Looking Back at Abu Ghraib 5 Years Later

Five years ago, I was at work at CBS News in New York, holding a manila folder to my chest, guarding it with my life. Inside, there were pictures from Abu Ghraib - the pictures - the ones that would soon be seen around the world, the ones that made Americans sick to our stomachs, the ones that very few people knew about at that moment.

Hidden in my folder was an image that would become an icon of our enduring shame - the tragic figure of a man in a ragged shift, his head covered with a black hood, his arms outstretched, an electric cord running up his leg - the Statue of anti-Liberty.

Among the photos was the unforgettable sneer of a woman with a cigarette dangling from her lips, her fingers pointing tauntingly at a prisoner's genitals.

Tucked away in my manila folder was the face of a dead man packed in ice and wrapped in garbage bags. He was battered, his mouth open, his eyes half closed.

These were the scenes that would come to represent our country's secret side.

This was torture American-style.

Along with my hard-working partners, Dan Rather, Dana Roberson and Roger Charles, I had spent months digging out the truth about what had happened behind the imposing walls of the Iraqi prison. We had gathered interviews, anecdotes and documents that indicated American soldiers there were regularly committing acts that violated military law, international treaties and moral boundaries. More ominously, there were signs that these men and women were acting on orders from higher ups.

All we needed to prove the story were the awful pictures we'd heard so much about.

We knew that graphic photos existed somewhere - of simulated electrocution, detainees stacked like cordwood, a grinning American posing with his fist clenched in the face of a bound inmate, dogs attacking cowering Iraqis.

We were told the pictures had been as common as cornflakes among the soldiers serving at Abu Ghraib. One man reportedly showed them off on his computer during meals and used a particularly disturbing shot as a screen saver.

Finding the photos - getting someone to give them up and getting them in front of the world became an all-consuming quest. Not because we wanted to hurt the U.S. military, not because we wanted to embarrass the Pentagon, but because we knew the only way to make this right was to make it public.

We traveled around the world and across the country, we worked the phones and played the computer like a Wurlitzer, we begged and pleaded and kept at it until it finally paid off.

A folder arrived at our office.

We all gathered around. This was what we had been waiting for.

I remember holding the folder in my hands and, for just an instant, hesitating. Part of me didn't want to open it.

That's where this country is right now.

Again.

In the next few days, we have been told that we will see thousands of new pictures of prisoner abuse, this time released by the Pentagon in response to an ACLU legal filing.

This disclosure is sad -- and sadly overdue.

These are illustrations of pathological elements of Bush administration policy that should have been made public years ago.

I know some people believe that releasing this material further damages our country. They believe that new evidence of torture and abuse will be used as propaganda against us, that shedding sunlight on what we did in the dark will keep America from fixing the other serious problems we face.

We confronted a similar dilemma when we tried to air our story five years ago. The Pentagon pleaded that we kill it. Our network delayed it for weeks fearing a backlash.

These same arguments are being used to prevent further torture investigations. They are being cited by President Obama, who says he wants to "look forward, not back."

These reluctant folks should talk with 81-year-old Ivan Frederick. His son Chip was sentenced to years in federal prison for his actions at Abu Ghraib.

Frederick is still livid that his son has paid for the cruel policies of others. He says his boy was ordered to do things that were illegal, that he went along with it because he had no real choice. He says the Pentagon, the CIA and a bevy of mysterious and uncontrolled outside contractors were in charge of what happened at Abu Ghraib.

I believe him.

I do not think Chip Frederick - or any of the other inexperienced, poorly trained reservists at Abu Ghraib - went to Iraq full of original ideas about how to torment the locals that just happened to match the methods designed by the Pentagon.

I believe he and others at the prison were fed a steady diet of these toxic tactics.

And they paid dearly for their lack of protest.

Chip Frederick is now 42 years old, out of prison and trying to restart his life. Alone. His wife left him when he was sentenced to Leavenworth. He lost his military pension, his medals and his pride. Under orders from the federal government, he cannot speak with anyone in the media for two more years.

But his father can. And Dad is mad.

Ivan Frederick told me this week that he wants to know where Vice President Dick Cheney's public defense of torture was when his son and the other soldiers from Abu Ghraib were on trial. He wants to know why the Bush administration described the accused soldiers at Abu Ghraib as "a few bad apples" when it was the Bush team itself that had poisoned the barrel.

He wants to know why the people who dreamed up these dark policies are walking around free as birds while his son will be dogged by his misdeeds for the rest of his life.

Ivan Frederick says he is "an old geezer who loves the flag." He says the country needs more old geezers.

