By now, the photographs of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison are all too familiar. Shot after shot of naked men in humiliating and disturbing positions, with American soldiers gloating in the foreground and background. Politicians and military leaders have lined up to condemn the pictures and the people who took them.
Last week, in testimony before Congress, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apologized for the mistreatment of the prisoners and described what happened in Abu Ghraib as “fundamentally un-American.” But while people try to blame the abuse on a few bad soldiers, other say the scandal is challenging America to look in the mirror and ask how the war may be transforming it’s moral profile.
Guests:
Joel Turnipseed, served in the Marine Corps in the Persian Gulf War and author of the memoir “Baghdad Express”
John Hutson, president and dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire., and former judge advocate general of the U.S. Navy
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT).