How were the Iraqi prisoners treated by the US during the Iraq War of 2003-2011?

Answer 1

Badly.

Numerous organizations such as Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross have come down harshly on how Iraqi prisoners were treated during the war. While some organizations limit their scope to the Abu Ghraib Human Rights violations (which occurred from late 2003 to early 2004 and will be discussed below), organizations like the ICRC and numerous Arab-oriented groups point to a much longer trend of criminal mistreatment.

The ICRC report specifically notes that the following were not provided to Iraqis imprisoned by US government:

• Brutality against protected persons upon capture and initial custody, sometimes causing death or serious injury.
• Absence of notification of arrest of persons deprived of their liberty to their families causing distress among persons deprived of their liberty and their families.
• Physical or psychological coercion during interrogation to secure information.
• Prolonged solitary confinement in cells devoid of daylight.
• Excessive and disproportionate use of force against persons deprived of their liberty resulting in death or injury during their period of internment.

Abu Ghraib, specifically, was a prison used by the US Military in Iraq where military police from both the US Army and the CIA committed human rights abuses against the Iraqi prisoners. Some of these violations include physical abuse, sexual abuse, waterboarding, torture (including use of electrodes), rape, sodomization (often forced between prisoners by their captors), and some prisoners were killed. Some believe that the reason that such activities were allowed to occur was the prevalence of the 2002 Torture Memos which were written by the US Department of Justice and authorized the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on Prisoners of War.

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In addition to the above, one may consider the Guantanamo Bay detention camp which is is a controversial United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba that was established in January 2002. Bush Administration Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld offered three explanations for the decision to establish the prison camp during a January 22, 2002 press conference: to detain extraordinarily dangerous prisoners, to interrogate prisoners in an optimal setting, and to prosecute prisoners for war crimes. War captives in the Global War on Terror, most of them from the Afghanistan and from Iraq. The Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions. see link below for more information.