One of the most infamous military detention centers during the Iraqi War was the Abu Ghraib prison. This was a maximum-security prison that was mainly established to house convicted felons and suspects during the war. Shortly after the establishment of the prison, outrage broke out that the guards and wardens that were tasked with securing the prison were getting involved in numerous acts that contravened human rights. Some of these acts included sexual abuse, torture, and murder. Those in higher chains of command in the facility claimed that these acts were committed with no external influence. However, the detainees and some guards claimed that high-ranking personalities ordered the human violation acts. Several officers who were involved in the outrageous act were charged while some of them interdicted. In the years that followed, many media houses reported on the events and inhuman acts that took place in the prison, revealing several outrageous images of detainees who were chained up while naked.
If people were to have a close look at the images from the prison, it might have been unclear how the torture got so extreme. However, there are several ways this could be understood. The detention facility was established due to the War on Terror in Iraq. The war was triggered by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade center. The serving administration at the time had stated that there was an emergent cohort of terrorists who acted without being affiliated to a state, unlike the ordinary terrorists. To get these terrorists to confess, it was necessary to extract information from them by torture. Most of the detainees were either of high interest to the military or suspected of being terrorists. They were often undertaken through torture to get them to talk. The Abu Ghraib, together with other U.S military prisons in Iraq, was presided over by Janis Karpinski. Janis had no experience in running a prison efficiently. When the torture scandal began to blow out, he alleged that the living conditions of the facility were enough, and the detainees enjoyed a humane treatment. However, from the photos taken from the interior of the prison, this was the opposite of the case because the inmates were often subjected to torturous acts like having human wastes smeared onto their bodies, stripped naked while sleeping, being forced to perform sexual acts and being forced to drink their urine.
The inmates were not only tortured physically but also subjected to mental distress, such as playing them loud music. There are no clear ways to justify why all these acts of torment happened. However, it was evident that the military only wanted to extract information from the inmates rather than protecting their well-being. Arguably, those who tortured the inmates enjoyed rather than having to achieve their goal of getting the prisoners to talk. From this, it is evident that there was a lack of discretion from the guards and the military personnel at the prison.
There are a variety of reasons that might have caused the lack of discretion at the detention facility. It is also likely that these reasons triggered the torturous acts on the prisoners. One of the most notable reasons for the lack of discretion is that most of the wardens and guards had never served in prison before. This means that they had no proper understanding of the ethics of being a correctional officer. The guards never viewed the detainees as humans but rather as objects where information could be collected from. This would encourage them to do anything to the inmates even if it meant killing some of them to instill fear on the rest. The lack of experience among the guards also became conspicuous during riots in prison. Several detainees attempted to break out of the facility as a result of the hostile living conditions. However, their statuses and designations of being prisoners of war made the guards exert excessive force on them. This made them paranoid and scared of attempting to break out. For instance, when guards ran out of less-lethal ammunition, they were given orders to use deadly ammo, which resulted in several deaths among the prisoners. Witnesses and those who visited the prison gave reports that, despite the inmates being treated like prisoners of war, their only forms of defense included the use of rocks and metallic cutlery as weapons. However, this did not justify the use of deadly ammo on them. This shows that those who used to give orders on the use of excessive force and deadly ammo did not make use of desirable discretion making such decisions. Another aspect of discretion about Abu Ghraib prison was that both junior officers or guards and high-ranking officers blamed each other on the occurrence of the torture incidents. While it has never been clear on who was to blame for these horrible events, it is evident that the prison did not have a definite structure. No level of the organization wanted to take responsibility for their acts. This could mean that anyone who was involved in the torture of the prisoners did not want to be accused of their actions. In a nutshell, all these examples reveal that the military personnel did not exert discretion when handling the inmates, resorting to extreme acts of torture and violation of human rights to extract information about terrorism.
In conclusion, what transpired in the Abu Ghraib prison was inhumane and should never have happened in the first place. Neither the high-ranking officers nor the guards acted ethically. They should have upheld human rights provisions and stopped any form of torture. Their might have been several specific things that could clarify why those in charge of the prison ended up torturing the inmates. However, the use of deadly force was uncalled for, especially when it was meant to facilitate information extraction. While all these horrific events took place, it is important to understand the reasons there was a lack of discretion and how such cases could be prevented in the civilized world.