Military malpractice
News Article | Fri 18 Jul 2008
Errol Morris is relentless. Having amassed hundreds of hours of interviews with the participants and witnesses of the horrific humiliation and torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2003, the veteran documentarian still isn’t done.
Indeed, it was only through Morris’ persistence that Standard Operating Procedure even got off the ground.
“It took a very, very, very long time. My mom told me: I’m a good nag. My first interview was with Janis Karpinski, the brigadier general who was the head of the prison system in Iraq,” reveals Morris.
“We did an extremely long interview: seventeen hours over two days. Her anger comes through vividly. And it is clear that she was used as a scapegoat.”
In all Morris managed to interview five of the seven ‘bad apples’ (the media name given to the military personnel prosecuted for their actions at the prison), and he believes that, while clearly guilty, they deserve an audience.
“If you’re asking, can I absolve these seven bad apples of all responsibility, the answer is, ‘No, I can’t.’ But I can explain how they found themselves in this situation. I can provide a context for their actions.
“This story is about how these soldiers dealt with the horror of Abu Ghraib. It’s also about how each one of us, as individuals, would deal with the nightmare of being trapped in something where there is no way out.”
Indeed, Morris reserves his greatest outrage for the military command who were aware that soldiers were committing, in effect, war crimes.
“The smoking gun is Abu Ghraib itself. The seven bad apples are a sideshow. It is all part of a much bigger picture.
“To me it’s completely bizarre, particularly when Brent Pack [the photo investigator] shows you the picture of the detainee known as Gilligan standing on the box with wires.
“It’s the iconic photograph from Abu Ghraib – for many people it is the iconic picture of torture – and Pack tells you that this is standard operating procedure. That moment, I hope, is shocking.”
As the director makes clear, this, like his seminal 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line, is an investigation – and one that’s far from over.
“I’ve been investigating now for two years and every person that I talk to I try to get material from them. We’ve assembled an archive, a really substantial archive of material on this subject.
“Many people involved in Abu Ghraib have been censured. But the people who are responsible for these policies have emerged unscathed. They pin medals on each other’s chest, and they congratulate themselves.
“I feel an obligation to continue with the investigation, an obligation to see this through. I feel that Standard Operating Procedure is the tip of an iceberg. Frankly, I would like to see the people who were responsible for this punished.”
Standard Operating Procedure is on general release from Friday 18 July.
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