What is a criminal act and what is standard operating procedure?
That is the question asked again and again in this excellent documentary about the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Director Errol Morris (“The Fog of War”) does a wonderful job of showing the gray area of what happened there.
He combines footage of interviews with those in (and those who took) the now-infamous photos with some recreation of events. The latter is considered controversial with other documentarians but is done in such a way that it does not detract from the narrative.
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It would be easy to simply condemn those involved and ignore their stories. Morris allows the soldiers to speak for themselves.
While far from absolving them from the humiliation they caused prisoners, the film lets the viewer decide when and if lines were crossed.
Lynndie England, the soldier shown in photos pointing to the exposed genitals of prisoners and who was convicted in a 2005 court-martial, explains that in part she was young (about 21) when it happened and that she was in love with Specialist Charles Graner. Graner, who was also convicted, appears to have been the main person circulating the photos.
Despite what the viewer hears from those who were there, the inescapable fact is that the photos don’t lie. They probably did an immense amount of damage to the image of the United States in the world, particularly in Arab and Muslim countries.
“Standard Operating Procedure” is now available on DVD.
Murphy can be reached at [email protected]