He describes himself as "not a Bush man. No way." But he believes in Barack Obama. He is writing letters to the President and Senator Carl Levin, asking for the opening of a new investigation.

Most pointedly, he wants to know why CIA members who committed torture are being excused for "just following orders," when his son had to go to prison for doing the same thing.

Chip Frederick's attorney, Gary Myers has a different view. He says the convictions of these men and women will not be overturned.

"These guys were covered by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and they violated it. What we've learned since then doesn't change a damned thing."

Myers does believe that everyone in the military ranking above the convicted low-level soldiers at Abu Ghraib could be prosecuted "for dereliction. Anybody wearing a uniform, all the way up to the top. All the way."

But Myers doesn't believe it will happen.

And like many in the country, he is not at all sure that it should. He sees investigations and trials as paralyzing for a nation in the middle of an economic crisis, at war on two fronts and rebuilding after the catastrophes of the Bush administration.

"Everybody knows these guys screwed up. We all know it. It's a mess. But if Obama uncorks this bottle - wow."

Our reporting team was honored to win a Peabody for our work on the nightmare of Abu Ghraib.

The soldiers who followed orders and broke the law there have suffered mightily for their mistakes. They were labeled as outcasts and had their legal fates left to the stingy mercies of the people who designed and dictated American policies for abusing prisoners.

The convicted Abu Ghraib soldiers appear somewhere on the long list of Americans - and others - who have paid and are paying a price for George W. Bush's torture policy.

Greg Mitchell has posted on this website a heartbreaking account of a young American soldier who killed herself after being exposed to the way this country was "interrogating" prisoners.

Other brave American warriors have died at the hands of those seeking retribution for the sins of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Still more of our men and women have come home from this war with wounds in their souls - because of what they have seen, what they have done, what they didn't do.

And dozens and dozens of inmates in American custody have died or disappeared.

We cannot, as Peggy Noonan blithely suggests, "just keep walking."

This should stop us in our tracks.

I know that any public examination of this is going to be awful. All of us are going to be embarrassed and ashamed of the questions we didn't ask, the investigations we didn't launch, the way we looked away.

We all like to think that if we had been at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or Baghram Air Base, we would have done the right thing.

This is our chance to prove it.

Five years after those dramatic days when a few of us at CBS News were the only people outside the Pentagon who knew the full story, I keep going back to that moment when we first got the pictures from Abu Ghraib.

I think about holding the folder and deciding to pull it open.

It was tempting - as an American and as a human being - not to look, not to know, not to see things I could never forget.

That is where we are right now.

What will we do with the unexamined package we're holding?

Are we brave enough to break it open?

Do we have the courage to look at ourselves?

Comments

[horhay]

Thanks for this post, Mrs. Mapes. Some of us can't thank you enough for bringing these pictures to light and exposing the horrible, dark secrets that were being committed during the Bush/Cheney era.

Americans better be brave enough to examine ourselves and the evidence lying before us. If we can't do that it shows more than cowardice on our part, but acquiescence and acceptance of torture and lawlessness. We often wonder how the German people could have allowed the Nazis to go so far towards annihilating entire races of peoples. How could ordinary Germans have treated prisoners in concentration camps so inhumanely, while those who lived nearby had no idea or desire to know what was happening? This is one of those moments when Americans must confront the ugly truth. Not to wallow in our disgrace, but to advance and learn as a nation and as citizens of this world. So that, hopefully, this won't happen again. We are much better than this, and we know it.

[wlkcrk]

When I was in the army as a draftee we never saw a copy of the army manual. I suspect that these persons had never seen the manual either. We looked to our officers for information as to what to do or not do. We had a choice, do as the officer said or face a court marshal for disobeying a direct order. the term "Disobey a direct order" was always stessed to us. We were in the middle, the same as these people. An investigation is in order and we should live with the results.

[horhay]

Good comment. I served in the U.S. Navy as the Cold War was dissipating and what seemed to be a new era of peace and cooperation emerging throughout the world. In those 4 years of military service the world had changed a lot but not always for the better.

I don't remember ever learning about the Geneva Conventions either. In fact, I remember when I first received my military ID card in boot camp, asking one of my Company Commanders what the 'I' meant . He looked a little perplexed, and said he didn't know. We didn't have computers or Google at the time and for all these years I haven't actually known what these categories meant. But now I do, here are some links for anyone that is interested.
http://www.tpub.com/content/USCGCI/CI_5512_10/CI_5512_100009.htm
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/milinfo/genevacon/blart-60.htm

You're right,"an investigation is in order and we must live with the results." But equally important, is to make sure service members are taught about the Geneva Conventions and understand why they are so crucial to maintaining honor and morals. Laws were broken and any judge would tell any of us "ignorance of the law is no defense".

