Director Rory Kennedy crafts an affecting documentary for HBO with this look at the events in an Iraqi prison at Abu Ghraib, Iraq. The prison came into the spotlight in 2003 after startling photographs of abuse by U.S. authorities were leaked to the media. Kennedy examines the evidence and talks to both military personnel and people who were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib.
"How could ordinary American soldiers come to engage in such monstrous acts?" Kennedy asks. "What policies were put into place that allowed this behavior to flourish while protections granted to prisoners under the Geneva Conventions were ignored?"
"These photographs from Abu Ghraib have come to define the United States," says Scott Horton, chairman, Committee on International Law, NYC Bar Association. "The U.S., which was viewed as certainly one of the principal advocates of human rights and the dignity of human beings in the world, suddenly is viewed as a principle expositor of torture." The familiar and disturbing pictures of torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison raise many troubling questions: How did torture become an accepted practice at Abu Ghraib? Did U.S. government policies make it possible? How much damage has the aftermath of Abu Ghraib had on America's credibility as a defender of freedom and human rights around the world?
