Photorealism at Abu Ghraib

By Daniel Nelson Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris says that although the Abu Ghraib prison photographs were “the most widely seen photographs in history”, no-one had really talked to those responsible for the abuses captured on camera. His film Standard Operating Procedure puts that right. Here they are, the warders, soldiers and interrogators talking straight to camera, using Morris’ own filming device, the Interratron, which gives a disconcerting feel to the testimonies. The close-ups are huge, in your face, apparently addressing you – almost challenging you - personally. Every pause is a cliff-hanger. The intensity is so great that often you want to look away. You feel you are intruding on private moments. As you would expect from Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War), the film, complete with special effects and re-enactments, is expertly made, and it is fascinating to watch and listen to those responsible – or rather, some of those responsible – give their versions of their motives, actions, and involvement. (There has been some controversy over the payment of fees to certain of the witnesses. Without payment, says Morris, they would not have talked.) It is necessary to be clear that only “some of those responsible” account for themselves. One key participant is in jail and Morris did not get permission to interview him. Also missing are the top brass. In a recent radio interview Morris responded touchily when the absence of senior officers was raised: “That’s not the movie I wanted to make,” he responded: “…the soldiers at the bottom of the chain of command…it’s their stories I wanted to tell.” It’s a fair point. It is important to be reminded of the way events in people’s private lives affect their professional decisions; of the enormous force of peer pressure and the courage needed to disassociate yourself from the actions of your colleagues; and of the anger generated by seeing friends and comrades maimed and killed – in one instance recounted here, the killing was made possible by a trusted Iraqi jailer who smuggled in a gun and a bayonet and gave it to a prisoner. To understand is not necessarily to excuse. After a pre-release screening in London, Leanne MacMillan director of policy and external affairs for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, was asked whether she felt any degree of sympathy for the junior officers featured in the film. “Not at all,” she replied. Tom Porteous, London director of Human Rights Watch, agreed: “No, they weren’t just pawns”, he said, adding, “But they shouldn’t bear full responsibility.” Full responsibility clearly goes up the chain of command, to the Oval Office. Because the film focuses on the “mud grunts”, inevitably it spends less time on the culpability of the higher-ups, and for that reason I found it less politically powerful than Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Dark Side, another damning exposé of the use of torture in the “war on terror”. In addition, the Abu Ghraib pictures were so shocking that they have arguably distracted attention from the even more terrible and systematic abuses by what are known as “other government agencies”. Morris’ film points to them, but Gibney tries to confront them head-on. Nevertheless, Standard Operating Procedure is an invaluable addition to the growing documentation of the way cameraphones are able to dramatise concerns about human rights abuses and, more generally, an addition to the vital documentation of abuses that have occurred, and continue to occur, under the cloak of the “war on terror”. Publication of the Abu Ghraib photos and the sentencing of several people – none above the rank of staff sergeant – are not the end of the matter. There are more disclosures to come, though probably not during the term of the current Washington administration. “People will survive and will tell us about what was done to them,” says MacMillan. “It’s just a matter of time.” * Standard Operating Procedure will be released in selected cinemas on 18 July * Taxi to the Dark Side, 22 July, 6.30pm, free, Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, EC2. Info: Amnesty

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