The Scandal's Growing Stain.

The article discusses the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by United States soldiers. Haider Sabbar Abed al-Abbadi kept his shame to himself until the world saw him stripped naked, his head in a hood, a nude fellow prisoner kneeling before him simulating oral sex. "That is me," he claims to a "Time" reporter, as one of the lurid photographs of detained Iraqis suffering sexual humiliation at the hands of U.S. soldiers scrolls down a computer screen. Nothing could hide the raw cruelty of U.S. soldiers ridiculing the manhood of Iraqi captives. Of all places, these atrocities occurred at Abu Ghraib prison, once the infamous home of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's torture chambers. Most immediately, the scandal has imperiled the U.S. effort to pacify Iraq by turning even more ordinary Iraqis against the occupation and reinforcing the sense that control is slipping everywhere, less than two months before the U.S. is due to hand sovereignty back to the nation. Testifying before the Senate, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon has obtained more photographs and video footage that show U.S. troops engaged in even worse behavior. On March 20, 2004, the military announced that seven soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company were being held in Iraq and charged with conspiracy, dereliction of duty, assault, maltreatment and indecent acts.