If anything, the fact that ordinary civilian students proved capable of such conduct on other civilians, even without the psychological stresses of a wartime combat zone and genuinely hostile prisoners, suggests that the risk of similar abuse in genuine wartime situations is much higher. In Abu Ghraib, mixed units with different levels of training were operating in a hostile combat zone where they were subject to hostile action (i.e. mortar attacks) by the same forces from whom their prisoners were captured. Whereas at Guantanamo detention facilities guards worked in an environment of 1-to-1 prisoner-to-guard ratio, the Abu Ghraib facility sometimes required working in a 75-to-1 ratio of prisoners-to-guards (DOD, 2004). Zimbardo's study already demonstrated that anonymity is one conditions capable of "... stirring the crucible of human nature in negative directions." The other factors listed by Zimbardo include diffusion of responsibility, dehumanization, peers who model harmful behavior, bystanders who do nothing, and a settling of power differentials" (Zimbardo, 2004).

The Abu Ghraib environment combined all these factors in addition to genuine animosity, because the prisoners under guard had actually been engaged in hostile actions against U.S. forces, and because their guards were already subject to all the additional stresses and deprivations of wartime and separation from home. Furthermore, Zimbardo

2004) specifically referred to additional elements that...

Independent Panel to review D.O.D.
Detention Operations Final Report; U.S. Department of Defense

Aug 24/04 Accessed October 13, 2007, at http://www.prisonexp.org/pdf/SchlesingerReport.pdf

Zimbardo, P. Power Turns Good Soldiers into "Bad Apples."; the New

York Times, May 9/04

Zimbardo, P. A Pirandellian Prison; the New York Times Magazine, Apr