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Abu Ghraib, the prison which will be forever linked with images of Iraqi detainees stripped naked and humiliated by their American jailors, is to be closed, US military officials said yesterday. The sprawling, low-slung prison in the western suburbs of Baghdad, a torture chamber under Saddam Hussein that gained even more notoriety with the photographs of abuse committed by US troops, is likely to close within three months. Its 4,500 inmates will be transferred to other jails in Iraq -- including Camp Cropper, the facility at the Baghdad airport where Saddam is being held. Lieutenant Colonel Keir-Kevin Curry, the spokesman for US detention operations in Iraq, told Reuters news agency: "No precise dates have been set, but the plan is to accomplish this within the next two to three months." He said the handover would take place in phases, beginning with the training of Iraqi prison guards. The buildings at Abu Ghraib, built by a British contractor in the 1960s, and the tented camp thrown up by American forces in 2003 to hold the overflow of detainees, are to be handed over to the Iraqi government. In April 2003, a few days after the fall of the Iraqi regime, the Guardian visited the prison with one of its former inmates under Saddam, and we were led through the punishment units, windowless cinder block cells one metre by 50cm, the yellow holding pen where men fought to sleep next to the stinking latrine because it gave them a few centimetres more space, and the courtyard, where hangings were held on Mondays and Wednesdays. But, in the Arab world at least, that terrifying reputation has been obscured and obliterated by the horrors perpetrated by US troops on Iraqi detainees that came to light in April 2004 when CBS television and the New Yorker published the searing images of abuse. It was not immediately clear yesterday how the announcement of Abu Ghraib's handover fitted with a promise by President Bush in May 2004 to demolish Abu Ghraib as "fitting symbol of Iraq's new beginning". A US military spokesman, Colonel Barry Johnson, said the decision to shut the jail had been dictated by security concerns. "Abu Ghraib prison is in a region that has been susceptible to attacks and it is difficult to support logistically, so there has always been the intention the move detainees to a more secure location," he said. But he acknowledged: "There are other associations with Abu Ghraib that are more emotional". The abuse scandal deeply shocked Americans' sense of mission in Iraq, adding shame to pride at the overthrow of Saddam. In the outside world, the scandal deepened anger at America for the invasion of Iraq, and became a symbol of American disdain for Muslims and their culture. As Mr Bush said in his May 2004 speech to the Carlisle barracks war college: "That same prison became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonoured our country and disregarded our values." Multiple investigations by the US military produced a mountain of evidence of abuse committed between October and December 2003: thousands of photographs and dozens of video clips showed the ritualised humiliation of Iraqi detainees. Some have become iconic: the figure in a cloak and a hood standing on a box with wires attached to his limbs; the naked human pyramids of Iraqi detainees and their gloating jailors giving the thumbs-up sign; the pixie-like female soldier tugging a detainee on a dog leash. There were photographs of Iraqis forced to masturbate in front of female prison guards, or simulate sex acts upon each other. There were photographs of Iraqis cowering before prison dogs. There were photographs of Iraqis with women's underwear on their heads. The Bush administration insists the mistreatment of detainees was the work of a handful of troops, and not part of its policy. To date, seven soldiers have been sent to court martial and convicted of their role in the abuse scandal. Two, widely recognised from the abuse photos, received long jail sentences: Specialist Charles Graner was sentenced to 10 years, while his former girlfriend Lynndie England, who had a child by Graner, received a three-year term. The most senior officer linked to the scandal, the commander of the prison, Brigadier Janis Karpinski, was demoted to the rank of colonel last year. The Pentagon's insistence that the abuse was confined to a few officers has deepened the perception in the Arab world that Washington was not committed to getting to the bottom of the scandal. That suspicion is unlikely to be allayed by indications that Abu Ghraib is not to be demolished after all. History
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