Philip gourevitch is not Standard Operating Procedure opens with two scenes of horrifying humiliation and abuse. a man to mince his senior American officers attempting to find bunk “It was convenient for people to regard the words. A long-standing beds with which to refurbish the cells of Iraqi prison, photos as the isolated kinkiness of the individuals writer on the The New Abu Ghraib. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, Abu involved,” explains Gourevitch, his deep forehead
Yorker, and editor of The Paris Review, Gourevitch is Ghraib had become synonymous with torture and frowning as he chooses his words. “The story was most famous for non-fiction writing, especially his execution. The officers are filled with shining-eyed explained away as the depraved actions of a sick few.”
account of the Rwandan genocide. His latest book, Standard Operating Procedure, tells the story behind the notorious photographs of prisoner abuse taken at Abu Ghraib. While Gourevitch does not seek to exonerate the actions of the soldiers, he explores the policy decisions that enabled the barbaric regime that was to shock the world – in particular the re- interpretation of the Geneva Convention effected by George Bush’s legal team.
Original article published in Bench-Mark, in December, 2008
