Iraqi recounts Abu Ghraib abuse

AlJazeeraEnglish
July 23, 2009
Photographs showing the abuse of inmates at Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison by US prison guards have shocked the world.

The latest one to be outraged is Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff.

Mullen has voiced his disgust after seeing some of the withheld photographs of the abuse that the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, is seeking to keep under the wraps and not let the world to see.

In a leaked memo obtained by the Fox News network, Mullen said he was "appalled" that someone in an American uniform would behave in such a way.

"We haven't all absorbed or applied all the lessons of Abu Ghraib," Mullen said.

But for Mahmood Khalil, an Iraqi television cameraman and former Abu Ghraib inmate, the pictures are more than just disturbing images - they are personal nightmares.

Khalil told Al Jazeera that he was on his way to work when he was stopped at a US checkpoint in 2003, accused of being a terrorist, and led into the notorious prison, where he was held for more than three months.

As Al Jazeera's Mosab Jasim reports, Khalil said he saw guards deliberately abusing and intimidating prisoners in full view of other inmates.

"[One] detainee was tortured in front of my eyes, only three metres from my cell," Khalil said.

"[He] was tortured by dogs to confess to a crime he never committed."