page_title: Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
section_title: Alleged authorization from Donald Rumsfeld
hierarchical_section_title: Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse / Authorization of torture / Alleged authorization from Donald Rumsfeld
caption_attribution_description: English: 8:06 p.m., Nov. 28, 2003. Detainee in the shower area of the hard site. The detainee is covered in what appears to be human feces. All caption information is taken directly from CID materials. U.S. Army / Criminal Investigation Command (CID). Seized by the U.S. Government. Note: One of the previously unreleased images released in February 2006 by SBS in Australia. Showing a man allegedly covered in feces forced to pose for the camera. Taken from http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18166472-26619,00.html.
context_page_description: During the early stages of the Iraq War, United States Army and Central Intelligence Agency personnel committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, including physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs of the abuse by CBS News in April 2004. The incidents received widespread condemnation both within the United States and abroad, although the torturers received support from some conservative media in the United States.
  The administration of George W. Bush asserted that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were isolated incidents and were not indicative of U.S. policy. This assertion was disputed by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch; these organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay.
  Documents popularly known as the Torture Memos came to light a few years later.
context_section_description: A 2004 report by the New Yorker stated that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had authorized the interrogation tactics used in Abu Ghraib, and which had previously been used by the US in Afghanistan. In November 2006, Janis Karpinski, who had been in charge of Abu Ghraib prison until early 2004, told Spain's El País newspaper that she had seen a letter signed by Rumsfeld, which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation. "The methods consisted of making prisoners stand for long periods, sleep deprivation ... playing music at full volume, having to sit in uncomfortably ... Rumsfeld authorized these specific techniques." According to Karpinski, the handwritten signature was above his printed name, and the comment "Make sure this is accomplished" was in the margin in the same hand-writing. Neither the Pentagon nor U.S. Army spokespeople in Iraq commented on the accusation. In 2006, a criminal complaint was filed in a German Court against Donald Rumsfeld by eight former soldiers and intelligence operatives, including Karpinski and former army counterintelligence special agent David DeBatto. Among other things, the complaint stated that Rumsfeld both knew of and authorized enhanced interrogation techniques that he knew to be illegal under international law.
caption: An Iraqi detainee with human excreta smeared on face and neck, chest and stomach
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