Small Wars Journal

The Closing of Abu Ghraib and the U.S. Failure in Iraq

Mon, 04/21/2014 - 4:46am

The Closing of Abu Ghraib and the U.S. Failure in Iraq by Andrew J. Bacevich, Los Angeles Times

The government of Iraq last week announced that it had padlocked the infamous prison at Abu Ghraib. The gates are closed. the inmates moved. Whether the closure is permanent or temporary -- Iraqi officials suggest the latter -- this ought to qualify as a notable milestone. What does it signify?

Sometimes a prison is just a building, its closure of no more significance than the demolition of a market or the shuttering of a strip mall. Yet from time to time, the closing of a facility constructed for the purpose of confining humans invites reflection. It presents an opportunity for learning.

When the United States emptied the internment camps in which it had imprisoned Japanese Americans at the beginning of World War II, U.S. officials hoped thereby to expunge from memory a shameful chapter in recent American history. Had they succeeded, a grave injustice would have gone unacknowledged. No less important, a warning about the dangers of war-induced hysteria would have been lost…

Read on.