The Legacy of Abu Ghraib

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2021

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

One man’s ongoing effort to get justice for the abuse he endured at a U.S. prison in Iraq. At the start of the Iraq War in 2003, Salah Hasan Nusaif al-Ejaili was working as a journalist when the U.S. military detained him inside Abu Ghraib, a prison that would become notorious for American abuses committed in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Only a handful of people were ever held responsible—all of them military personnel. But the private contractors who oversaw interrogations at Abu Ghraib have yet to be held accountable. In this episode, we tell Salah’s story. To follow his case, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights. Seth Freed Wessler’s reporting for this episode was done in partnership with Reveal and Type Media Center. Companion listening for this episode: The Counter-Jihad Movement & the Making of a President (9/11/2017) David Yerushalmi sees the threat of radical Islam everywhere. And thanks to him and his allies, the Republican Party now does, too. “The United States of Anxiety” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. To catch all the action, tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on WNYC.org/anxiety or tell your smart speakers to play WNYC. We want to hear from you! Connect with us on Twitter @WNYC using the hashtag #USofAnxiety or email us at [email protected].

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everybody this is Kai this week is the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks and on our upcoming Sunday show we'll be talking about how that moment forced a lot of people to think differently about their identities in the US,
0:16.7	whether it was their religious identity, their ethnicity, or something else,
0:21.0	especially people who were youth at the time of the attacks.
0:25.5	But today, as we get ready for the anniversary itself, we also want to revisit a story
0:31.0	we told a while ago. It's a story about one man's ongoing effort to get
0:36.6	justice for what was done to him in our names when he was held as a prisoner at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
0:44.9	There was of course widespread opposition to the US invasion of Iraq from the beginning
0:49.3	and deep concern about potential human rights violations there. But the abuses
0:54.8	uncovered at Abu Ghraib nonetheless shocked the world and equally shocking
0:59.6	is that to this day only a handful of people have ever been held responsible.
1:05.8	All of them military personnel, not political leaders,
1:10.2	and not the private contractors who actually oversaw the interrogations.
1:16.4	We met someone who has been trying to change that fact through a lawsuit.
1:20.9	His case is still ongoing and Human Rights Watchdogs say it's probably the last
1:27.1	chance at justice for what happened in that prison.
1:30.9	We made this story in partnership with reveal.
1:33.2	Investigative journalist Seth Freed Wesley reports. Good
1:45.8	I'm good to meet you.
1:48.8	First I want to introduce you to a family living far from the place they'd always called home.
1:53.8	Yeah.
1:54.8	Okay, my name is Salah Hassan.
1:57.5	I am from Iraq.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.