I’ve been editing a fairly lengthy interview the Saudi Gazette conducted with disgraced US general and former Abu Ghurab commander Janis Karpisnki. There is a fair amount of self-serving twaddle in the interview (sexism and racism abound in the army, the top command is a men-only society, blah blah blah). But she relates this about the Abu Ghuraib prison itself, and explains why US occupation officials not only did not shut down a prison with such a bloody heritage, but expanded it, a matter which always puzzled me:

JK: Even the name of the prison, Abu Ghuraib, has a history of torture and death from Saddam era, where his sons Udai and Qusai used Abu Ghuraib as a torture palace. I encouraged the solders to use the new name Baghdad Central Confinement Facility – BCCF. But the name was changed again back to the old scary name Abu Ghuraib. So when they capture a suspect and he asks ‘where are you taking me?’, they will tell him ‘Abu Ghuraib.’ They know the strong impact of such painful history that is associated with Abu Ghuraib. That is why they changed the name from BCCF back to Abu Ghuraib.

In short, if Karpinski’s account is to be believed, the US military used the facility, and kept the infamous name, in order to continue terrorizing Iraqis.

The Best of Charles H. Featherstone