Iraq’s ‘Symbol of Disgraceful Conduct’ to Fall

In choosing to demolish Abu Ghraib prison, where prisoners were tortured under Saddam Hussein and brutally abused by U.S. military guards, President Bush is seeking to clean up the Pentagon’s image at home and abroad.

Saying the prison “became a symbol of disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values,” Bush pledged in a speech to Army officers Monday to fund the construction of a modern maximum-security prison in Iraq -- and then bulldoze Abu Ghraib.

“With the approval of the Iraqi government, we will demolish the Abu Ghraib prison as a fitting symbol of Iraq’s new beginning,” Bush said.

Bush gave no timetable for the demolition of the prison, a 280-acre complex of high-security cellblocks and tents that became perhaps the most vivid symbol of the brutality of Hussein’s regime. It has also come to symbolize U.S. abuses during the occupation.

Iraqi officials have said that it could take several years to build a new prison capable of housing the inmate population at Abu Ghraib. But Pentagon officials said Monday night that the military may be able to do the job more rapidly, given the need for what the White House called “a humane, well-supervised prison system.”

The abuse at Abu Ghraib by U.S. soldiers -- captured in photographs and video images -- has significantly undermined U.S. efforts in Iraq. The scandal has spawned half a dozen Pentagon investigations and several congressional inquiries and has led to allegations that inhumane treatment of prisoners by U.S. personnel did not stop at Abu Ghraib’s jagged, concrete-block walls.

With the abuse scandal resonating around the world, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called for the prison’s demolition.

Pennsylvania Reps. Curt Weldon, a Republican, and John P. Murtha, a Democrat, put language into the $422-billion defense bill approved last week to tear down the prison and build a modern detention facility in its place. A similar plan by Sens. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is pending in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Abu Ghraib was envisioned as a symbol of modernity when it was built in the 1960s. Inmates who had languished in British colonial-era prisons were able to participate in work programs and were housed in cellblocks that improved over earlier facilities.

But over the years, the conditions at the penitentiary about 20 miles west of Baghdad deteriorated, with 40 prisoners jammed into cells designed for two, and torture and executions a daily occurrence.