US crimes in Abu Ghraib prison ‘one of great images of evil and stupidity’: Scholar

The US takeover of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and subsequent murder and torture of prisoners by American forces during the US invasion of Iraq was one of the “great images of the evil and stupidity" by Washington, an American scholar says.

“This was one of the most notorious prisons, probably the most notorious torture prison of [ex-Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein,” said Kevin Barrett, an author, journalist and radio host with a Ph.D.  in Islamic and Arabic Studies.

“This tarred the image of the United States in the eyes of the international community, and stood as one of the great images of the evil and stupidity of the US invasion of Iraq, and of course the larger US Mideast policy,” Barrett told Press TV on Tuesday.

A torture chamber under the ex-Iraqi dictator, the facility retained its function throughout the American control from 2003 to 2006, when it held many thousands of people, including as many as 3,800 detainees at the height of the scandal.

However, only a year after its capture, primetime international broadcasts and wide-circulation reportages began to reveal that its new tenants were outdoing the former Iraqi dictator’s atrocities there by far.

Discovery of damning photos showing troops abusing inmates on a CD-ROM led to an investigation into the case and far-reaching coverage, including one by CBS News’ “60 Minutes II” in 2004, a report by The New Yorker in the same year, and a 2006 reportage by Australian television network SBS’s program “Dateline.”

Abu Ghraib: The mark of shame US can’t lose after 17 years

Wednesday marks the anniversary of the US’s capture of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where American forces resorted to unchecked murderous and sadistic torture.

In May 2004, the US Justice Department announced that it was looking into three suspicious deaths of detainees, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and the involvement of the US spy agency CIA and contractors in the deaths.

US President Donald Trump acknowledged on Monday “how stupid” America has been in its Middle East adventurism.

He made the comment at a press conference at the White House as the US presence in the Middle East continued to destabilize the region.

“We spent 8 trillion dollars in the Middle East, that’s with a “t”,... eight trillion. But if you need to fill a pothole, oh, we can’t do that. How stupid have we been, just stupid!” 

Ever since assuming office, Trump has been raising tensions in the region, in part by adopting an anti-Iran approach.

Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of a multilateral deal with Iran and ordered the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani.

“So God bless Donald Trump's big uncontrollable mouth,” Barrett t said. “. Once again … Trump has managed to speak some unspeakable truth.”

“As much as we must have to loathe many of his policies, including his pursuing an even worse Middle East Policy than [former US President] Obama by trying to go to war with Iran on behalf of Israel, at least we occasionally hear these taboo truths coming out of Donald Trump's uncontrollable mouth,” he added.

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