In 2004, photos exposed US Army and CIA committing war crimes at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Soldiers stripped prisoners naked, beat them, and forced them into sexual acts. They put dog leashes on naked prisoners and forced them to form human pyramids. They sodomized a detainee with a chemical light and a broomstick. They raped female prisoners and a teenage boy. One famous photo showed a man called the Hooded Man standing on a box with wires attached to his body.

A prisoner named Manadel al-Jamadi died after CIA interrogation and torture. Soldiers packed his body in ice and posed for photos giving thumbs up next to him. An autopsy ruled his death a homicide. No one was ever charged for his death.

The Bush administration called this isolated incidents by a few bad apples. But Human Rights Watch sent a letter to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in May 2004. The letter quoted the US Army's own Taguba report. It called the abuse "systemic and illegal." It said US intelligence officers encouraged the abuse to soften up detainees for interrogation.

The letter demanded investigations into CIA facilities worldwide and highlighted deaths at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. It pointed out that private contractors like CACI and Titan were involved. It noted that this contradicted President Bush's pledge not to torture suspects.

Low-level soldiers like Charles Graner and Lynndie England went to prison. But high-level officials like Donald Rumsfeld and the CIA officers who killed al-Jamadi never faced prosecution. This is the real face of US imperialism.

Source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/05/02/united-states-end-abuse-detainees-us-custody