This essay argues that graphic photographs documenting prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib detention center in Baghdad should not be censored from future museum exhibitions about the Iraq War. Drawing on Seymour Hersh's reporting in The New Yorker, declassified Army reports, and articles from the American Journal of International Law, the paper examines the nature of the abuses committed, the legal frameworks — including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture — that were violated, and the Bush Administration's resistance to anti-torture legislation. A parallel is drawn to the Smithsonian's 1995 controversy over its atomic bomb exhibit to illustrate how political pressure can compromise institutional honesty. The essay concludes that full historical transparency demands these images be made available to the public.
The paper uses a structured point-by-point argument, moving from the ethical dimension of the photographs, to the legal framework they violated, to legislative efforts to address those violations, and finally to the museum-censorship question. This layered approach builds a cumulative case before reaching its conclusion, showing how to organize a persuasive argument across multiple distinct but related sub-claims.
The essay opens with a hypothetical framing device — a future Iraq War exhibition — to introduce its thesis. It then proceeds through four labeled sections: the ethical weight of the Abu Ghraib photographs (with detailed evidence from the Taguba Report), the legal context of how the abuses occurred, the Bush Administration's resistance to legislative remedies, and a concluding section that returns to the museum question via the Smithsonian atomic bomb exhibit analogy.
One day, not too many years from now, there will likely be a high-visibility exhibition featuring illustrations, graphs, charts, photography, audio and video clips, and timely printed information about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. This presentation will cover the intelligence data and political arguments offered by the executive branch to justify the military venture. Under the scrutiny of post-invasion empirical analysis, the exposition will reflect precisely how those previous justifications held up. It will also cover the military and political ramifications of the entire operation.
It will be widely publicized and will receive positive critiques for its thoroughness and its revelations of previously unknown yet pertinent facts. This exposition may travel from museum to museum, or may find a home in one high-visibility museum for a long period of time, but it will eventually become part of a permanent record of the Iraq War.
Among the photographic images that will likely be part of this proposed presentation are graphic and disturbing images taken of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib detention center in Baghdad. There may be museum board members or staff who will not want those horrifying photos to be shown. They will use numerous arguments to present their case. In conservative areas of the country, editorial writers will condemn the use of the photos.
Others will say that the truth about U.S. involvement at all levels must be presented, lest it be called censorship. The opinion expressed in this essay is that there should be no censorship of photos of Abu Ghraib, or any other images that were published during this war. For example, there are grim photos of U.S. soldiers hanging from an overpass in Baghdad — men taken prisoner by insurgents, beheaded, and hung by their feet. Those too should be shown.
Beyond any specific photograph, records of the entire bloody reality of the military venture must be made available to the public, and individuals can decide whether they wish to experience the exposition or not. The truth about many aspects of U.S. involvement with Iraq was hidden from Americans for several years. Following the horrors of September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush Administration used patriotism and what it called the "War on Terrorism" to justify keeping many clandestine activities secret from the American people. But now that many of those hidden facts have come out, and now that the U.S. Congress has attempted to take legislative action against the apparent use of torture and other acts that violate international treaties and accords, everything should be out on the table for citizens to view and judge for themselves.
In April 2004, photos began to appear on the Internet depicting prisoner abuse situations in Iraq. The photos showed hideously cruel and inhumane treatment being administered to Iraqi prisoners. Some of the prisoners are being abused sexually. Others are naked and piled on top of one another, with U.S. military personnel giving the "thumbs up" sign nearby. In one photo, an attack dog is approaching a prisoner who is handcuffed. Blood is seen on prisoners and on the floor.
The photos set off a firestorm of protests in America, with members of Congress, U.S. Senators, and other leaders demanding to know how such a thing could have been allowed. These photos were shown on the CBS program 60 Minutes 2 in mid-April 2004. And on April 30, 2004, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh published an article in The New Yorker called "Torture at Abu Ghraib." In the article, Hersh reveals harsh truths about the prison. He gained access to a 53-page classified Army report authored by Antonio M. Taguba at the request of Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq at that time.
Hersh quotes from the report's conclusions, revealing that between October and December of 2003, instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" (Hersh 2004) occurred. Soldiers — both male and female — of the 372nd Military Police Company, along with members of the U.S. intelligence community, were involved in the wrongdoing. Some of the acts revealed in Taguba's report included:
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick; and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and actually biting a detainee.
In one of the photographs shown on 60 Minutes 2, a female soldier known as Private England, a cigarette hanging from her mouth, is pointing at a detainee's genitals and giving the thumbs-up sign as he masturbates. "Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world," Hersh writes. "Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men," Hersh continues, quoting Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University. "Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate... [is] a form of torture," Haykel explained.
The testimony of an Army C.I.D. investigator — part of a sworn statement included in Taguba's report — identified Specialist Sabrina Harman as a person whose job it was to "keep detainees awake." To carry out her orders, Harman told the investigator, she placed a hooded prisoner on a box "with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis." What was also disturbing about Hersh's article was that "most" of the detainees who were tortured and otherwise abused were "civilians...who had been picked up in random military sweeps" and not accused of specific crimes.
Several U.S. military personnel have been convicted and sent to prison for the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib. But whether or not future museums will allow photos of Abu Ghraib abuses in exhibits remains to be seen. In 1995, when the Smithsonian Institution planned to show a well-illustrated exhibit depicting "the role the atomic bomb played in ending WWII" (Bernstein, 1995), pressure from 80 members of Congress, the Air Force Association, the American Legion, and others caused the Smithsonian to reverse its plans, according to an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "Why were the A-bombs used?" was one question the exhibit was originally planning to present. Other questions were to be asked as well: "Were there viable alternatives? If so, why weren't they used? What were official American casualty forecasts?" But those questions were never asked at the Smithsonian, because the institution receives most of its funds from Congress and pressure in Washington can be great to toe the line.
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