IRAQ: TORTURE

The Nation: We're Shocked -- Shocked!
Our government is shocked -- shocked! -- to find that its representatives have been torturing people.
But this is the same government that, while insisting that of course it never tortures anyone, has for two years now boasted of a tough-minded new-and-improved product: "torture lite".
What is torture lite? That's like asking "What is fat-free yogurt?" Answer: It's torture. (It's yogurt.)

The New Yorker:
Torture At Abu Ghraib, by Seymour M. Hersh
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility
go?
In the era of Saddam Hussein,Abu Ghraib,20 mi.west of Baghdad, was one
of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions,
and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no
accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in
twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding
pits.