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Everyone remembers the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, most notably of Pvt. Lynndie England holding a naked Iraqi man with a leash. But most people probably do not know what really happened at the prison complex in the level of detail presented by director Errol Morris's (Oscar winner for his previous documentary The Fog of War) documentary Standard Operating Procedure.
Through interviews with nearly all the principal players, including England, this documentary takes us through the pictures in excruciating specificity. Structured almost like a mystery thriller, Procedure gradually unveils how and why these atrocities were committed.
The actual soldiers who committed these crimes tell us in their words how it happened. In between those stories, we listen to investigator Brent Pack and watch how he cobbled those famed photographs into a timeline and series of criminal charges.
Morris has taken great pains to keep this documentary visually exciting. Postcards of all the pictures swirl through a black expanse forming Pack's timeline; there are ultra-close-up reenactments of scenes described by the soldiers, and text and highlighting are often added to the pictures we see.
Keeping with the film's overall approach of Abu Ghraib as an unfolding mystery, Danny Elfman's (The Kingdom) score is surprisingly intense. It wouldn't be out of a place in a fictional thriller or mystery film. Some critics may accuse Elfman's score of being too emotional, but it adds urgency to the images onscreen.
What are most compelling, though, are the words of the soldiers themselves. Most of the soldiers echo the sentiments of England, who said, "We just did what we were told." But as these men and women casually recount the horrors they committed, what seems to be missing is an overriding sense of guilt.
One of the most telling stories is of an Iraqi man who was beaten by soldiers during his interrogation because they thought he was "playing possum," or acting tough. The soldiers were continually impressed at the toughness of this prisoner. But the surprise came when they realized the reason he was so sturdy was because he was dead. He had died during the interrogation, but they didn't realize because he had a sack over his head, and they had continued torturing his dead body.
All of which raises the larger distinction of interrogation versus "softening up." As Sgt. Javal Davis said, "Torture happened in the interrogation. … This is just humiliation." There were no photos of what happened during interrogations, but many pictures of the humiliating scenes that occurred prior to interrogation. The implication is if you think the pictures are bad, image what happens in interrogation, where Davis said people are killed and tortured.
Also disturbing is the apparent good cheer with which many of these pictures were taken. There are many big smiles and thumbs-up signs delivered by the soldiers in the pictures. In one particularly bad case, Spc. Sabrina Harman smiles and gives a thumbs-up over the body of a dead Iraqi prisoner. In her defense, Harman commented, "I didn't know what to do with my hands. Any time you get into photos, you want to smile."
And Harman is the most sympathetic Abu Ghraib soldier in the film, claiming she took photos to gather evidence of the crimes. Noticeably absent is an interview with Spc. Charles Graner, the soldier whom the film makes out to be the main force behind much of these horrors. The end credits explain the Army wouldn't allow him to be interviewed from prison.
And that is Procedure's major flaw - it doesn't further investigate or explain what the Army does and doesn't allow. There are suggestions of the nature of the Army's tactics, and the implication that if these photos did not exist, everyone at Abu Ghraib could have gotten away with their actions. In fact, there is even a scene in which Pack takes us through a number of photos and explains which is a crime and which is standard operating procedure (you'll be surprised).
But there isn't a zoom-out to the larger issues of the military culture in which this behavior is acceptable (and even encouraged), nor does the film discuss if actions like this have continued. Instead, Procedure just keeps going through different sets of photos - there's a segment on the human pyramid photo, the man on the box photo, the leash photo, and on and on and on.
For all its horrific images, if one could be said to be the strongest, it just might be the simple shot of Lynndie England in a ski mask. Seeing this photo, which appears after an hour of repulsive stories, leads one to wonder who the real terrorists are.
Tremendously detailed and horribly fascinating, Procedure is a first-rate documentary.
dan.benamor@gmail.com
RATING: 4 STARS OUT OF 5
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