[atoonce]

I think they should pardon the soldiers who were convicted and not prosecute the higher ups. But they should have a commission that exposes all of the orders that were given, all the way up the chain to the White House. The truth will be it's own punishment, it will expose elected officials probably wreck some careers as it should. Primarily it will force America to look at itself and consider the War On Terror. There are evil-doers out there that are probably scheming for another 9/11. That point is greater than this torture debate. But we have to define how we will respond and what kind of nation we will be. World opinion does matter for multiple reasons.

[dems08]

The photos of abuse at other prisons will be stunning visual proof that the Abu Ghaib actions against prisoners were not by 'a few bad apples'.

The demeaning and inhumane treatment was widespread because it was the POLICY handed down by Rumsfeld and authorized by his bosses in the WH.

[schatsie]

and because of that the soldiers deserve their pardons and maybe even reinstatement... and pensions...If Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld are let go and keep their pensions, then the soldiers more than anyone deserve to be reinstated ......

We do not have a set of Laws for the Rich and another for the Poor in this country or DO WE???

[dems08]

"if Obama uncorks this bottle - wow."

'The Uncorker' will be US AG Holder, when he appoints a Special Prosecutor.

[canadiansoccermom]

The reasoning that new photos will be used as propaganda against Americans I find baffling. Bush, Cheney's and Rumsfeld's antics have been known and used as propaganda against the U.S. for all these years.

[flamflurm]

Comical moniker! But you also must be kidding in your comment. Otherwise there would be no need to continually invent new pro-pag-anda.

[schatsie]

But the RIGHT WING media BRAINWASHED a lot of people that the White House did not know what was going on...They did and they forced it! We need for the brainwashed people to know that they have been brainwashed, so that this does not happen again and again and again...

[cre8ivecurt]

Thanks for your work and reporting, Ms. Mapes. And what a difficult subject.

One of the sadder aspects to me in all of this is - while it's vital we all understand the depth and scope of what occured, and people tend to have to see it to believe it - the release of these photos, in essence, revictimizes the victims; part of their torture was having themselves exposed and naked and now their shame and nakedness is being exposed to the world. I'm not saying these photographs shouldn't be made public, just acknowledging the fact that doing so comes with a cost.

But you're right that we do have to look at them. And we have to confront what happened if we want to maintain our dignity as Americans, much less human beings. Sad.

[canadiansoccermom]

Perhaps something can be done to hide identity or cover certain areas out of some sort of respect.

[TheHandyman]

What keeps being not said over and over is that prisoners died as a result of some of this torture. It keeps being portrayed as if we merely slapped a few people, pretended to drown a few people, didn't let them get 8 hours of sleep or they got a little chilly! That isn't what this is! This was full on Gestapo style torture that resulted in innocent people being killed. While I feel a little sorry that some people went to prison for doing this while the people who ordered it did not, they knew better. There are heroic people who stood up and said no and were punished while others made excuses and did what they should not have done. If you want to know how much damage the last 8 years have done then look at the number of military and government people who waited until they had their pensions before they then spoke up. These people are cowards! These are people who allowed this stuff to happen on their watch and did not have the courage to speak out because their pensions and their way of life was more important than their country!

I want them all investigated, indicted, tried, and if found guilty to have them put in prison for life and their pensions and property confiscated and sold off to pay for their incarceration!

[ohioguy1]

Who died? How many? Do you know names?

Or you can answer me this, who cares? WHO CARES???? Get over it and move on.

Look to the future my boy, look to the future.

God Bless Free Speech and THE USA!!

[Lilly06]

Its okay as long as it isn't your kids right. What hypocrisy. No one should endure being tortured and I can imagine what ridiculous behaviour and insensitivity was shown as well. These soldiers are young and completed lack an understanding of Iraq culture. No one should have a gun pointed at their face without understanding what the other person is saying.

People don't understand that this behaviour is completed sick. Its not okay to torture people because they are not Americans. People are people, in the eyes of God (or fate or whatever you believe) we are all the same and deserve the same respect.

[schatsie]

AND THE MEDIA WERE COWARDs, they did not want to give up their gravy train, they did not want to face the reality of the WORKING CLASS in this country..They did not want to give up the gravy train that brought them FANCY HOUSES and PRIVATE SCHOOLS and BONUSES and PENSIONs....Look at them, the hollow men and women....

