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of torture-lite' and the clandestine practice of extraordinary rendition' (outsourcing torture).

In April 2004 a series of images made their way into the US media, graphically breaking the story of abuse and torture in a US run detention centre in Iraq, Abu Ghraib. The photos showed prisoners hooded, stripped naked, humiliated and forced to masturbate. A confidential report written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and obtained by The New Yorker in May 2004 listed some Abu Ghraib abuses:

"Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

Subsequent investigations revealed that numerous detainees had been killed at Abu Ghraib, that the CIA used the centre, and that it housed ghost prisoners' - detainees which are dealt with outside official systems. On April 9th, at an Article 32 hearing (military grand jury) convened to hear the case against Ivan Frederick, a Sergeant at Abu Ghraib.

"An Iraqi prisoner under the control of what the Abu Ghraib guards called "O.G.A.," or other government agenciesthat is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employeeswas brought to his unit for questioning. "They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away." The dead Iraqi was never entered into the prison's inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, "and therefore never had a number."

Official documents obtained via legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union revealed that Abu Ghraib housed children as young as 11. In one documented incident troops are alleged to have smeared mud on a 17-year-old boy as he shivered in the cold as they interrogated his father, an Iraqi General.

The Bush Administration, reacting to international and domestic disgust, condemned the actions of the prison guards. Officials restated that torture is not US policy and many, including Defense Secretary

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