warzone? There's almost nothing on this.

4) Rarely does the filmmaker pursue the real psychological motivations that many of us suspect: I did it because I could. I did it because I enjoyed it. I did it *because* I knew it was wrong-- because it was taboo. I did it out of revenge. I did it because I was feeling sadistic. I did it to regain power in a powerless situation. Again, there are hints but apparently very little probing. I guess this is a certain style of filmmaking.

The best thing it does-- near the end-- is to explain the rationale behind what is judged "Standard Operating Procedure" and what constitutes a criminal act, in terms of the photos. And, also, to show the cropped and altered photos that were used in the media, and separate out fact from interpretation in evaluating photos. And to give the accused a chance (with piano music) to describe how they saw their accusations.

But I don't see any great accomplishment in simply telling a (different) one-sided story. Was there a culture of torture? Yes. Was there a calculated effort to cover up the high-level mistakes, the lack of leadership? Yes. I believe this is true. But that is no excuse for letting these people off the hook so easily. It's almost nothing more than a propaganda film for the people who agreed to interview. And that, sadly, is a huge failure.

We're all familiar with the images that began flowing out of Abu Ghraib Prison in the spring of 2004 - photos showing detainees (some terrorists, others undoubtedly not) hooded and stripped, forced to assume painful and/or humiliating positions, often for hours on end, with American soldiers posing gleefully nearby, smiling and flashing thumbs-up signs for the camera. Once the pictures went viral, they came to symbolize not only the botched operation that was the Iraq war, but the fundamental failure of the U.S. military to win friends and influence people in a land the Bush administration claimed vehemently to be "liberating."

In "Standard Operating Procedure," famed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris ("The Thin Blue Line") attempts to uncover the truth behind those photographs, mainly by allowing those who were most closely involved with the scandal to tell the story in their own words (including Private First Class Lynndie England, who, whether fairly or unfairly, emerged as the one clearly identifiable "face" and household name from the scandal). Morris provides no voiceover narration to accompany the interviews, just re-enactments of the incidents done in a quasi-surrealistic style, using slow motion photography and artsy graphics.

Through his discussions with the principal players in the drama, Morris provides a probing study of the effects of war time stress on the human psyche. The film offers no easy answers as to exactly why the events at Abu Ghraib unfolded as they did; yet, while it doesn't turn the individuals involved into easy-to-blame villains, it doesn`t completely exonerate them either. In fact, it is the seeming "normalcy" of these people, as they attempt to make their case for the camera, that renders their actions all the more unsettling. Morris also makes it clear that these low level individuals - many of whom have served time in prison for their crimes - were most certainly used as scapegoats for higher-ups in the military who managed to successfully deflect any personal culpability for the events that took place there.

In a true journalistic coup, Morris was able to obtain grainy home movies shot at the same time that the pictures were being taken. As a result, we're able to witness the step-by-step process by which that infamous shot of the naked men stacked in a pyramid formation ultimately came about.

"Standard Operating Procedure" doesn't successfully address all the questions it sets out to answer, but that is hardly a weakness of the film, since it is dealing with a complex, messy situation involving complex, messy people caught up in a complex, messy war. One doesn't leave "Standard Operating Procedure" necessarily more enlightened that when one went in - just more well-informed. And that's perhaps the best one could reasonably hope for under the circumstances.

PROS: This deep and gripping documentary film investigates the context of the infamous photographs taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003-2004 that show the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers. It is an important film about human nature under extreme conditions. The film is more about psychology than politics. Errol Morris does not try to assign blame to any one person or any specific group. He is answering questions such as: Why were these photographs taken at all? What was their context?

The film is the result of more than 200 hours of interviews with the soldiers who were either present in the photos or took them. The photographs both expose and conceal facts. And, oddly, these iconic photographs conceal more than they expose. The young soldiers who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib appear quite normal, not some sort of cruel monsters as one is tempted to conclude from the horrific photographs (although Charles Graner, whom the Army refused to let interviewed, does appear to be more sinister than average). Most of them were very young and inexperienced people who have been thrust into Abu Ghraib, under frequent mortar attacks of Iraqis. They have feelings just like everyone else, and their little dramas intertwine in a surreal way with the prisoner abuse. The viewer of the film can sympathize with these soldiers, even though what they had done is so absolutely wrong and inexcusable.

The torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was going on already when these soldiers got assigned there. The photos documenting the abuse were taken because the abuse was the norm - the soldiers probably did not imagine that one day the photos would be used against them. The infamous photo of the hooded man with the wires attached to his hands (probably the most iconic picture from the war in Iraq) depicted the kind of behavior that was not considered criminal, but was considered standard operating procedure. The torture was encouraged from the higher ups, none of whom were either charged or sent to jail. In fact, no one above the level of staff sergeant went to jail. The female soldier who posed in one of the infamous photos with her thumbs up next to a prisoner who was tortured to death was sent to jail, but the known CIA operative who beat that prisoner to death was never charged. One is tempted to ask: was the crime killing the prisoner, or taking the photos? We see the threads of the chain of command going up, up, up - but Errol Morris does not investigate where the threads go. I guess if you are interested in that, you have to watch some other film about Iraq.

The root causes of torture appear so complex, so intertwined, so much part of the human nature, that one can understand why it takes centuries to reduce the stream of torture, and to slowly get us more civilized, bit by bit. It is a sad film, as it shows a dark age of an advanced Western democracy (you can only imagine what happens in Russian or Chinese prisons). But the very fact that films like this exist, and that we can freely watch them makes me think that we did make some progress since the real Dark Ages. As long as we do not turn away, as long as we are able to take a good look at ourselves, there is hope for us ahead.

CONS: Reenactments and music are very well done (perhaps too well done) and occupy a significant part of the film (perhaps too much). They carry extra emotional charge without carrying documentary value. In my opinion, the interviews and the photos carry enough emotional charge on their own and need only minimal reenactments and perhaps no music.

Mr Morris is a marvelous culture reflector and I was mesmerized by his slice of American service prison of war culture. Like it or not, these folks are sharing their truths. Mr Morris presents them as they represent themselves, with the responsibilities they weigh in on as theirs or not. Harrowing look at what we continue to do with our children, in the name of Mom, god, and the flag, as well as who we blame and who goes blameless. Nothing new under the sun. Thank you Mr Morris.

I heard a piece on this American Life and decided to buy the film. After all, the radio show convinced me that this would be great. Dan Elfman created the music - thought this would be excellent.

Slow is more like it.

It takes great pains to show how the film was developed, how they picked it apart, and the impressionable soldiers working there.

I watched a good 90 minutes. It felt like 5 hours.

The subject interests me. And at times I found it worthwhile. Just got bogged down and didn't enjoy it much.

This docu-movie has the actual people who served in Abu Graib sit down and tell you about their experiences! It's that simple! Anyone who sias anything else is not interested in reality. It's not that complicated. If I told you my lifes story are you going to call me a liar too? Lets get real people and learn from their mistakes.

Engrossing and rife with the director's usual artistic flouishes, "Standard Operating Procedure" doesn't quite let those now infamous U.S. prison keepers at Abu Ghraib off the hook, but credibly purports that things were maybe a little more complicated than those equally infamous photographs seemed to indicate. Most chillingly, we see evidence that the most disquieting activities at the prison were the ones that weren't photographed, involving personnel who were too cagey and calculating to let themselves anywhere near a camera.

Due to Mr. Morris' balanced portrayal of the soldiers and honest attempt to get at the truth of the whole sorry mess, one actually comes to somewhat like- or at least feel a little sympathy for- the prison keepers who were interviewed, despite their unquestionably insensitive activities in the photographs. An audio commentary by Mr. Morris and a fascinating collection of deleted scenes further fuel the film's supposition that perhaps the net of blame should have been cast a little wider during that whole sad episode in the Iraq conflict.

"Standard Operating Procedure" looks and sounds great on standard DVD, with composer Danny Elfman's minimalist and haunting music somehow channeling the best work of Philip Glass, Mr. Morris' usual composer, on the moodily effective soundtrack.