[oafishcad]

What do you mean "we"? Many people protested in the streets before the illegal invasion of Iraq. Many people called for the follow up investigation to find out who OKd torture. Many Americans NEVER approved of the meek, compliant, go along, kiss the ring of the Emperor, make no waves journalism of the past 8 years. No, we aren't all the "we" who are responsible for this horror. Some of us are the "we" of We the people... Some of us are waiting for the press to do their job and investigate the crimes of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. "We" won't hold our breath.

[dare i hope]

Thank you for this post.

[metalcrafter]

look back to 9/11 and remember that a lot of our peope were killed. No one can control every single person in their role. A few rotten apples. Look what these few idiots did to us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheHandyman]

Boy, your comment shows a lot of thought and introspection. Just what does 911 have to do with us torturing people who had absolutely nothing to do with that? Or even if they had been someone who had something to do with it how would torturing them be justified? How could you say that it was legal to do so when it so clearly wasn't!

[chensamabindicka]

Grunts on prison duty who disobey orders can instantaneously become grunts on front line combat duty.

Theircomplaints may eventually get acted upon, years after an IUD ended their lives.

This dark crevice in the command structure is as old and often used as the Biblical story of Urriah the Hittite.

[PerryWhite]

If an IUD ended their lives, I'm sure they would never have entered the military.

[Snuffleupagus]

Great article Mary!

" I remember holding the folder in my hands and, for just an instant, hesitating. Part of me didn't want to open it.
That's where this country is right now."

Yes that is exactly where the country is right now.
And our President wants to walk away from that envelope of truth and pain, he wants to look forward or anywhere else.
Everyone knows that we need to deal with this openly and honestly.
The world is watching, and will not be fooled by some flashy fake bipartisan truth commission.

Prosecute the criminals now, Mr. President.
Anything less is a cover up.

[northstar11]

it seems to me the envelope has been opened -all the world knows or can imagine what atrocities took place -- the idea that if more is revealed , wow, that could really damage the USA --IS PURE NONSENSE. we know enough . more gorey details are not required.that is voyeurism. justice is what is required.

the only way to save face for the USA is to prosecute the evil bosses.

the whole world is watching.

[dems08]

Add'l proof (in the way of photos) provides add'l will of the people to call for investigations and prosecutions - this time, for the people who authorized these atrocities.

[canadiansoccermom]

President Obama called for the files to be opened. Patience.

[Libbyland]

Dick, Don and George meet Jesus himself at the Pearly Gates. Jesus smiles a welcome, standing there before the closed Gates. “Knowing how important you fellows were down on earth, I told St. Peter to take some time off so I could meet you here myself!”

Dick grins smugly and Donnie smirks while George squirms and tries to think of a good nickname for Jesus.

“I want to tell you guys a little story before we go in. I’m going to paraphrase a little something from the Gospel of Matthew. Remember Matthew, boys?” Without waiting for an answer, Jesus continues “there was this king of a beautiful, thriving, utopian kingdom who was trying to figure out what criterion he was going to use to decide whether to allow the commoners entrance into the his kingdom. Since the king knew everyone and everything in the kingdom was interdependent, kind of like the “global village” that Gore guy talks about, he decided the criterion would be general goodness and kindness. The king had a way of knowing if a person fit the criteria. If a commoner could show that he was kind and good to everyone and everything, he was let in. If the commoner was selfish and cruel, he was kept out.”

Jesus paused.

from my blog http://liberatedconsciousness.blogspot.com/

[mediamatterstome]

We have to all remember that this is the same thing that happened to Jews, Blacks, Hispanics and not Arabic people. What people like the Bush Administration do is create a mass histeria around race and religion to have a public outcry and what they did to Iranians is no different to any other races. Lets remember that most of the people on the right want to deny that racism or slavery and even the holocaust existed in this GREAT nation.

[mediamatterstome]

I have to say that I don't agree with Ms. Mapes in that we all share the greif because I don't many of us on this blog dispised everything that the Bush Administration stood for from the beginning and never voted for him. I believe that all of these details need to be presented to the public in its entirety so that everyone can stop denying that torture helps any situation. I also believe that the police interrogations are mainly done in a na illegal format. Once these details are released we as Americans will never be able to go back and deny that this happened like many do with the Holocaust. I truly believe that the only way to truly prevent a for instance from recurring is to truly have a open and honest discussion about it. I would like to see the Fox News team show these pictures and then say that what we did to these people because they didn't look right was ok b/c Bush kept us safe.