Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 364, Issue 9435, 21–27 August 2004, Pages 725-729
The Lancet

Fast track — Health and Human Rights
Abu Ghraib: its legacy for military medicine

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16902-XGet rights and content

Summary

The complicity of US military medical personnel during abuses of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay is of great importance to human rights, medical ethics, and military medicine. Government documents show that the US military medical system failed to protect detainees' human rights, sometimes collaborated with interrogators or abusive guards, and failed to properly report injuries or deaths caused by beatings.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 An inquiry into the behaviour of medical personnel in places such as Abu Ghraib could lead to valuable reforms within military medicine.

Section snippets

The policies

As the Bush administration planed to retaliate against al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on the USA, it was reluctant to accept that the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War would apply to al-Qaeda detainees.24 In January, 2002, a memorandum from the US Department of Justice to the Department of Defense concluded that since al-Qaeda was not a national signatory to international conventions and treaties, these obligations did not apply.4 It also concluded that the

The offences

Confirmed or reliably reported abuses of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan include beatings, burns, shocks, bodily suspensions, asphyxia, threats against detainees and their relatives, sexual humiliation, isolation, prolonged hooding and shackling, and exposure to heat, cold, and loud noise.1, 14, 19, 24, 33, 34 These include deprivation of sleep, food, clothing, and material for personal hygiene, and denigration of Islam and forced violation of its rites.19 Detainees were forced to work in

The legacy

Pentagon officials offer many reasons for these abuses including poor training, understaffing, overcrowding of detainees and military personnel, anti-Islamic prejudice, racism, pressure to procure intelligence, a few criminally-inclined guards, the stress of war, and uncertain lengths of deployment.1, 2, 13, 16, 17 Fundamentally however, the stage for these offences was set by policies that were lax or permissive with regard to human rights abuses, and a military command that was inattentive to

References (59)

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    Chapter 1. Interrogation and the Interrogator

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    Corporal Charles Graner, Sergeant Javal Davis

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