Abu Ghraib prison was a maximum-security facility during the 1950s. Saddam Hussein used the prison for political prisoners since the 1970s. It was an evil place with tears, screams, and torture. Tribes cried out loudly over their loved ones there. Mass graveyards in Khan Dhari, West of Bagdad, contained remains of the political prisoners from Abu Ghraib. Many were tortured to death at the prison under Saddam. The appearance of Abu Ghraib looked grim. The place was spooky with the execution hanging chamber in a room around a corner built like a bunker.
In 2003, we stood up Abu Garib under the 18th Military Police Brigade as the first detainee operation. The command dropped us off in this dark, isolated place for us to meet the detainee mission. The entrance was not solid. Some soldiers felt eerie with the fast camel spiders darting around us. The dust was powder. Others could hear wild dogs crawling as they walked to the latrine to meet barrows under plywood as dry toilets. Soldiers used diesel fluid to burn the waste. The prison was empty and dark. It was a place where evil lived for a long time. Our surgeon and I found a half-degraded chair made for torture. On the floor, the surgeon found a vile of medicine. He said, “Chaplain, do you know what this medication was for.” I said, “No, what is it?” He said, “They used this medication to revive the heart while dying.” It appears they revived and tortured again these poor souls. Other rooms had hooks in the middle of the ceiling to hang people and perform cruel acts. The raw images of life painted on the wall revealed the people’s lives. My favorite artwork was a man in a boat on the Iraqi marshlands painted on the wall in the prison. Unfortunately, Saddam flooded the marshlands with seawater and ruined this ecosystem. These marsh people were a thriving community, but now they are gone.
We completed spring cleaning in the large workroom entering the prison and set up cots with mosquito nets. Both males and females lived together in peace as a team. We worked together to keep the house clean. The dust was always present, and sand flees were a problem for some. We swept daily, which kept the camel spiders at bay. One individual was immature and did not protect himself from the sand flees, and he could only point at his bites and laugh. In a combat zone, the surface disappears. The good, bad, and the ugly in people come out clearly in combat. We were Army strong. I knew my soldiers well by spending regular time with them. The Chaplain Corps sacred mandate was absolute confidentially. It is the heart of who I am.
Our mission was to care for the civilian detainees until our city jails were remolded. The detainees all sleep in tents in the back courtyard of the prison. Every night, we would bet on what time the enemy mortars would regularly attack our facility. The time of the attack was religiously between 2350 to 2400 hours each night. We did not have any detainees harmed during the attacks. Our surgeon at Abu Ghraib cared for the detainees. He reported to the higher command to improve detainees’ humanitarian conditions and enhance their medical needs. We moved our detainees to better facilities after our jails were remolded. The 372nd Military Police Company was a part of the 320th Military Police Battalion, which took over operations at the facility. Under this command, the reputation of torture in the prison raised its ugly head again, causing an international incident with a severe loss of capital gains with the Iraqi community. Because of its torturous history and the extralegal killing, Abu Ghraib was closed in 2014.
