Nightline 5/5: Opening the Gates of Abu Ghraib

[Bozita]

 
Nightline Daily E-Mail
May 5, 2004


TONIGHT'S FOCUS: The fallout from the Abu Ghraib Prison abuses has reached fever pitch in this country and around the world today. The President reached out to the Arab world in two interviews for Arab networks to try to quell the furor. He called the abusive actions of some U.S. military personnel against Iraqis "abhorrent" and promised to get to the bottom of this. There has been lots of finger pointing about when all of this information was made available to officials and the public.

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There's so much going on with the story surrounding the abuses at the Abu Ghraib Prison, it will be hard t fit it all in today's broadcast. The questions are pretty clear: who knew what and when? This is a story that involves people from the lowest rank in the military up to the President. Nightline correspondent John Donvan will walk through the day for us. He'll look at reaction in the Arab world to the President's remarks today (Arabs never heard an apology from him). The number of deaths of prisoners in U.S. custody in either Afghanistan or Iraq is now being reported at 14. There are over 20 investigations underway and U.S. personnel are responsible for some of those deaths. It's been a tough day for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He met with the President, who reiterated his directive to get to the bottom of the Abu Ghraib investigations. He's also being called up to the Hill by the Senate to participate in a closed-door hearing--an unusual request. Congressional leaders are up in arms about how and when they found out about the abuses.

Who are the contract employees who have been hired on to carry out much of the guarding and interrogation of Iraqi prisoners? We wanted to find out more about the people filling in the ranks that the U.S. military cannot supply. Personnel from two U.S. contracting firms are named in the report outlining the abuses. How are these contractors hired? What is their background? Are they qualified to be interrogators? How much training do they get? If a contractor to the Pentagon commits a crime overseas in a country that has no rule of law, what is that person accountable for and to whom? These are some the questions we'd like to explore. Ted Koppel will lead a discussion on the role of the private contractors.

An experiment conducted in 1971 at Stanford University may shed some light on what happens to people who are put into positions of power over other human beings. Whether it's a prison in the U.S. or in a foreign country the United States is occupying, this study shows a disturbing trend about the relationship between guards and their inmates. They took normal, well-adjusted college students and split them into two groups: prisoner and guards. They were told to play the parts for two weeks to see what happened. The experiment ended after six days. Correspondent Jake Tapper will tell us the story and explain how it relates to Abu Ghraib.

We hope you'll join us.

Gerry Holmes and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Offices
ABCNEWS Washington D.C.

 

[Bozita]

1. two minute warning

[kerry-is-my-prez]

2. Whoa - these people have NOT been fired- even though they knew about this

for months... VERY damning.

[the Kelly Gang]

3. but don't the Arab tv stations send out the wrong messages ??

is this whole situation one total f***-up or what !

[Bozita]

5. Just what is the "right" message for Arab networks?

Those photos pretty much speak for themselves.

[Democat]

4. Bush tried to quell "the furor"?

Sounds a lot like "Der Fuhrer"? :)