CBC News: the fifth estate - A Few Bad Apples: History of Abu Ghraib

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Aired November 16,
2005 at 9pm
on CBC-TV

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REPORTER: Gillian Findlay
PRODUCER: Morris Karp

WEB EXCLUSIVE

John Yoo was a member of the legal team that developed a new policy
for the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq.

Read more of his interview with the fifth estate.

A BACKGROUND OF ABU GHRAIB

Abu Ghraib prison.

The Abu Ghraib prison is located in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad.

It was built by British contractors in the 1960s and covers 280 acres (1.15 km²) with a total of 24 guard towers. It became internationally known as a place where Saddam Hussein's government tortured and executed dissidents and, later, as the site of abuse of Iraqi suspects by the United States military.

In 2001, while Saddam Hussein was still in power, Abu Ghraib may have held as many as 15,000 people. In October 2002, Saddam Hussein declared a general amnesty and all prisoners were released.

Soon after the American invasion of Iraq, the complex was relaunched by American occupation forces as a holding and detention facility. There were 5000 people held at the prison as of April 2004 when the infamous Abu Ghraib photos were released.

In May 2004, United States President George W. Bush stated that he planned to demolish the prison. Approximately a month later, U.S. military judge Col. James Pohl ruled that the prison was a crime scene and could not be demolished.

During the week ending August 27, 2005, nearly 1,000 detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were released at the request of the Iraqi government.

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