Issue date: 9/11/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Tommy Tang Texas A&M professor Stjepan Mestrovic, stands before the Academic Building Friday afternoon. Mestrovic testified during the Abu Ghraib trials and wrote the book, 'The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor.' [Click to enlarge]

Rape, abuse, homicide and torture were all among the accusations coming out of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Beating, sodomizing detainees with a metal baton and pouring phosphoric acid on detainees are just a few examples of the atrocities that, when heard by the American public, produced shock and utter disbelief.

"It's not a matter of who's to blame. The system was dysfunctional," said Stjepan Mestrovic, an expert witness for the defense and a Texas A&M professor of sociology. Mestrovic is an authority on the matter of Abu Ghraib: he holds three degrees from Harvard, he testified in three different Abu Ghraib trials and wrote the book "The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor." Mestrovic was asked by defense attorneys to testify because of his qualifications on sociology as well as previous experience with his testimony on the International Court of the Tribunal for Yugoslavia in the Hague.

Abu Ghraib was a prison in Iraq that held common criminals and enemy combatants alike. It was maintained and operated by four separate entities: the U.S. Army, CIA, Iraqi army and the Iraqi interim government.

Fifteen guards we're convicted with crimes that occurred at Abu Ghraib, but there we're countless other individuals who were present: lawyers, civilian contractors, medics, psychologists and doctors.

"It's a myth to just blame the soldiers; you have to look at the whole social system," Mestrovic said.

In other words, Mestrovic said the soldiers who committed the atrocities we're at fault, but there were myriad opportunities by others to speak up. And some did, he said.

Continued...

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